I beat the weather this time. Well, sort of. Every year when I go visit my parents in the Black Hills, the weather wreaks havok on my plans. Two years ago, I spent the night in a community center when the interstate shut down from too much snow. With no intentions of letting that happen again, last year I chose to travel a month earlier, and by airplane. But of course, it snowed too much just before I arrived and the trails I wanted to hike were all closed. Then my flight out got canceled due to freezing rain and I was stranded at the airport for eight hours. This year, I would not let the weather win again. I opted to drive once more (for flexibility if the weather did plan to suck) and to leave yet another month earlier.
I arrived on Monday, promptly checked the weather report, and discovered I’d have one nice day of weather… Tuesday. So mom and I (and the dogs) got up early that morning and hiked Harney Peak (one of the hikes the weather thwarted me from last year), and I showed that weather who’s boss! Of course, the next few days were cold, windy, or snowy… but I had that one good day, so my trip was a success. The only incident that I hold any sort of contempt at the weather for is when I woke up at 3 am one night, about to wet the bed, and had to go piss outside in the freezing, snowing, wind. I should explain. See, my parents live in a tiny one-bedroom ranch house. They built a chicken coop last week and decided I’d get to sleep in it, rather than taking up their entire living room during my stay. So me and the dogs had our own lovely 12-foot cabin, equipped with an air mattress, space heater, and no chickens. Oh, and no toilet. I’d have gone inside the house, but their dog would bark and I didn’t want to wake up the house at that early hour. So I bared my ass and peed ice… for like two minutes straight. It was miserable. But peeing aside, the chicken shack was quite nice and will never actually house chickens now. It’s going to stay a guest shack… and a guest shack with no toilet. Let’s hope future guests remember to let everything out before they go to bed.
I know you’d all love for me to continue with stories of my peeing adventures, but here are a few photos from the week…
Zoe at Sylvan Lake after we hiked Harney Peak
Bill’s barn
Baby Shitty stalks like a lion when hunting horses
Clancy is cute
Bobert unloads hay while wearing one of the many hats in his new hat collection
Jackie and Jemma
Sue’s dogs
Zoe on the trail to Harney Peak
and Pumpkin
by Sarah
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