Friday, July 15

Choose your own adventure

Yesterday was a long, 20 hour day of fun. We pretty much made it up as we went along...

It all started on Wednesday night, down by the lake, skipping rocks, fighting mosquitoes... Ryan and Dan were talking about hiking up Paintbrush Divide on Thursday, after another employee did it last week and told said to them, "Don't do it. I almost died several times."  The divide is super icy, snowy, and steep. I said, "Guys, don't do that. It's dangerous."  They said, "We can do it." Later they invited me along and I said, "I'll go if we do something besides Paintbrush." They said, "Okay, let's do something else."  Pretty sure they appreciated having a girl for an excuse to back out.


We then headed to the bar and had a heaping pile of free nachos, compliments of Dan the restaurant manager. Over these nachos, jokes were told and Thursday's plans were made. Ryan, Dan, Crista, and I met for breakfast at 7am, rented a motor boat, and headed to Moran Bay ten miles across Jackson Lake. About halfway there, our motor died. The boys tried to fix the motor, with much enthusiasm but  little success.



Crista and I looked for grizzly bears on the shore and imagined what it would be like to have a bunch of grizzlies swimming toward us, like sharks. We tried paddling but our oars were too small. Eventually, we radioed the marina and they towed us back to shore. 

We regrouped, had some coffee and snacks, and decided not to give up on our day. We packed up everything we might possibly need on summer day in Wyoming, including but not limited to duct tape, hiking boots, bear spray, swim suits, paperback novels, and large quantities of food, and piled into Dan's car and hit the road with no particular destination in mind. Three hours later, we were in Idaho, hiking up a beautiful trail surrounded by wildflowers. Three uphill miles later, we reached a lake and the boys decided to climb to the peak of the mountain while Crista and I sat on a log, chatting about life.


On the way back down, the boys decided to slide down a 100-yard snow field.


It was dinnertime, and I wanted to head back to Jackson to get in line for Harry Potter tickets. It was the midnight viewing of the final HP movie and I had to see it. Unfortunately, my partners in adventure wanted to check out a free outdoor music fest in Victor, Idaho instead. I wanted to throw a tantrum and insist on Jackson, but I'm not five-years-old, so I gave in. What a great decision that was. We parked on mainstreet and the first thing Dan saw was a funky old movie theater, advertising Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II. We immediately bought tickets, had a beer and played a game of horse shoes, then headed over to the park for the music fest. It was the perfect night... warm, breezy, with a slow pink sunset. I ate an amazing cheeseburger, made from locally-grown beef, and then had a second dinner of mango red chicken curry, and we danced to a very talented funk band from New Orleans.

At 10:30pm, we grabbed some coffee from a gas station and joined twenty or so high schoolers outside the movie theater to make sure we got good seats for the final Harry Potter. The theater, "Melodrama Playhouse," was so old and had so much character.


While we waited for the movie to start, exhausted but oh-so-happy, we drew Harry Potter lightning scars on our foreheads with Crista's eyeliner pencil.


The movie was totally worth the wait and the sleepiness and the perfect end to an amazing day. We were all in bed by 3:30am and we all slept well.


The end.

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