I hope everyone else has been having as much fun this summer as I have!
Of course my garden looks like crap but I have to admit the weeds have had a spectacular year. It was soooo cold for soooo long this spring that the veggies that actually sprouted are way behind. I’m not sure if there will be anything at all except some herbs and a few green beans to harvest. There are a few tomatoes on the vines but they are very green and with the cold nights I’m betting we will have a house full of green tomatoes this fall.
Since it is just plain depressing to go out into the garden I have been keeping busy with other stuff… Some really fun stuff.
I have been working on my little camper – Rattlin’ Ruby and she is starting to look pretty darn spiffy. We have the Custer County Fair this weekend, a Sisters on the Fly event in Buffalo WY next weekend and finally a car show to enter her in next month.
In a moment of total and complete insanity I started polishing her silver aluminum hide. Of course when I started this little project it was hot and dry but since then the skies have opened up and it rains just about every evening so my polishing has come to a screeching halt. Only about a third of Ruby’s back-end is polished and about half of one side. She looks a little goofy right now but that will not stop us from going to the fair. We leave today and will carefully weave our way through the masses of motorcycles that are on the road this week for the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally. It should be fun!
This last few weeks have been filled with even more fun. I know – it’s hard to believe it can get any better than polishing an old camper, right? Ha!
The first thing we did was the Days of ’76 in Deadwood. I have never been to the ‘Days’ and I have lived here a really, really long time. I didn’t get very good photos but we had a blast! Dalton and Dani were the ones who came up with this wonderful idea and so we jumped in the pickup and drove to Deadwood where we had a fantastic meal at the 4 Aces Casino – prime rib and crab legs. My advice – forget the salad bar and head straight to the good stuff. From there we walked (actually we waddled) down to the Rodeo grounds to the vendors who ended up with some of my hard-earned cash and the grandstands which are amazing on their own. Built from huge logs it’s like a work of art you can sit in. I’ll try to post some photos when I get back from the fair.
The 2nd fun thing I did was to go to a party at the Antler’s Bar & Grill which was hosted by the Newcastle Library. You got to love a library which holds a get together at a bar! This one was for Craig Johnson – the wonderfully talented author of the Longmire series of books which inspired the TV show – Longmire.
If you haven’t been watching Longmire on Monday nights you have been missing out! The story is based on the sheriff – Walt Longmire who lives in the make-believe town of Durant, WY (which is patterned after Buffalo, WY). Craig lives in Ucross which is a small town close to Buffalo. The Buffalo Chamber of Commerce have celebrated Longmire Days for the past 3 years and I have wanted to go every single year. I haven’t made it yet but I am definitely going next year.
Craig is traveling around the state of Wyoming and visiting all 73 Wyoming libraries to talk about his book The Spirit of Steamboat. What a nice guy! He is a wonderfully funny speaker and is so humbled by the amazing success of his books and the show. Its obvious he loves Wyoming and the people who live there and has become something of a local hero although you would never know it to speak to him. In fact the Libraries ‘pay’ him to come speak with a 6 or 12 pack of Rainer Beer – which is Sherriff Longmie’s favorite drink. He says he hasn’t bought beer in 7 years!. What a great sense of humor.
As you can tell I was very impressed and inspired by his talk. I may just have to start writing murder mysteries too! In my free time of course… Dang, I’m funny! I suggest you read his books (and the entire Britannica encyclopedia set) while you wait for my book to come out. I believe the library also has Seasons 1 & 2 on DVD of the TV series.
The 3rd really fun thing I did last week was to join a few people from work who wanted to do a Mud Run. This event was hosted by the Campbell County Mudders to raise money for the families of the 3 miners who were killed in a bus/car accident a couple of months ago. It was for a good cause so I figured why not? How bad could it be? There were 5 members of our team – some of which actually like to run (go figure) and some of us who were built more for comfort than speed (myself included).
OK – I must admit most people who do these runs actually spend time training for them but since it was kind of a last-minute thing we had less than a week to prepare. I trained by eating as much chocolate as possible and by running 2 laps around the house one evening. It took me 2 days to recover from that. Even with that extensive training, I was not prepared for what we ended up doing. Silly me. I imagined we would be jogging around the horse track at Camplex with a few mud puddles to run through.
Lets just say it was a little more intense than that…
Turns out that this event was one that would be classified as an Extreme Mudder Run. As I always say “Go Big or Go Home”.
That’s Beth, one of my team mates in the picture above. She was in the first obstacle. Who knew they would build obstacles in a race? They had dug 2 holes in the track, piled the dirt up on each end of the holes and filled both holes with water. And that was just the first of many ‘fun’ things to come. The course was 5K (or 3.1 miles) and was run in 2 laps with 16 obstacles in each lap. The 1st obstacle – pictured above – we had to do 3 times.
Can I just say one word?
BENTONITE!
If you’ve never had any experience with this powdery grey mineral you might not realize what water does to it. I on the other hand I have helped seal off stock tank leaks with the stuff and have learned all the fascinating properties of the stuff. I have found that combining water and BENTONITE creates one of the slickest, gooiest, stick-to-your-body gunk you will ever run into. And ‘run into it’ we did.
We ran through it, slid down it, swam through it, climbed up it and slithered on our bellies like a reptile in it.
As if the challenge of wet BENTONITE wasn’t enough there were also huge tires from large mine vehicles to climb over, a cable bridge stretched between two tow trucks to fall off of, barbed wire (one with electricity to zap you) to crawl under, culverts to crawl through, structures to climb over, large round hay bales to climb up and over, a large roll-off dumpster lined with plastic and filled with water you had to wade through and duck under wooden walls and a vast plethora of chances to break a hip on. As I get older I find myself thinking about that stuff more often.
Thankfully, Beth’s daughter was there to take pictures of us as we worked our way through the course. I figured I might need them for insurance purposes too.
Thank goodness for my fantastic team mates. That’s Jonathan hauling my lazy *%$ through part of the course. Actually that was one of the obstacles – to carry a team-mate for a distance. We had to stay together as a team and surprisingly we did pretty good – less than 90 minutes to get through it all. We even beat out a team of 21-year-old gals who had to ask another team of guys to help them along the way. Of course that could have been their plan all along – if you get my drift.
Here’s our ‘after’ photo.
You can’t really see what a mess we were. But they did direct us to the livestock wash racks before allowing us into the bathrooms if that gives you any indication of how we looked. I’m still picking BENTONITE out of my belly button.
I have to admit I am rather proud of our team and even myself. With a little help from my friends I was able to do every obstacle except one – climbing over a 15 foot wall with a knotted rope to pull yourself up with. I’m going to have to work my way up to that one. But all in all I didn’t do too bad for a 52-year-old woman who sits at a desk all day and eats massive amounts of chocolate.
Will I do it again? I just might. I must admit that when I hit that first obstacle my first thought was “What the hell did I get myself into?” But completing each obstacle and crossing that finish line was a rush I haven’t felt for a long time. Yep, I’ll do it again but next time I’ll train a little better – more chocolate and maybe 2 more laps around the house!!!
Now I’m off to have more fun!
RanchDaze 