Let's Talk About Lakes

You may never believe this, but there's a lot of land west of Ohio. And despite the fact that there's an insane drought virtually every summer, there are still a lot of lakes out west. So let's talk about a few of them because hot dang are they wonderful.

A very incomplete list of lakes we saw or visited:

• Sylvan Lake, South Dakota
• Trout Lake, Yellowstone, Wyoming
• Yellowstone Lake, Wyoming
• Long Lake, Wyoming (along Beartooth Highway)
• Jackson Lake, Wyoming
• Two Ocean Lake, Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming
• Jenny Lake, GTNP, Wyoming
• String Lake, GTNP, Wyoming
• Phelps Lake, GTNP, Wyoming
• Little Redfish Lake, Idaho
• Redfish Lake, Idaho
• Lake Coeur D'Alene, Idaho
• Macdonald Lake, Glacier National Park, Montana
• Diablo Lake, North Cascades National Park, Washington
• Lava Lake, Montana
• Lake Angeles, Washington
• Whitefish Lake, Montana
• Lake Sammamish, Washington

You get the idea - there were a lot of lakes. But we can't really dig into what made each one special in one single blog post, so I wanted to look at the best of the best, or at least the ones with the best memories. As such, here is a quick recap about Margaret and Lake Angeles.

Describing the Indescribable: August 4th Edition

In this summer of van life, we've gotten to do some pretty incredible things: Some of them have made it onto the blog, but most haven't because, well, we've been busy doing those things. But on the 4th of August we had a day that we'll remember forever. And while I want to talk all about it, I can't show photos of the most magical part, because there aren't any.

Shall we dive in?

When loosely planning our summer, we had no intention of spending almost 3 weeks in Washington. There are three national parks near Seattle (Mt. Rainier, Olympic, and North Cascades), but we figured that most of our summer would be spent in the Glacier/Teton/Yellowstone part of the country. We were wrong. At some point, Seattle entered our minds, and the allure of the national parks + the opportunity to go whale watching (something we did a few years ago in Monterey, California, where we saw a few humpbacks) proved too strong to resist. 

We booked a whale watch tour out of the town of Anacortes, about 90 minutes north of Seattle, to start at 11:00 a.m. on the 4th. It struck us as a little weird to start so late in the morning, as almost all wildlife viewing tours in all places start early. They say animals are most active at dawn and dusk, more or less regardless of what the animal is, but whatever. After sleeping in a decidedly sketchy rest stop the night before, we had no trouble getting to the marina...about 75 minutes early.

Turns out we didn't consider the obvious about starting at 9:00 a.m. near Seattle. Fog. We parked about 100 feet from the water and couldn't see it. But who cares? The tour would start and the fog would burn off, probably. Right?

Right. But only after about 25 minutes of going 40 MPH on a boat through a laughably thick fog. We did see a couple harbor seals on the way out of the docks, but that was it until we reached Deception Pass and Strawberry Island, where seals were plentiful. We also spotted a few bald eagles at various points, which is always a treat.

About 90 minutes into the tour, one of the guides - a young woman named Meg, who we were both instantly drawn to for some unknown reason - walked past us and said "I just saw a blow ahead if you wanna go grab a seat up front. It'll probably be 10 minutes."

Sure enough, a pod of orcas were cruising along the coast of Camano Island. Five of them, including a young male with a nearly 6-foot dorsal fin, were just...slowly looking for food together.

So for about 30-45 minutes we just watched this pod. They didn't exactly *do* that much, but it was just...magical. At one point they disappeared for several minutes and everyone just kind of looked around, wondering where they might pop up. To my delight, after being off the left side of the boat at about 75 yards for the entire time, two of them popped up about 75 feet off the right side, which is where I was standing. The sound of the breath is just so cool.

Thoroughly satisfied - especially considering the previous few outings for the crew had resulted in no-whale days - we sat up front and enjoyed our ride back through previously unseen waters. Not because we were going a different direction, but because the fog had lifted. We spotted a few more bald eagles and chatted with Meg about what we ought to do while in the area.

(Another photo of whales!)

As it turns out, among other similarities with us, she had done van life for a bit and had suggestions on places to go, to sleep, and to visit at specific times. Chief among them was a placed called Teddy Bear Cove for bioluminescence.

