aw shit, someone's got to go back and get a shit-ton of dimes

So today (Wednesday) was pretty solid. I woke around 11:30 after sleeping like a log, had the rest of Kurt's smoothie for breakfast, and hand washed some dishes some dishes which turned out to be pretty therapeutic. However, the thing that I was most proud of was the large entry I made in the book "How to die in the mountains." It started out with me going on a hike at Rattlesnake Recreation Area (shout out to all the thugs and murderers who play the skateboarding version of rattlesnakes. that would mean my friends Tim and Steve, who are really very nice and are thugs only on weekends and never murderers) Anyways, the hike I chose to go on, after consulting with some friendly hikers, was Stuart Peak which is 16 miles roundtrip from the parking lot. So I set off at 1:30 which I believe is the fucking definition of an ideal departure time for a 16 mile hike.  Anyways, the trail was snowy immediately. It started gaining elevation around mile 3 or 4 and by mile 6, the only thing I was following was a lone pair of footprints. (And also, the higher the elevation, the more snow there is ) Anyways, the mountains were covered in snow, the sky was overcast with occasional rain, and the pine trees were constantly dripping water. Around 4:30, I came into this ravine that looked pretty awesome for backcountry snowboarding. Anyways, this is where the trail decided to play hide and go seek for keeps. It gave me two choices; one faint pair of footprints that headed straight up the gully and another faint pair of footprints that headed to the right. I chose the one to the right. The reason the footprints were so faint is because this is the point where the snow depth increased to 8-12 inches. Which is a bitch. Point being, it did not take long for the snow to vanquish my two pairs of socks and hiking boots and send them back to a frozen hell. Anyways, the footprints I was following quickly lost whatever trail that might have existed during a happier time, when the honey flowed freely, lumberjacks were everywhere, and the birds and trees were our friends. But I digress. So I followed the footprints for 15 more minutes until they disappeared. Now I had a choice. It was 4:55 pm, I was 7 miles from the parking lot on some mountain surrounded by a foot of untouched snow, and I hadn't told anyone where I was (127 hours was a great film). Sadly I chose to return. I cut back through the woods til I reached the ravine and then ran/jogged the majority of the way back. I fell like an idiot a good amount of times on the way back because the trail was only packed down about a foot wide with unpacked snow on either side. So yea, I'd be running and one foot would secede from the rest of the body and decide to take a short rest under 2 feet of snow while completely fucking over the rest of my body. Anyways, I got back at 6:18, went home, took a shower, met Kurt at the Book Exchange in Missoula (most badass bookstore I've ever seen). Got a book on Islam, modernity, and the Middle East. Had dinner at the Good Food Store (like Whole Foods, except it's the only one in existence) where I had a delicious hamburger with bacon, avocado, and stone ground mustard all on ciabatta bread. Then we came home and had vanilla ice cream with chocolate covered pumpkin cookies (f*&k me right?) and I burned some cd's from the house we are staying at. Around 1 am I decided to go dumpster diving at the Good Food Store which never actually happened. What did happen was that I ended up meeting this really friendly, drunk firefighter named Lee (who also helps disabled kids) in the parking lot of the Good Food Store. We talked and the night ended with me watching Big Trouble in Little China at his apartment while he laid passed out on his bed in the next room with the door open and the lights on. Rock on Lee.

oh i'm sorry that you took me for a whore. oh im sorry that i took you for a mortician.

So yesterday (monday 3/28/11) (well technically it was 2 days ago says one of the sams in my head. shut the fuck up says the hundreds of other sams) was uneventful. I slept til 12:30. Made some social appearances around Billings with Al (my grandpa). Went to Al's doctor appointment at 3:30 with Al and my Aunt Melinda, who lives in Bozeman, Montanta. We got to the hospital around 3:15, put the waiting room to good use til 4:00, and then waited in the normal, sterilized patient room until the doctor graced us with her presence at 5:00. Alas, by the time she came, it was too late. I had slowly been slipping into a coma long before she arrived, and by the time of her arrival, I just simply did not give a shit about what she had to say. Thankfully, grown-ups who are actually responsible saved our family name from being completely disgraced. Anyways, after that, Al, Melinda, and I had an early dinner at Walker's restaurant in downtown Billings. It was overpriced, but the butter was delicious. (I'm talking about the butter they bring out with the bread) (well technically you're blogging about the butter they bring out with the bread says the same obnoxious sam as before... Blam! the air is filled with the smell of gunpowder as the obnoxious sam has both his legs blown off by the shotguns of all the other now much happier sams.) The night ended with Irma (Al's neighbor) and Melinda sorting out Al's new medication. (The appointment, by the way, was over the results of Al's retake of the Montana driving test. He previously had his license taken away from him. Point being is al's driving (def.)- a big point of contention in Winegardner family matters. hardy hardy har har. One more joke. In the case of Al vs. Everyone else in his family, the court rules in favor of everybody else.... Al punches his lawyer in the face and gives everyone the finger as he storms out of the court. )
And last but certainly not least, I watched hero as I was falling asleep. It was badass. But, I missed out on whether or not at the end, the king gives the army the green light to kill Jet Li or if the army just goes ahead and does it anyway. Yea if you know the answer, you should text me or post the answer on this blog. and i just realized i could go back and watch it but i already went to all this trouble so yea.

