Thought I'd post a little now that we're back safely from our vacation. This will be a mish-mash of descriptions, events, feelings, etc.... sorry if it gets confusing.

We left Wednesday evening... almost 2 hours later than we'd wanted to, but we got out safely and had everything packed that we needed (or hoped). Grabbed fast food on the way and drove to my parent's house.
Arrived around 11:30, brought in only the basics that we needed for the night and visited with my mom (dad was in bed already) until around 1am. Not too much to report there, except for the lovely news that my sister is pregnant - just past her first trimester now, due 03/03/09. Adam said to me later that he hoped that news wouldn't ruin my vacation, and I tried not to let it even enter my mind, let alone bother me, but it really really does bother me for so many reasons - many of which I can't even vocalize. Some of it is jealousy and I know that, but I don't know why. I think part of it is that I'm younger and I just wanted to do something first - which is so dumb because there's lots of things I've done first. But I know that's part of it. I feel very sad - it's easy enough to go about my day to day life and not think about my sister, but when I hear about a baby and I realize that's going to be my niece or nephew and they'll never know me, I'll never know them, all the things that I did with my aunts & uncles as a kid will never happen for this child.... and the same goes for our kids. Sure, they have aunts and uncles on the other side, on Adam's side, but my kids will never know their only maternal aunt. I'm also very sad for this unborn child because I truly feel like my sister is too selfish to be a good parent. I fear for their life but for their emotional well being as well. How will a child ever learn to be accepting of others, to understand how to work through problems between very different people to find common ground, if their mother can't even find a few minutes of her life to put herself aside and reach out to her only sister? Don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting that our kids will be perfect, but I've *tried* to communicate with my sister and been shut down at every turn. I feel basically like my whole life I've been reaching out to her and getting slapped in the face for it. At the very least, I think our kids will understand the difference between "family" and "relatives" - as unfortunate as that is to learn. It would be so much better if they could grow up thinking they were the same thing, and never have to learn the difference, but I guess at least if they learn it early they will be spared some of the pain I've had to go through recently in learning it.
So... onto new topics. We left for Montana Thursday late morning. Crossed the border no problem, found our campground no problem, found a site. Went to register and the lady at the booth said (after she took our money) "you know about our trains?" (they're right next to the tracks, we'd crossed them as we came in). We said yes. She said, "and you know about the whistles?" We must have looked confused because she said the train whistles every time it comes through here. How often? "Oh, all the time". And she pulls out 2 pairs of ear plugs and hands them to us. Sounds lovely... what have we got ourselves into?? So it turns out that the train *does* come through quite often, and all day & night. And they whistle.... the incoming trains start whistling when they're directly next to the campground, which is separated from the tracks by a stand of trees about 10 feet deep, if that. And they're LOUD. Thankdully they only came through about 3 times during the night, but everytime it woke me up. That kinda sucked. Oh well.
Friday we went to find the kennel where Cube was going to go on Saturday and bought our tickets for the Brewfest, and made sure we knew where the bus came. Chilled out at the campsite and didn't do too much (very nice).
Saturday we were going to have a shower ($1 for 3 minutes) before we went to the Brewfest, but the campsite had a huge stainless steel tub behind the bathroom for washing dishes in. Since we had dishes to wash anyhow, we took them down to the wash tub, washed the dishes, and then I turned my head upside down under the tap & washed my hair. It wasn't perfect, but I knew I wouldn't be able to have a shower in 3 minutes! After that, we did go into the bathroom and took a shower - Adam did a full shower and I just washed my body. Good thing I'd already washed my hair because it took probably the whole first minute to get the temperature of the water to not burn me and then I'd barely rinsed the soap off my body when the time ran out. Then we packed up the dog and went to drop him off. No problem there, headed to our bus pick-up area, got a bag of ice for the cooler and tried to park the car in the shade. Bus took us up to Big Mountain for the Brewfest - on the new road to the mountain which is just finished this year (they did part of it last year and finished it this year), which is SO much better than the old one. Brewfest itself was pretty cool - lots of beer, but most of them had either IPAs or Hefeweizens, so there wasn't a lot of variety that way. We had bracelets with tickets and they were supposed to take a ticket when we got a beer, but many of them forgot or just didn't care, so Adam had a ton more beer than his 10-ticket bracelet would indicate. I had to stop when I had 5 tickets left (though I'd probably had 8), since all the mixing was getting to me. Sipped my favorite for more than an hour. We managed to stay right till the end, Adam got sloshed, and then we took the bus back down. Had to go into the grocery store for a few things (including beer) after we got there, so we did - with Adam yelling "Where's the BEER?" as we entered. The cashier at the nearest till pointed and said "back corner" and didn't look at all phased, like this was a daily occurence for a drunk person to come walking in and yell "where's the beer?". It was pretty funny, and embarassing at the same time. Oh well. Got some beer and our other few things and went to get the dog. No problem there. Went back to camp and spent the rest of the night dealing with too-much-beer stomach aches (both of us). They weren't bad, so that was ok.