WHAT

Bioluminescent water is one of those things that you occasionally see on the internet but have a hard time believing is real. The photos tend to look like this. Ethereal blues that show up every time a wave crashes or water is disturbed. But a keen observer will note that those images are extremely over-exposed and show super unrealistic levels of light from elsewhere, meaning that reality isn't just waves of blue.

(Oh, of note, bioluminescence in this case is caused by a type of teeny-tiny plankton that emits light when disturbed.) 

So OK. Now we knew what we were gonna do that night, but night was 6 hours away and we only needed to travel about 30 minutes to get there. We went to a nearby state park and hiked a little, but we were low on energy and didn't get a ton out of the experience. As such we decided to head toward Teddy Bear Cove at like 7:00 and just...wait. We took books and chairs and just sat up on a ledge as the sun faded. It was really a lovely evening.

(our view as sunset neared)

Sunset was at about 8:45, but obviously twilight lasts for a while after that. 9:30 rolled around and we didn't see anything. 10:00 came and went too. It was fully dark now. No moon, just stars and darkness. 

We were expecting what we saw in the photos - small waves crashing in vivid blues - but we kept seeing nothing. Some people got in the water and made some yipping and/or excited sounds, but it mostly just seemed like it was because the water in the Puget Sound averages about 58 degrees in August and that's, you know, cold. Especially at night when the air is not warm.

At 10:15 we started to wonder if we were just gonna miss it. We decided that if nothing happened by 11:00 we'd bail.

A few minutes later we moved to the other side of the little promontory that made Teddy Bear Cove, where more people were just kind of hanging out. The water was calmer, so there was nothing to see as far as waves splashing blue.

But then some people got in the water.

Shrieks of joy came out of them. They were baffled by what they were seeing! It must be light! But we couldn't see it from where we were sitting. Was it subdued? Was it not really happening? We didn't know, but the people dove in and started swimming out into the darkness, laughing and shouting.

We popped up off the sand and started kicking around in the water, and there's just no way to describe how surreal it became. The water just...glowed. It glowed white, not blue. But every time you kicked your feet, it glowed around your foot. It splashed white. And just as soon as it lit up, it faded. 

We stomped around in the shallows for several minutes, and each time someone came out of the water they said the same thing: "You have to get in. It's so much cooler in the deeper water."

I was reluctant, to say the least. I was already cold, didn't have a swimsuit or towel, didn't have water sandals or crappy shoes, and how could it actually be that much different in the water? Jenna, on the other hand, was basically saying "I'm getting in. You're gonna be pissed if you don't. Loser." (She didn't actually call me a loser but she did with her heart. I deserved it.)

She's usually right about this kind of stuff, so we stripped down naked and stepped into the water. Yes there were people around, but it was super dark so no one could really see your nudity - in fact, one of the women who suggested we go in and that it's fine to go naked confessed that she was standing next to us topless when we first interacted. We had no idea.

I had some struggles once I was knee deep because, again, cold, but Jenna lunged into the water and was more or less speechless with wonder. I did the same and after exactly one swim-stroke I exclaimed "OH MY GOD THIS IS ENTIRELY WORTH THE COLD."

In the title of this post I refer to this experience as indescribable. The closest thing we can come up with is kind of like this...imagine you're floating in space, but space isn't far away. Space is all around you. The stars are high above, and your body is just kind of floating in the darkness, nowhere at all. But then you move and suddenly shooting stars are all around you. Every time you move any part of your body, it stirs up shooting stars. They glow for a moment all around your body, then they disappear when you stop. Move? Shooting stars everywhere. Stop? Darkness. 

So you keep moving. And you keep stirring up stars. And they shine all around you for the briefest moment, and like a real shooting star, every once in a while you'll get ones that linger for a full second or two and seem to defy reality. 

Indescribable. Beautiful beyond words. If you ever get the chance, do this. 

But bring a swimsuit and a towel and a sweatshirt.

Let's Talk About Port Townsend

There are a lot of things to talk about, I realize, but we don't get internet very often so I end up writing about the most recent thing when we finally do get online. However, a few days ago was not something that will get swept under the rug, regardless of how long it would be between wifi-stops.

We were making our way through the Olympic peninsula and Olympic National Park in Washington. In the northeast corner of the peninsula is Port Townsend. This is the place where the previous owner of our van lived before Cleveland. We've been texting with her periodically throughout our journey, as she's a delight, and she suggested that we stop by the place where she used to live just for fun.

So we rolled into Port Townsend and swung right by the address.

