And the award goes to...

I’m taking a little break from The Academy Awards to post tonight and sadly it’s not all that difficult to take a break from this show. I had a nice morning hanging out with John before he headed out to play tennis around noon. I had a mad craving for chicken and cheese, so I stopped at the grocery store on the way home and stocked up. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a craving for affordable everyday Kraft cheddar but rather the good stuff I get at John’s… gruyere and emmenthaler Now that I’ve had to purchase my own slab of emmenthaler I will stop eating it at John's like he has his very own emmenthaler tree in the yard. I played around with my photos (finally transferred many of them from John's computer), watched TV, talked with John before his flight took off for San Diego, and then chatted with Tracy until she had to leave for her Sunday night massage appointment. John is in CA to take a deposition in the ACLU case he’s working on and will be back tomorrow night. If I wake up in time I’m hoping to go to the club for a morning workout, if not I will definitely get myself there in the afternoon. Regarding The Academy Awards, I just heard a wonderful acceptance speech by the gentleman who won for best adapted screenplay, Geoffrey Fletcher, it was the most heartfelt Oscar acceptance speech I think I’ve ever heard. Queen Latifah is so pretty. Mo’ Nique just delivered one heck of an acceptance speech too! Robert Downey Jr. looks like he hitched a ride to the Oscars in a clown car. I’m suddenly more interested in the Oscars.

Exterior Maintenance

We just finished watching Beverly Hills Cop, that 80s movie with Eddie Murphy, and I'm too sleepy to write much tonight. All these years later I still find that movie laugh out loud funny. After more than 20 weeks since my last hair appointment I finally made a stop at the salon for a relaxer (relaxes the natural curl/texture in my hair) and trim. My hair was at least an inch longer but also pretty damaged at the ends so after the trim the length is about the same or maybe even a little shorter but so much thicker and healthier. Del Marie was really surprised that after so many weeks my hair was in such good condition. I think my next relaxer "stretch" will be a little shorter probably 16 weeks (in the past I had it relaxed about every 8 weeks) My appointment was for 10:30 with Del Marie but true to form she didn't start until around 11:30 so I didn't leave the salon until almost 2:00! As I mentioned in yesterday's post Del Marie is about 9 weeks pregnant but she looks 4 months and says she's been eating like a horse for weeks, is tired and needs to rest between appointments and eat more. She told me later that the father of her baby had been in the salon while I was there but I didn't see him and he's a guy she's never mentioned to me so I guess he's a new fella in her life. She's already planning to go on public assistance when the baby arrives in late September so apparently the father doesn't have much to contribute. My hair appointment was the only real highlight of the day. Today I also went through my mail (3 weeks worth), ran a couple errands, and reacquainted myself with my house.

Home Again

We rolled into Minneapolis at 8:00 PM after starting out this morning in Spearfish, SD at 8:30 AM. Needless to say it was a long and exhausting day of driving and the scenery was both foggy and bleak for much of the drive. We drove through the Cheyenne River Reservation (Sioux). The drive through the reservation is about 75 miles long and it is 75 miles of virtual nothingness. In a little over an hour we saw a number of aluminum sided homes, two gas stations, a cultural center, a few churches, and a wellness center; I believe we saw most of the non-residential spaces in Eagle Butte one of the larger towns on the reservation. We also saw a power plant and a beautiful new school made of red brick, antelope, and cows. I was struck by several things 1. the size of the reservation 2. the lack of businesses and employment opportunities, 3. the number of road markers indicating traffic fatalities* there must have been 30 such signs within the 75 miles stretch of hwy 212, 4. the remoteness and isolation 4. the lousy land with its dry conditions that make farming impossible. Please see the link to the right for more information about the reservation. We made just a few quick stops for gas but didn't stop for lunch until 4:00 PM in the town of Watertown, SD because it was the first town large enough to have more than a couple family owned diners. John did about 80% of the driving today because the heavy fog made me nervous and it lasted for hours, he did the night driving too because my night vision isn't the greatest. When we got to his house we made popcorn and I had a cup of hot tea, and now we're just chillin' out.

I have an appointment with my hairdresser, Del Marie at 10:30 tomorrow, the first since October 22nd. She was afraid I'd dropped her, but I told her "no way" just traveling and trying a new hair regimen. She also told me that she's 9 weeks pregnant with her 2nd child. Her older "child" is 21 years old.

*Official signs erected by the SD Dept. of Transportation, part of a program started in 1979. Diamond in shape, one side says “Think,” and the other side says “Why Die?” Both sides have a red “X” painted on them (definitely not a Christian cross), with “X marks the spot” in small type.

Multiple fatalities are depicted as individual signs in a line spaced ten feet apart -- we assume this was to avoid the visual horror of signs sprouting from one spot like some abstract fatality flower.

The signs stay until they fall apart or are displaced by construction, and are not replaced unless the deceased family makes a special request.