Sunday... moving day! First we went for a walk around the campsite and filled a 1L Nalgene bottle with Saskatoons. They're a couple weeks past their prime, so the pickings were slim, but we still managed to fill up the bottle. Packed up the camp and headed south towards Swan Lake. Found the campground just fine, picked a spot, unloaded some stuff and set up the tent. We were making a sandwich when we noticed the large number of wasps, but thought it must just be the scent of the meat drawing them in. Cracked open a beer and were sitting on our chairs relaxing. Cube wanders behind me and all of a sudden come running back in front of me, shaking his head, pawing at his face, rubbing his nose on the ground and in an instant I knew he'd been stung by a wasp. Adam ran for the Afterbite while I checked him out - found the sting inside his left ear (on the ear flap). Thank god for it being on the flap and not in the ear or in his mouth. Stinger was still there, so Adam pulled it out and we put the afterbite on. Cube was *not* happy - don't blame him. Then we went and looked where he'd just been, and there are wasps going in and out of a very large hole in the ground underneath a tree - a fricking wasp nest!!! I immediately took Cube to the other side of the site and sent Adam to get the campground host. He comes back with a shovel and dumps 3 shovel fuls of dirt on the entrance to the nest. Within a minute, there's probably a hundred wasps flying around, trying to save their nest. We decide that we're going to move sites and I needed to get out of there right that instant, so we decide to go for a walk to check other sites. We went into a few sites and finally settled on one of them - no wasps!! - and came back to the original site to get our stuff. Campground man has found wasp spray and is now spraying the wasps that are swarming around the entrance to the nest. They start falling, but they're not dying immediately, instead they're thrashing around on the ground. Cube sees one and thinks about sniffing it; I tugged him away!! Now they're pissed off, dying, and covered in poison - I think not Mr. Cube!! So we get our stuff moved, and settle into the new site. Cube seems to be ok.
Monday... Weather is holding, and it's a beautiful hot day. We went down to the beach and sat in our chairs in the shade reading. Went in the water and it was pretty cold so we didn't stay in long. Thought about washing my hair in the lake, but would do that later. Went back to the site after a couple hours and decided to go for a bike ride. Packed Cube into his basket on the front of my bike and head off. I'm sad and pathetic and am tired after not very long. We turn off the highway onto a side road that sounded like it might have a nice place to ride or maybe walk. Turns out to be a hiking/biking trail through the woods to some back-country camping. Something like 21 miles I think the sign said to the next spot. So we start. And it sucked. Hit a bump, Cube's weight shifts, handlebars turn and I nearly fall off. Legs are burning, ankle hurts, and I'm getting mad. Adam was having fun and wanted to continue, so he offered me a bike trade. Sounds pretty good except his bike frame is much longer & wider than mine, so it was not a good fit for me. But we made it. Through the woods on a single-track trail until we popped out on what I think was a logging road. Decided we should probably start heading back and instead of going back through the bush we took the logging road. Lots of uphill for the most part, then we hit a junction and started coming down.... that was kinda scary cause I'm riding a bike I'm not used to with brakes that are different than mine, and I'm already/still tired. That's fine, we made it all the way down to the highway, where we changed back to our normal bikes and headed home. Storm clouds brewing and wind was really strong, but we got back. Delayed making supper as we thought it might rain... finally got too hungry, so I made supper and we ate and did dishes. Adam started a fire and we played a couple games of crib. Wind died suddenly and shortly after that it started to spit. As it was fairly late, we put out the fire and went to bed. It rained all night. I'm not talking like a gentle little sprinkle, like it was raining SO hard it sounded like hail and the rain was bouncing off the ground and coming up under the tent fly to sprinkle our faces (and everything else in the tent) with mist. That was a tough sleep.
Tuesday... woke up to find some puddles in the tent and decided that we would start heading home. Stay with my parents again and finish the drive on Wednesday. Packed up a lot of the camp, set the tent to dry out as much as possible (still threatening rain) and went on a Saskatoon hunt. Filled another Nalgene bottle. Finished packing up, I couldn't leave without filling up a half-full bottle with 'toons, and then we were on our way. Relatively uneventful drive back, stopped at a couple grocery stores to search for beer & crossed the border without any trouble. Grabbed a sandwich in Fernie and got to my parents around 9:30. Visited & went to bed.
Wednesday... breakfast at parents, a couple games of crib, packed a few more empty beer bottles and some dent store goods and finished our drive. Beat rush hour, thankfully, and had a late supper and a bottle of wine. Wine went straight to my head and I spent the night drunk on the couch - went to bed with a tummy ache and still not feeling 100% today.

Edited to add: Here are the photos from our trip. They're mostly in order, with the exception of Adam, Beer, Dinner & the 2 videos. Ah well. http://s195.photobucket.com/albums/z60/dogmelissa/Montana%20Vacation%202008/

So that was our trip.... pictures up soon & now we're just about into fall. Lots of exciting things happening in September (one big event I'm hoping for), including our first anniversary!!! and then we're into Thanksgiving and then Christmas. Holy smokes does time fly!

Must go make supper now......
Melissa