BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

As promised, I am throwing together a few blogs about our adventures on vacation. Please make note that they won’t necessarily be in chronological order as far as the vacation itself went. They are actually in “transcribed jotted down note order,” which makes sense to me, but not really everyone else. At any rate, this is number three in the series…

A Yellow Headed Blackbird... Native to the Tetons

So there we were… Grand Tetons… Jackson Lake… Signal Mountain.

Beautiful scenery, wild “thangs” running around all over the place, and I’m not just talking about E K, mind you. Yes… She is the quintessential “Redheaded Wild Thang,” but there were other furry, feathered, scaled, and otherwise armored critters running about the land of desert, prairie, mountain, whatever…

Seriously. There are pictures. One of them is over there to the left. We saw that crazy little bastage running around at one of the scenic pullouts that overlooked a prairie-like tableau, complete with the Teton mountain range in the background. Just for the record, I can show you the pics of the critters, but not of The Redhead being all wild. There are laws…

So… Again… There we were, coming down off yet another mountain. Or maybe we were cruising about on the two lane highway betwixt point A and point B. Or maybe it was a combination thereof. I’m here to tell ya’, it tends to get mixed up after a bit… The thing is, we were in the rental Jeep, with E K behind the wheel – Why? Because we were on our way somewhere and because E K has to be in control at all times. Y’all should know that by now.

Something else I’ve mentioned about The Redhead Who Shall Be Obeyed, is that she has some sort of organic GPS built into her brain. That, or a lodestone. Probably both. The only problem she will run into with it is, of course, construction that she wasn’t warned about, and the unfortunate occasions when she neglects to download the map updates to her brainpain – she has a Firewire socket on the back of her head, ya’know… This was one of those incidents.

The Tetons hiding in the clouds...

Where was I? Oh yeah… We were traveling and The Evil One hadn’t updated her Grey Matter 2000 GPS. Not to worry… Liz was in the back seat with a map, and she was feeding coordinates to the redhead, so all was good. In fact, Liz not only had a map, she also had a book that contained all manner of info about various attractions in the area – a tourist guide of sorts. We not only used this to figure out what we WANTED to see, but also what we should probably avoid – as in, too many tourists. Now, during all of this map deciphering, Liz enlisted the aid of the O-spring to read some of the smaller print.

“Why?” the child wanted to know.

“Because I’m blind as a bat,” Liz replied.

And so, all was still good. The o-spring read the small print, and together she and her Aunt Liz provided targeting coordinates to the Redheaded Tank Commander behind the wheel.

At one point, after offering up some pretty spectacular information and directions – much like the folks on the Bing commercials who spit out a whole list of things – we all mentioned how great it was that Liz had the book along with her.

Liz replied, “I just love books and maps.”

This prompted a comment from the tween, “If you’re blind as a bat then why do you love books and maps so much?”

“What do you mean?” Liz asked.

O-spring rephrased her question. “Well, if you’re blind as a bat you can’t see, so how can you read them?”

Instant logic. Just add gifted tween.

We all chuckled. Well, all of us grups did, anyway.

Liz, being quick with a comeback herself, explained, “I just use my bat sonar.”

I'm A Bison... Moooo

Again, we all laughed. Except the o-spring. She puzzled over the comment for a moment, remaining silent as we drove along. After a few moments, our chuckling and chittering died down, and all that was left to fill the void was the sound of the tires against Wyoming pavement.

Then, without warning, child-o-mine spoke up again, deadpan serious as she explained,  “I don’t think you can use echolocation to read maps and books…”

Good thing E K didn’t wrap the Jeep around a Bison on that one. The damn things were everywhere. As it was, we had to clean Cherry Coke off the inside of the windshield and driver’s side dash. You know how those rental car outfits are about the extra cleaning charges…

More to come…

Murv

As promised, I am throwing together a few blogs about our adventures on vacation. Please make note that they won’t necessarily be in chronological order as far as the vacation itself went. They are actually in “transcribed jotted down note order,” which makes sense to me, but not really everyone else. At any rate, this is number one in the series…

Wednesday. Fourth day of vacation. Evil Kat has now tortured us all mercilessly with “pre-hikes” leading up to her plan for today – The Death March. Seriously. She actually had it on the itinerary. She didn’t call it a death march because she didn’t want us to know that’s what it was, but hey, we figured it out right quick…

After a quick breakfast at the restaurant for Colter Bay Village in the Grand Tetons, where we had been staying in a cabin, we were packed and ready to set off to West Yellowstone, Montana, which would become our base camp for the rest of the vacation. That way we would have a place to crash and be able to make excursions into Yellowstone National Park. Good plan, but as I mentioned, there was this death march with which we needed to contend.

Before heading north to West Yellowstone, E K wanted to hike the “Hidden Falls Trail” at Jenny Lake. Some of you may remember my status update:

At Jenny Lake. Forest is here too… JEH-NAYYY! 10:59 AM 6/15

On Death March at Jenny Lake. Help ME!