We were greeted by a very angry woman who burst out of the house and accused us of all sorts of things and was just...none too pleased to see us. Without getting into details, it was just a very unpleasant interaction.

She warmed up a little by the time we were going to pull away, and even suggested a couple of places to go in town, but it really frazzled us. We started to wonder if everything we knew about Pegasus's previous owner (PPO for short, and to not name her in case she doesn't want to be named publicly...though it may have come up in a previous post? I don't know. Whatever.) was totally incorrect. Maybe she was a grifter. Maybe she was nuts. Maybe she was mean. We didn't know - we'd only known her sparingly over the last couple of months.

We went into the waterfront town and walked it off a little. We grabbed lunch and got a little froyo and started to reset ourselves and feel normal again, but we were just drained from long hikes the previous 2-3 days. So we did what anyone in a van might do: we found a beach, opened the back doors, and laid in bed looking at the water.

Van life is not always as cool as that sentence - there are plenty of times when it's peeing-in-jars or struggling to find a place to safely spend the night. But this was one of those times where it was heavenly. We spent most of the afternoon and into the evening just...sitting around at the beach.

On the other hand, by 5 or 6:00 we still hadn't figured out where we'd sleep that night. Another campervan showed up nearby around 6:00 and backed up to do the exact same thing we were doing, so Jenna hatched the plan to go ask them where they might be spending the night.

After several minutes of thinking about it, Jenna went and stood on the beach near their van, turned around, made eye contact, and sparked up a conversation.

One thing led to another and one of the two women in the van mentioned that she was a massage therapist - the very same profession PPO was in. Intrigued, Jenna had to ask if they knew each other. 

They did! They loved her! They were all old friends! They even knew Pegasus!

Furthermore, Jenna asked if they had suggestions for where to park the van overnight and one of them, Sheryl, said "my house!" As luck would have it, the street sort of dead ends at her house and there's a little nook where two vehicles fit quite nicely. It's in a shaded area, and since there are only 2-3 houses on the rest of the street, it's incredibly quiet.

We followed her back to her house where she invited us in to use the restroom and share some muesli because she has an organic muesli company and wanted to offer us some. Between the parking lot at the beach and back at her house, we must have gabbed for 4 hours and just had a wonderful time. The only thing that stopped us was realizing that it was 10:30 p.m. and that's well past Jenna's bedtime. 

So to summarize: we arrived in Port Townsend and went to the house of the previous owner where we were met with a very erratic and upset woman who wanted nothing to do with PPO. We then hung out for a bit in town and went to the beach, where we met two friends of PPO who had nothing but wonderful things to say about her. One of them invited us to her home to spend the night (she would've offered us to stay in the house but she AirBnBs it and the spare room(s) were occupied) and we proceeded to warmly chat for hours and are now informed of her delicious organic muesli.

It was quite a day.

It's Hot!

We've been reading about and hearing about a legendary heat wave sweeping the western United States for a couple of weeks now, but by and large we've been OK. The weather got into the 90s when we were in a few places, but it was always cool overnight, and that's the important part when sleeping in a van that doesn't have AC (it has AC when the engine is on, but there's not an AC unit. A furnace, but no AC). 

The tables turned in the last couple of days.

On Monday we left Jackson (more on our time - our second time - in Jackson here) and headed west into Idaho. We planned to stop for an hour or two in Idaho Falls - a place we'd previously spent 2 nights and which has a delightful river-walk area and the best cheese/gelato shop outside of Italy - and then sleep at a camping area we'd found in Twin Falls. The campsite was down a rough road, but it was right on the Snake River Canyon and very very beautiful.

The day started fine. We got to Idaho Falls, walked a loop around the river-walk, got some cheese and gelato, and carried on. 

It was a pretty rocky drive into the camp spot, and we were getting there around 5:30 p.m. You might think that this is the time of day when things start to cool down, and normally you would be right, but not this week and not in Idaho. 

As of 6:15 it was still 100 degrees in Twin Falls, and our campsite was in direct sunlight. No trees, no shade of any kind, nothing. The views were great, as you can see below, but there's only so much a great view can do when it's so hot that you can feel sweat dripping down your ankles while hiding in the shade of your van.

(not pictured: unbearable heat and flying ants)

By 6:30 we were cooked. We found a hotel 30 miles away for an affordable price and made a beeline for it. It had AC and an ice machine, and honestly, that would've been worth more than the $85 it actually cost. 

