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.
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.
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