Heather and Barry's Homepage

As soon as we were up and moving, we put on our hiking faces and headed to the visitor’s center in Madison to see when the rangers were predicting the main geyser eruptions for the day. The first on the list was Daisy Geyser, which involved a one-mile hike to the location itself, plus thirty minutes or so on either side of the 11 AM time listed. When we arrived at the parking area, Barry looked at the area, looked at the trail map posted at the trailhead, and decided he had no desire to walk for a mile “to see nothing”.

For the first time on the trip, Barry woke up in the morning mentioning that he was cold a lot last night, despite the fact that we were under the same number of blankets we had been all trip and that he was wearing long underwear. I had mentioned to him previously that we really wanted to get warmer blankets, because it’s only going to get colder, but Barry being a boy, or Barry being Barry, didn’t want to spent the extra money on the fleece sleeping bags I saw in an Evilmart (a.k.a. Wal-Mart) a few towns back. [Yes, I’m cheap. —Barry]

With practically the entire contents of our car (including our kayaks!) in the hotel room, we woke up on our usual timeline in a cozy bed. Barry made us breakfast in the room while I did some typing for the blog. We were hopeful that Billings would be a successful place for us to find information about climbing and paddling in Wyoming (or anywhere “en route” even though our route is really dictated by the water and rocks available to us).

The closest star in the sky beat down on us as our morning call with its warm beams of radiant heat. Still feeling stuffy headed and kind of sickly, I snuggled up to Barry in hopes of being able to drift back off to sleep, but the NyQuil had warn off by now and I was doomed to another day of grogginess and feeling not so up to par. :(

It seems like every time we’re in a city, we make a big shopping run. After vacating the hotel (and getting a free granola bar to eat and a brochure for the scrap book), we went to (a) a drug store (for more tissues [my poor nose!], DayQuil, and some other sicky-related items), (b) the local camera store for a lens cap that will fit my zoom lens when it has the step-up ring attached {Note to self: Y’ know, it would be really nice to STOP spending money on my camera by having someone tell me everything that I’ll need given the purchases I am making.}, and (c) a hair salon for Barry, who needed short hair before we went any further on our trip.

My nose was stuffy and my throat itchy when I woke up again today. I hope that whatever bug I have has reached it peak, as today we begin the second leg of our adventure trip, and I would hate for the mucus in my head to delay our hiking, climbing, and paddling.

It seems that the sleeping in the car through Canada, the stuffy nose, and the mild coughing was more than just allergies. It finally caught up with me today. I awoke with a more than usual stuffy head, an achy throat, and more painful coughing. The heat outside didn’t help; it continued to be detestable with forecasts that were met later in the day of 101 degrees Fahrenheit. But, despite the yuckiness internally and externally, we needed to face the temperature and enter the waves of gamma rays.

The morning of Quillan’s birthday party had arrived. I woke up in anticipation of cake making at around 7:30 AM, even though I was exhausted. Aunt Sharon and Leila were already up and the cakes were in the oven when I came out of the room for my morning dose of hugs and kisses. Barry and I were “warned” last night about the tradition of the “ugly cakes”* and the frosting making was just underway when I found my camera. Purple, blue and green food coloring dripped slowly into the bowls filled with sweet confectioner’s sugar butter frosting; the colors were really brilliant with a life of their own after Leila mixed them.

Waking up today had the same pattern as almost all other mornings; Barry got up and began making breakfast and I started breaking up the house. I then went to the lake to begin the picture taking for the day. The lake at this campground had two lighthouse-type items on two separate peninsulas, which I recorded. There was also a “big blue ship” of which I took a picture or two or ten. Barry walked to the closest peninsula and started scrambling on the rocks. I quickly followed, taking more pictures as I went. When I had exhausted all of the image-capturing I could handle in this location, I let Barry know and we packed ourselves into the car for our last leg of our trip to Plymouth, Minnesota. applause

Lack of thunder did not alert Barry to the rain that was destined to come, nor would it have helped, for the drops started descending at about 2ish in the morning. I awoke to the tapping on the tent and tried restlessly to fall back asleep. The night was the coolest it has been thus far and both Barry and I were chilly throughout our sleep. I awoke fully at 7ish needing to go to the bathroom, but had no desire to leave the house, as it was now pouring. The rain let up and eventually ceased around 9, so I pulled myself from sleep and walked to the necessary location.