But there's more!

We had planned to spend Tuesday-Friday in Boise and had previously booked an Airbnb in the city. We arrived on Tuesday afternoon and headed straight for a Planet Fitness to get an indoor exercise before grabbing a late lunch.

At some point I checked my phone, as the heat was once again unbearable. This is what greeted me.

107 degrees is one thing. 104 in the shade is another thing. Arriving on the afternoon of the hottest day in recorded history in the city of Boise? My god. 

A little research has shown that this was the record high for July 6 and maybe not the hottest day in Boise's history, but it only missed that mark by about 3 degrees. And this was the kind of heat where it was still 90 degrees at midnight. At midnight. It was still 90 degrees AT MIDNIGHT.

So we spent most of our time indoors and will continue to do so over the next few days.

It's hot.

We Have Friends Again!

The last 16 months (ish) have been weird for almost everyone. Jenna was able to interact with coworkers on a regular basis, and I had occasional interactions with humans beyond the grocery store, but by and large we spent very little time with friends. 

As such, our first leg of adventure was down through the southeast to see a bunch of friends. (Note: We're vaccinated.) It was wonderful and therapeutic and frankly a little strange to suddenly be spending time with people. As we were approaching the first friends' house, it dawned on me that I hadn't shaken someone's hand in over a year. I genuinely wondered if I'd forgotten how to do it.

It went well - I didn't screw up and grab his elbow or anything.

So we visited friends and all of their kids - they had 2, 2, 3, 3, 1, and 2 kids - and then went back to Cleveland before starting this western leg of the advanture.

Back to the present: I wrote recently about how we made a couple of friends at a campsite, but we hadn't seen anyone we knew in over a month when we arrived at the Bozeman airport on June 28th. We were about to spend a week with a 3rd wheel, and that wheel was Kevin Malone, who I've known since pre-school. 

We had some concerns about whether or not it would be fun or exhausting or cramped or heavenly or terrible to have a 3rd person riding along in close-quarters, and while he'd be sleeping in a tent overnight, it was still a pretty stark change of pace. We'd suddenly be eating an extra 50% of food, drinking 50% more water, and taking up 50% more space in the van by just...existing. 

It worked out. 

As it turns out, our biggest problem was that he's in way better shape than us.

For the first few days we were near Big Sky, Montana. We hiked and camped and swam and hiked and sat in the river that flowed less than 20 feet from our campsite. 

It was everything we hoped it could be, and probably more. But that's not all we did that week.

We went toward Jackson because, as luck would have it, another guy we went to pre-school with was going to be in Jackson for the weekend and had rented a cabin. BUT THERE'S MORE. Another guy I've known since I was 7 would be in town as well.

So on Friday we hung out in Teton Village and visited with the Schultzes (I played baseball with Adam when we were 7 and 8, respectively. Also he hit a homerun once at Hall Field and I still remember it pretty clearly), which was just an A+ experience. Their 16 month old daughter gave me a world class hug (a photo which I'm not gonna share because little kids can't reasonably say whether or not they want their photo shared, so instead I'm attaching a photo of the adults) and it was just so so so good to see them.

(my people)

And then AFTER that, we met up with Graham and his wife Sam and their dog Juneau and spent big chunks of the weekend with them.

Photos!

It seems worth noting that on Sunday, Jenna, Kev, and I went on the longest hike 2 of us have ever done (according to Fitbit), which is the 3rd photo here. It was about 33,000 steps, which could've been anywhere from 12-16 miles, and up about 2,300 feet of elevation, to the lake pictured above.

So to recap: Malone flew in on Tuesday, we picked him up and hiked a bunch near Bozeman. We stopped at his triathlete-coach's house for a night in Alta, Wyoming, then came back to Jackson. We visited with Adam and Jane + toddler. Then we visited with Graham and Sam and Juneau. Then we hiked a bunch on Sunday. Then we dropped Kev off with Graham Monday morning so he could fly back from Salt Lake. Then we ate breakfast at Graham's cabin-resort, which was kind of stealing. Now we're alone again.

That was a really good week.

June 9th was Excellent!

 June 9th. What a day.

The short summary of today is that you, whoever you are, should visit Yellowstone. The long summary is...well, here goes.

We arrived at our Yellowstone campsite at about 6 p.m. on July 8th. The drive in along the Beartooth Highway was other-worldly. Absolutely breathtaking. We saw more mountains than I knew existed, plus some yellow-bellied marmots and a handful of mountain goats. 