Spearfish, SD

We got off to an early start, getting up at 6:30 to have breakfast and pack up the car. We were on the road at 8:00 AM on the dot only 30 minutes shy of our goal of 7:30. The drive was beautiful and today was the perfect day to spend on the road. I had no idea how much beauty one could see from the window of a car moving along at 65 mph. I was completely blown away by the spectacular scenery along the highway. We started out in the Tetons, then drove between the Wind Rivers and the Absarokas (mountain ranges), then the spectacular Big Horns, and finally into the South Dakota Black HIlls. We stopped in Thermopolis, WY and for a picnic lunch in a park near the hot springs where it was nearly 60 degrees. Thermopolis is known for its dinosaur discoveries and hot springs (the world’s largest according to words painted into a hillside leading into town). After lunch we hopped back in the car for more beautiful scenery. We spotted hundreds of antelope by the highway, and saw everything from snow-covered fields, 3 billion year-old precambrian granite. Unfortunately everything wasn’t completely perfect and picturesque; ugly oil fields complete with pumps resembling huge grasshoppers littered a long stretch of the highway. The oil towns are horribly unattractive with no sense of order or planning whatsoever. It's like an airplane just dropped houses and businesses from the sky to take root wherever they landed. Something about the oil fields polluted by the big grasshopper like machines was a little unsettling, even depressing. Once you've seen those enormous long necked machines repeating the same incessant nagging motion over and over again for 50 miles it starts to get to you. I guess they are synonymous with our constant, nagging, incessant, dependence on oil and this made me feel a tad bit slimy as we burned through precious oil trying to make our way home. We logged 495 miles today to our ultimate destination, The Best Western in Spearfish, SD and an Italian dinner at Roma's. We didn't waste any time after checking into the hotel and walked several blocks to Roma within minutes of dropping off our luggage at the hotel. Roma's is a lovely looking place and I'm sure it is hands down the finest eating establishment in all of Spearfish, SD and possibly all of South Dakota but with the exception of a decent Caesar salad and a nice glass of wine the food was average at best and the tiramisu tasted like something I made in my Easy Bake oven when I was a child. There was a plus size waitress working at Roma's, she wore a snug fitting skirt and blouse and fishnet stockings, and I truly enjoyed watching her work because she had so much confidence and style. I took at least 50 photos today so I'll upload one in a few hours to accompany this post. Goodnight from Spearfish.

Packing Up

We didn't leave the house until after 1:00 this afternoon! John worked a lot in the morning and I lounged around, listened to music, and surfed the internet. Once we finally got moving the day was pretty great. We went to town for some quick errands and then back to Teton National Park for another solid hour of cross country skiing. I fell down once but so did John so I didn't feel quite so goofy. I'm definitely getting better on xc skis and will probably invest in a pair when I get back home. After skiing we went over the guest cabin to tidy up and put away all those dishes I de-stickered and washed yesterday. We probably spent an hour or more over there. It started to snow heavily while we were there and it was nice to see since this area is 40% normal snowfall for this time of the year. Unfortunately, the new snow is coming too late for John to get out and enjoy it skiing. Once back at the Western cabin we had soup and yams for dinner. More chores after dinner to get ready for our 7:00 AM departure in the morning. We've been washing clothes and basically getting organized to head out tomorrow. John and I have been together every day since January 21 and I think we're both in need of some alone time.

Tedious Tuesday

I don't have much to report on about today. I spent a good bit of the morning peeling off price stickers from the new dinnerware and glassware we purchased yesterday. I had to get the stickers off before loading the new stuff into the dishwasher for a good first scrubbing. It was taking forever to get those darn stickers off but midway through the process I realized that soaking them first in warm water made removing the labels a lot easier. I got the new dishes into the dishwasher and put away the other stuff and the whole ordeal took a little over two hours. That was about the most exciting part of my day. John had a meeting in town at 1:30 with an attorney for the site committed to discuss the trim on the new cabin and after that he met up with a judge he knows from his early years in WY. I spent the time in town shopping for a few gifts, and eventually shopping for myself. I bought a nice pair of khakis for $16 (70% off). I picked up two tops at a local consignment shop, a pretty yellow western/cowgirl blouse and a basic brown and white gap stretch tee. I'm really happy with the yellow western blouse but I can't say that I was overly impressed with the selection at this consignment shop. I guess my expectations were a bit too high and influenced by the wealth and excess found here, I've found much better stuff in the consignment shops in little old St Paul. After his meeting with the site committee it was decided the blue and red trim will go away and John will probably have the house stained a dark grey... so long Swedish cabin. On our way back we stopped at the fanciest DQ I've ever seen. The Dairy Queen in Jackson has a big fireplace, comfortable booth seating, and DVDs playing old western movies! We made a quick stop a the grocery store as well as one at the movie rental place. We just finished watching Raising Arizona (1987) very entertaining.

If you're interested in knowing a little more about Peter and Inger, the mother and son we had dinner with Saturday night you should revisit Saturday's post now titled xc skiing and sprouted grain pasta

Tomorrow we plan to spend the day packing and organizing. We're getting on the road Thursday morning for the 1200+ mile drive home.

Back to Idaho Falls

Well today was mostly about shopping! John hates to shop but the guest cabin is in need of furniture and accessories, so we headed back over the pass to Idaho for a day of shopping. We didn't find any furniture and he's decided to buy furniture in the Twin Cities and have it shipped out later. We made a stop at Bed Bath and Beyond where we stocked up on all sorts of things, pots and pans, towels, kitchen gadgets, glassware, etc. Then we had lunch at the Pita Pit, a fast food place I discovered while traveling in North Carolina a couple years ago; we had a good and inexpensive lunch at the Pita Pit. Next it was off to Pier 1 where we picked up a really nice set of dishes and more glassware. . We stopped at two furniture stores but John wasn't impressed or inspired by either so that's when he decided not to rush and try to furnish the house in a single day of shopping in Idaho Falls. We started the two hour drive back to Jackson around 3:30 and arrived here at 5:30. After sitting in the car for over 4 hours decided to take a little walk around the subdivision for some fresh air and exercise. I'm planning to read after dinner and listen to some tunes and John plans to work.

attached photo big horn sheep