You cant see it right now, but I'm waving sheepishly at you. So there are reasons that I haven't updated in awhile. Ahem, years. But that is neither here nor there. But mom said I should write a blog. When my default answer of 'I don't know what to write about' came out of my mouth, she threw me some serious shade. But ever since she said that, I couldnt get my blog out of my head. So let's go! I cleared out all the old posts because those are like looking at your embarrassing yearbook pictures from elementary school, clean slate. Let's recharge this puppy!
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I can write in a journal for days but the second I open up a new post, everything I want to write about suddenly vanishes. I also swear a lot more in my journal. Maybe I'm too distracted by the font. It's Times New Roman. It's boring and bleh. I demand font choices! Ones without serifs. Serifs are for losers.
So let's go with reportings on this weekend.
I went camping. I am not a camper. I am not good at it. I should clarify that when I say 'camping', I mean I stay in a fully modern motorhome. Because if asked to rough it, I would be the first one to die. Just the idea of not being able to wash my hair this past weekend made me cringe. And of course since I packed in such a hurry, I forgot things. Important things. Like toothpaste, deodorant, and mascara. Skipping past my distress at the sudden loss of creature comforts, mom and I began our journey to Wild River on Friday with her driving the motorhome and me driving the truck and trailer with our lovely horses inside it.
Driving huge horse trailers isnt a fun thing for me. Even though I may look as cool as a cucumber on the outside, in my head I look like this:
I could feel my intestines clench every time we drove through road construction and a 'LANES NARROW' sign swam into my line of vision. But all horror aside, we made it and no one died. Well...I almost died because I tripped on the sidewalk going into the park station. Once we reached the campground and mostly reached our spot, I stumbled out of the truck so mom could get in and back it into it's designated spot. Because I never learned how to back up a trailer. Meanwhile mom can do it with practiced ease. Then she went and backed the motorhome up easily as well.
Our first ride went well. Except towards the end when Grey decided to try cantering sideways. A terrifying joy for us all. But I suppose in all fairness, he went very well for having only been out once the entire year.
That night would test my mettle in every way possible. I had unknowningly been signed up for Survivor. What goes on on Survivor? I've never seen an episode. Do they...survive things? I assume that's what they do. After general merriment and tom foolery by the campfire with the rest of the group, I retired for the evening. And then I was informed of the horrible news: we didnt fill up the propane tank. And no propane meant no heating. A night with no heating. In Minnesota. In fall. When it dips to around 40 at night.
'It's ok. I can do this. I went to college.' I told myself reassuringly. So I rolled out my sleeping bag and unzipped it all the way so it could act as more of a blanket. This...will come back to haunt me in a couple minutes. After getting that settled, I dug out some kind of afghan thing, hitched up my leggings, pulled up my socks, and pulled my sweatshirt tighter around me before climbing onto my too short pull out. First thing I noticed is that my hips are cold. But only one of them. And it refuses to warm up. So I decide to become a hobo and drag out all the other clothes I had packed for the trip, 2 sweatshirts, 3 pairs of pants, 2 tank tops, and 1 shirt and just kind of drape them over my sleeping bag. Fifteen minutes pass. The one hip is still cold. Remember how I unzipped my sleeping bag? I have at this point in the night realized that because I had did that, I was allowing all the cold air from underneath to seep up and lick at my hip in a way I thought was rude and intrusive. So once again I got up and and zipped up the sleeping bag as it should be, piled all the clothes back onto it, and crawled in.
Of course in the middle of the night I woke up drenched in sweat.
We started the day with breakfast, which I missed because I was the last one up. And then we went for a morning trail ride. In an attempt to keep Paige's horse Thunder calm and happy, I decided that for the first time ever, I would make Grey walk in the back. Which he threw a fit about for awhile until he finally settled down and accepted his fate. The only blip we had was when Thunder decided that he was suddenly very very terrified of a large leaf. Juuuust one. And here's the part where the title comes in! As I was grabbing something out of the motorhome, I thought there was another step before I hit ground. Apparently, there was not. And in a stunning lack of grace, I managed to hit and kind of bounce off both sides of the door frame (simultaneously bruising my back and bashing up my knee) before hastily catching myself from face planting.
The afternoon ride also went well and Grey angrily trudged in the back again. We had dinner and then hung around by the fire some more and amused ourselves with looking for satellites. We saw several. The stars are so beautiful up there. Ironically, as much as I love stars and space and was seriously considering becoming an astronomist (oddly enough there is a red squiggly line under 'astronomist'. Does my computer not think that it's a real career?), I can only identify 4 constellations immediately: Orion, Ursa Major, Ursa Minor, and Cassiopeia. I think I may have found Cygnus but who knows for sure. ISS passed over really low to the horizon. A few people got up and moved to the middle of the campground to see it. I was not one of them. I was too busy staring into the fire and contemplating life.
During the day, mom went to get some propane for the motorhome because heat is a beautiful thing. That night, we just automatically assumed that there would be heat. We were...wrong. I was the first one to go into the motorhome after the tank had been filled and "turned on". But it still felt cold. When mom and Paige game in (I was wondering if I would have to build my nest up again), we tried to figure out what the effity eff eff was going on and why technology had forsaken us! Eventually we figured out that we had to press a tiny button and the heat suddenly roared to life! Clearly, we are experienced motorhome owners.
Aaaan that night I woke up sweating again. I also drooled to mix it up a bit.
Sunday morning we mulled around by the campfire a bit before mom, Paige, and I went for another quick trail ride before heading home. You cannot understand how much I wanted a shower! You really cant. I was sitting in two days worth of sweat and dirt and the thought that my dirty head touched my clean pillow case made my skin crawl!
Long story short, I made it home safely after almost taking out a road construction pylon. Grey was so excited to get home that he barely finished his feed and broke out of his stall. Be free Grey! Be free!
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