A random spot along the Beartooth Highway

We got to the campsite and couldn't believe our eyes. We grabbed a spot no more than 10 feet from a big river that's all runoff from the mountains - which we could see from bed. Bonus, the sun set behind those mountains.

Peg + campsite on June 9th.

So we went to the park to see how far away we were and to get a small taste of what Yellowstone could offer before bed on our first night (the 8th). We saw a moose through the woods in a small town outside the entry gate, but couldn't get a good look at it. That's OK though, we thought. 

Into the park, we drove to the Lamar Valley, a notedly wonderful wildlife viewing area. We saw hundreds of bison and just marveled at the general beauty of the area. After a bit, we turned around and headed back to camp. But on the way out of the park...we saw a bear. It's unclear if it was a smallish grizzly or a brown version of a black bear (black bears can be brown out here. It's weird.) Either way, it was excellent. It was off the side of the road, just foraging in a small grassy area. 

In the end, we didn't get back until a few minutes after 10 and didn't get to sleep til closer to 11:30 or so...which was the end of a long day.

And then July 9th happened.

We were both awake by about 6:15, and as we started a morning snuggle we thought aloud "...should we just go into the park? We're awake...should we just go?"

Obviously the answer was yes.

We were on the road to the park at 6:28 a.m. Apparently the legendary wolves of the Lamar Valley are most active at sunrise and sunset, and even though sunrise is more like 5:15 a.m. here (woof), 7:00 probably wouldn't be bad. 

We took a leisurely drive into the park and didn't see much out of the ordinary...except what appeared to be the SAME bear in the SAME spot, but 10 hours later! That was cool. 

The bear which we were later told was a grizzly.

The valley itself was great, although nothing overly notable. It's a pretty majestic place, so it's cool to see in general, but aside from several hundred bison, we didn't see anything unusual. We pressed on to Slough Creek, as we'd gotten a tip that a moose and calf typically hung around there. As we got close, we saw no less than 30 cars on the main road, then another 50+ on Slough Creek road. All eyes were pointed up onto a hillside, far across Slough Creek itself.

Turns out there was a mama wolf and 2 or 3 cubs. They were far enough away that seeing them was a thrill, but not a life-changer. We could only really tell that it was a wolf because someone suggested it and then we saw it move. And even then, it was only through a viewing scope.

So OK, 9 a.m. and we'd already seen a wolf, and that meant we didn't have to wake up at 4 to do it like a lot of people.

With that in our back pocket, we took a hike at Yellowstone River Overlook trail, which was exactly as the name implies: a beautiful trail that runs alongside the Yellowstone River, looking into the valley for about 2 miles. It was gorgeous. There wasn't a lot of wildlife, though we did see a beautiful northern bluebird and took about 20 photos of it. Then we had breakfast.

The bluebird

Jenna on the overlook trail

It was a busy morning. 

From breakfast we continued toward Mammoth. There was nothing to see at Tower due to construction, and we drove past what amounted to be a bear jam near Petrified Tree. The bear jam was FAR worse going east and we were going west, so that was nice. Also the bear was not exactly visible. 

We got to Mammoth around 12:30, and it was packed. The whole intersection near the hot springs was just slammed full of cars, and a few elk were just kind of hanging around the area. The visitor centers, as it turns out, are all still observing COVID suggestions, so all exhibits were off-display, which was a bummer. However, we took the chance to just catch our breath. 

We napped in our house-van and laid around for about 90 minutes.  We did nothing. And it was wonderful. 

We rolled out of bed, snacked a lot, and used wifi at the visitor center, where we peppered a ranger (Ryan Fox!) with questions about all kinds of things. Around 3:00 we moved the van to a different part of the area and checked out the hotel lobby for water and gift-shop stuff. Around 4:00 we went to the hot springs scenic drive, which was about 1.5 miles of "...whoa. That's so weird looking."

Mammoth Hot Springs

We did the loop a second time but got out halfway and walked out on some boardwalks to see some of the more bizarre formations up-close. It was outstanding.

By 5:15 we were headed back toward camp, but the distance between camp and Mammoth was nearly 60 miles. So we drove. 

I wanted to take a side-road, a one-way street that runs parallel to the main road, but it was closed. So that stunk. But right near where it let out was that same spot from the bear jam in the morning, and wouldn't you know it? Another bear jam. Except this time it was worse going west and we were going east (not many people stay east of the park, so we weren't competing with a lot). We briefly caught sight of a mama and cub or cubs!