Doesn't it seem like Henry David Thoreau was manning a gatling gun when it came to quotes?

Hey internet and friends and whoever.
So boring background shit (kids: ear muffs). I'm on a roadtrip. And here's the post from the first day. I started out going to Whole Foods in boulder, colorado at 8am and got some extra food, some coffee, and some stuff from the hot bar. Really all you need to know is that I got some creme brulee french toast which was pretty damn good.

My first stop was at Rocky Mountain National Park. Here's the declassified shit. It was a hike through snow covered woods that eventually opened up into a snowy ravine and two alpine lakes. The two end destinations were Loch Lake and Mill Lake. It was about three miles to both Loch Lake and Mill Lake and I didn't have any water. The trail was covered in snow and overall, the environment was quite quiet and lovely.
Anyways, the trail was snowpacked, the woods were calming, and just before Loch Lake, I met a group of hikers. I asked them where I was, they told me, and then they shared their water with me. I still have the Gatorade bottle. They told me to go to Mill Lake (sidenote: so yea, I name-dropped Mill Lake earlier in this post, but yea, I had no clue about it til they told me) which was a little ways back and then up some other route. I told them I would give it a shot and then continued on to Loch Lake. After taking in Loch Lake (snowy and windy at high altitude) I had decided to return to the parking lot and skip Mill Lake when I saw a pair of snowshoers ( a man and a wife) whom I had passed on the way up. On the way up I had made a haiku for them. It went something like
A snowshoers joy
Following the distant cry
(and i forget the 3rd line)
Whatever.
They inspired me to turn around. At one of the trail intersections, they headed up towards Loch Lake and I went to Mill Lake. I got up there and I was by myself and it was pretty awesome. The lake was windswept and frozen with mountains towering around on all sides. After a brief debate, I doddled out onto the ice. I mean, the verb doddled works perfectly here. Imagine you are a forest ranger, and then imagine a hiker who is by themselves, on a snowy lake, at high altitude, without any water, and without any real mountain safety training. Forest rangers are are taking bets on my survival and bears are just like fuck, this is too easy.
Anyways, it was actually probably pretty safe.
So, I made my way to some rock outcropping in the middle of the lake and as I was standing on the rock, I made the decision to piss into the wind. Which i did. At first, the wind blew my piss to my right so I thought if I truly meant it, I would redirect my flow. I went for it and got some piss on my awesome $125 pair of hiking boots that my parents got for me from REI. Anyways, I was over it and therefore redirected my piss so that the wind blew it to my right again.
Other highlights of my hike.
I rubbed my face in a young pine tree. And I'm not kidding man.
Took one shit in the woods.
At this time, I'm not authorized to officially comment on the number of pisses but I'm told it was somewhere in the neighborhood of 2 to 3. Probably more.
So, I got on the road to Billings, Montana (where my grandpa lives) around 12:30. The one main event that took place after my departure from Rocky Mountain National Park was that after leaving Casper, Wyoming ( considered by many notable Winegardners to be the halfway point between Boulder and Billings) around 6:45 pm, I began to notice the variety of clouds in the sky along with the impressive palate of colors that was present (due to the setting sun). Anyways, sometime before Buffalo, Wyoming, there were some dark, low, overhanging clouds that I remember thinking were pretty. Those clouds turned out to be real sonofabitches (ha! carl, flight of passage). they harbored a blizzard that extended all the way from the north of Casper well into Montana. In conclusion, I fought a losing battle to stay awake throughout the rest of the night as the blizzard raged on. I ended up pulling over at the Garryowen exit in Montana sometime around 4 am and in one brilliant, flawless stroke of genius decided to turn my engine off while keeping the heat on. Logically, my car battery died around 4:20 am (or maybe thats the time i want it to be in my mind). Around 4:45, one of the thousands of good-natured Montanans helped me jump start my car and I was off. I arrived in Billings at 6:30am and that was that.