That was more or less my “Blair Witch Project” swan song. By that I mean, less than twenty minutes later, Her Supreme Redheaded Evilness had us on the trail. Thing about it is this – we were already at high altitude, so next thing you know we were going up the side of a mountain, then down the side of a mountain, then around a lake, back up, back down, along the lake, switched back, up, down, around, down, up, up, up, around, down, up, up, UP, and then we came to the washed out bridge. Yeah. So then we had to go up some more – through two feet of snow. Melting snow. The kind where you take a step and then one leg crashes through and you end up doing the splits and having deadly pine needle infused snow crystals all up in your BVD’s. No, I’m not kidding. Yes, I ended up with deadly pine needle infused snow crystals all up in my BVD’s. Well, actually it was my Fruit of the Looms, but you get the idea. (BTW – Make note of the “do rag” I’m wearing in the picture above… It comes into play later.)

Hidden Falls. Not so hidden once you get there...

Anywho, on with the story… After seeing The Hidden Falls, and playing photographer for other folks who wanted their family photo taken in front of it (I really should have set up a concession stand, I’m tellin’ ya’…) we hiked up, up, down, down, down, around, through, up, down, up, down, through, around, down, down, DOWN until we came to the dock. What dock? The dock on the other side of the lake where the boat met us and took us back to where we started. Then it was back into the rental vehicle and off to West Yellowstone.

Now… To get to West Yellowstone coming from where we were, one had to pass through Yellowstone proper. Well… not just one… all of us, actually. But that’s not my point. My point is that we had to go through Yellowstone, so why not take some time to stop, look at Old Somewhat Faithful, and walk at least a portion of the loop before heading on into Montana. I mean, after all, it’s not like we had done any walking yet for the day, right? <– [Gratuitous Sarcasm]

However… There had to be some shopping too. After all, when you have a tween o-spring, she will be all about the souvenir thing.

Something you might not know about me – unless E K and I are out doing the “Pretty Woman” thing, I don’t shop. I hate to shop. When I go to the store I know what I want, I get it, and then I get out. ‘Nuff said.

But on with the show… We arrived at the “Mercantile” or whatever they call it there in the Old Somewhat Faithful area of the upper geyser basin. They want to go shopping. I want to sit. Fortunately, someone at the “Mercantile” already knew I was coming, because there were 409,345 rocking chairs lined up along the boardwalk in front of the place. I found one and I sat in it.

Here’s where the importance of the “do rag” comes in…

The motor-sickles showed up. Apparently all these dudes and dudettes on said motor-sickles took my “do rag” to mean I might possibly be of the two-wheel ilk myself, so instead of sitting in any of the other rocking chairs, they joined me in my row. They introduced themselves. The chatted with me like I was a long lost pal. They showed me their tattoos. Of course, when they asked me what sort of bike I rode I couldn’t lie, so I told them, “Well, I used to have a Schwinn, but now I’ve just got a K-Mart Special 10-speed.”

I figured they’d probably decide I wasn’t all that cool at that point, but apparently they thought it was funny. Not sure how much comedy they get to see out on the open road, so I was glad to at least give them a laugh. At any rate, instead of running off, they hung around and we commiserated about the fact that I was stuck there waiting for my “old lady” while she shopped, and all that good stuff. I mean, we had ourselves a grand ol’ time there on the Group Motor-Sickle Boardwalk.

Schwinn, K-Mart Special, or not… And it was all good.

Fear This!

But that, of course, has absolutely nothing to do with “Yes, Dear…”

You see, that part finally happened after all of my newly found friends with the motor-sickles headed up and moved out, offering to take me with them since my “old lady” was still on a spending spree.

It was tempting. I mean, touring Yellowstone on a Motor-Sickle and all… But since they were my new friends I didn’t want them to get hurt. So, I explained to them that they really had no idea what they would be getting into if I came along, then mentioned the name “Evil Kat.” They all suddenly became very nervous, and then said that, as much as they liked me, I was on my own. Seems they were familiar with The Supreme Evil Redhead’s reputation.

But back to the “Yes, Dear…”

A nice young couple came out of the ice cream shop and settled themselves into chairs next to me. As friendly tourists will do, we struck up a conversation, talking about the scenery, geo-thermal events, and ice cream. Eventually, when things reached a lull I simply stared off into space, or parking lot, or whatever. Suddenly I heard a sharp, “MURV!”

When my name is said in such a way by Her Supreme Evilness that generally means she has now had to repeat herself.

I instantly responded, without even looking in her direction, “YES, DEAR!”

The couple next to me chuckled.

“We’re ready to go,” E K barked.

“I’m glad somebody is…” I mumbled.

The couple next to me chuckled again.

I pushed myself up out of the chair, and with all of the camera equipment, water bottles, and other necessary hiking about items for three people strapped to my person, began to trudge away, following the one of red hair.

I glanced back over my shoulder at the couple and said, “Y’all enjoy those chairs for me, okay?”

This, of course, elicited yet another chuckle from the pair.

But, let’s face it… I mean, it’s not like THEY were going to save me. The bikers had hauled a$$ out of there at the mere mention of “The E K,” so an ice cream eating couple from some small town in east wherever definitely wasn’t about to mount a rescue op.

Oh well, judging from their chuckles at least I entertained them for a few seconds… I wonder if they blog…

More to come…

Murv