But with so much traffic, I felt guilty stopping, and ultimately we drove past...and then turned around and parked someplace easier.

Right as we got to a good spot to see what was going on, the mama brown bear (black bear, but brown) started ducking into the woods. But just before leaving our sight, the two cubs tried to climb a tree! So we briefly saw two cubs climbing a tree! Moments later, they were gone, and the rangers dispersed the crowd and traffic went back to normal. It was too quick to get a photo, unfortunately. 

And then we were off again.

We were planning to stop at Slough Creek again to look for the moose. Also we weirdly get cell reception there so we wanted to get the geotag for a fox den that a friend told us about. But before we could get there, a massive throng of cars presented itself. It was as crowded as the morning's wolf-sighting, so we figured it was another wolf.

We were partially right.

It was 3 wolves.

One black wolf (the animal is technically a gray wolf, but this one was black) was trotting and half-running, which is only really notably because it was very near about 50 bison. Were we about to see a hunt? What would happen? Is it great? Or horrifying? or both? I lean toward horrifying, but you never know.

In any case, we watched through binoculars as the bison chased the wolf off! Multiple times!

The wolf being chased by bison!

The two other wolves were not far off either, though they were mostly just laying down about 300 yards away. We kept wondering if the one was going to work solo and try to get a bison or if the others were going to jump in and help, but neither really happened. After a solid 30-45 minutes, we realized how exhausted we were and decided to move toward our campsite.

But then we had to stop and use a toilet and also make/eat dinner. And then we still had to find the fox den. And then drive to our campsite.

We were pretty well alone as we passed the fox den spot at 5-10 mph but we didn't see anything. By the time I got back to the 45 mph speed limit, I saw brake lights.

Sure enough, a fox crossed the road in front of the truck in front of us. I was pretty shocked. We kind of pulled alongside the little critter carefully, as I was afraid s/he would dart back into the road. Thankfully it didn't, but it did stop to eat some kind of grass right next to our car. And it looked up at us. And oh my god...I didn't know a fox could be so wonderful-looking. It had these piercing eyes that I was completely unprepared for. It was so cool.

So then we drove back to camp. Ho-hum. 

And we got there moments before sunset to see the clouds above the mountains turning a fiery red, then orange, then purple, and within about 30 seconds they were just dark and gray.

Sunset.

What a day.

Also, for the record, we started coming back to camp at 5:30 and we arrived at camp at 9:05.

We Met Some People!

Meeting people can be hard. It sounds crazy when you're younger - you think that you'll just...meet people all the time and it'll be easy. But that's not how it ends up happening as an adult. It's especially not how it happens for us because we don't like a lot of social-things: social drinks like beer, wine, coffee, or tea are all just gross to us, so we don't go to a lot of cafes or bars. Also there's been a pandemic so it's not as if we're going out to meet-up groups or anything like that. As such, we don't meet a lot of people. 

We were told that we'd meet TONS of people on this adventure, which would make sense in campgrounds. However, we're mostly doing National Forest land and dispersed camping, so we're alone more often than not. So how do we meet people? In short, we rarely do.

But it turns out that when we meet people, we really meet some good ones.

We had only really interacted with a few people before Memorial Day (about 4 days into our adventure). We went out of our way at the Badlands to go meet someone's dog and then spoke with the human (and the dog) for about 20 minutes, and that was about it. But when Memorial Day came, we were in Rapid City, South Dakota. We were finishing up a 12(ish) mile bike ride when we took a small detour in a city park to see a piece of the Berlin Wall. Neither of us were experts on the Berlin Wall, and I expected to see a small chunk of concrete with a little bit of information nearby.

What we got was a full slab of wall - it was probably 12 feet high and 8 feet wide. Why Rapid City? I don't know. But that's not the point. The point is the people.

(Berlin Wall)

I read the info-boards and Jenna asked me to summarize them as she had been reading out of order and got confused.

Midway through my recap, a 75 year old woman arrived and began talking to us through a thick Polish accent. How do I know she was 75 and it was a Polish accent? Because she literally did not stop talking to us for about 35 minutes.

She started in with how she hates Memorial Day because it, in some ways, glorifies war and she hates war. (OK. We get it. We also dislike war.) Then she got into having emigrated to the US in the 1980s. Then she got into having traveled all over the US (OK. We're with you again here). Then she got into how much she loves dogs (Hard yes from us). Then she told us how her dog's name is Ufo, like UFO but one word, because she rescued him and nobody knew where he came from. Then she told us how morally bankrupt Donald Trump is (obviously yes). Then she told us how terrible the American diet is (agree again!). Then she told us about some places she loved in Europe (she's on a roll!). Then she told us about how she hates Memorial Day again. 

Now, you might be reading this and thinking "well you guys agree on some stuff, this sounds like a nice conversation." But let me tell you something, my friends, this was not a conversation. This was a monologue. Anytime she said something that we could maybe chime in and agree with or expound on, we got maybe 2-3 words in and she was off and rolling again. 

She told us about how she knew all of the police in town, how she had apparently gotten her purse stolen and needed a new license/credit card/social security card, and how she loves Montana. She told us about her husband farting in bed and blaming it on the dog, then the dog farting in bed and blaming it on the husband. She told us about how the land doesn't belong to white people or Lakota Sioux because the animals were here millions of years before them. She told us, again, how much she hated Memorial Day and war in general.

While it was delightful and sweet and funny, it did get a bit exhausting. At about the 20 minute mark we were trying to come up with an escape plan and having no luck. Some time in that 30-35 minute range she saw a man walking about 50 feet away with a small dog and she just about lost her mind. She started shouting and waving at the dog, telling it how much she loved it, how they should be friends, how the dog should come see her, etc. 

The man was pretty confused, but reluctantly brought the dog over. It was our escape-window! 

We mounted our bikes between greetings with the dog and thought we could be on our way while she was distracted...and we ALMOST made it. She asked where we were going next, where we might have lunch, what kind of car we were driving, and more.

But with our sights set back on Pegasus, we blew kisses, she told us she loved us, and she bid us farewell.

And we exhaled.

Of course, that was only the first time we met someone noteworthy in that span of 36 hours.

The very next night we stumbled on a wild-campsite just outside of Custer State Park in South Dakota. We were in the Black Hills National Forest and happened upon this weird little camping-nook and pulled in, thrilled with how close it was to the park. Jenna hung the hammock up on a hillside and I  relaxed in the van. But then another van pulled in and parked next to us.

I was a little bothered at first. This was an area about 50 feet wide, but I assumed the people would be quiet/respectful and there would be no issue. I nodded hello as I joined Jenna on the hammock for an hour or so. As we swung and talked, I thought I heard voices speaking in German from the other van. Kinda fun.

As we returned for dinner, we greeted our neighbors, and Jenna promptly asked where they were from. Switzerland and Germany.

Switzerland and Germany! They're European! We love Europe! New best friends!

To summarize the evening, we spent about 4 hours talking with Max (German) and Karin (Swiss) about everything: van life, polite people in racist parts of the US, how fat Americans really are, how interesting it is that European culture changes over such short distances, surfing (they LOVE to surf, and judging by their Instagram pages and how often they do it, they seem to be quite good at it), and who should visit who in what country. But the most important thing was that they'd been in the US for 2 months in their campervan ("Marta" was inscribed on the side, though we didn't ask if it was pre-named or not) but had not yet had a campfire.

Done. Campfire.

While sitting around the campfire, it came out that neither of them had EVER had s'mores. 

You may recall that a moment ago I mentioned how we'd spoken about how fat and unhealthy Americans can be, so of course we had to introduce them to a dessert where you take something that's 90% sugar and heat it up, then stick on top of something that's about 90% sugar, and eat it between two things that are about 40% sugar.

Neue freunde!

Say what you want about the calorie content, it was delicious. And they both loved s'mores. In response, Karin had us slice open a banana and fill it with chocolate, then wrap it in foil and put it on the fire. The name for it was not quite the translation of "chocolate banana," but I don't know how to spell it so it'll just stay in my head. They were delicious.

AdVANtures generally mean going to bed early and getting up early, as once the sun goes down there's not much left to do in your day. This has meant prepping for bed around 9:30 (very difficult for me - I'm a late person). But we had such a nice time with Karin and Max that we didn't get in bed until almost 11. 

The next day we had a wonderful time passing each other in the park and waving like maniacs.

Anyway, the point of it all is that we met three people in two extremely different settings, and came away with two lovely memories of extremely different types. Hopefully we see two of them again, and the 3rd one...well...maybe not.