I apologize for the rather lengthy hiatus between blog parts, especially considering I never finished the other one, but now I hope to fill you in on the rest of the things that took place so as to fully satisfy the even the most ardent curiosity.

After we had our encounter with Wolfgang we finished packing up, (someone also offered him some of the Ramen we were eating; he declined) we performed our lively ritual of deciding seating arrangements in the car. I'll explain that later. It was nice that seating, though, wasn't too much of a hassle. There wasn't anybody that we had separate because they couldn't get along or anything like that.

We continued at that night up in the Wasatch Mountains. I'm getting ahead of myself though. We were required to drive through the heart of Salt Lake City in order to get to northern Utah. As we drove through SLC, we noticed that there were many factories with tall towers or more like flumes I guess that had gigantic flames shooting out of the top. We are still curious as to what they were, and I maintain that all that last energy into the atmosphere could easily be harnessed and used to power countless homes across the nations. Anyway, when we were getting up there in northern Utah and even was drawing nigh our thoughts turned to accommodation for the night. I suggested that we stay up in the Wasatch Mountains to our right and soon enough we saw a sing for Wasatch/Cache National Forest or something like that. We drove up into the mountains and the shadows were already lengthening so when we saw this little turn off for what looked like the beginning of a trail or campsite we pulled in. A big authoritative white sign welcomed us and warned us that it would be a good idea for us to make sure everything was locked up and also that it would be a good idea to hide all you valuables. We read between the lines it said though this was a bad place to stay the night, besides it looked rather like a dump and it was right next to the road. We kept on up the road and eventually happened upon a campsite beside a like beside a big resort smack dab in the middle of town. I wasn't very impressed, but everyone was getting tired and we wanted to have the tents pitched before nightfall, which was fast approaching. It cost something like $12 a night or something like that so it definitely wasn't worth it; we would rather brave wolves and snow than spend money to lay down on a piece of earth. We began up another road to the left and a sign told us that at the end there was a ski resort. I love ski resorts, but everyone else wasn't too jazzed about sleeping in snow. We U-ed and continued down our original path in faith. Well, it paid off not long and we found a nice little campsite beside a chortling stream and the only other person there was the caretaker and he didn't even pay us enough attention to come ask for some money, so we didn't give him any. By now it was very dark, but we were delighted that for the first time on the entire trip we would finally be allowed to make a fire in the fire pit there. Someone set my tent up for me while I was off in hot pursuit of a piece of elusive firewood. It was such an amazing place, a bit chilly but not bad at all just enough to make you feel like some warm cooked food and a nice warm fire. Anyhow, come next morning we were again required to attempt to fit everything into the trunk yet another time. Then came the time for our long awaited ritual. What we would do was this. The driver (who was chosen by popular or more vociferous vote) stood in the open door with his (or her) eyes shut tight and would sing an enchanting melody that would cause us all to spring to action and run like wild banshees around and around Ol' Betsy. Once the exuberant driver ceases to sing. everyone jumps into the nearest door and that's where you sit (with two exceptions you can never ride shotgun on two consecutive legs and the very last person in the back is required to sit in the middle.)

As we gleefully drove down the mountainside that morning the sheer beauty of the pine forest struck us all dumb, so silence pervaded; mostly as far as I remember. That day, which was Friday, we were required to be in Walla Walla by the afternoon. So we began the arduous journey. Through the Blue Mountains in northeastern Oregon there was 7-11 feet of snow in many places. Some of it may have been drifts, but suffice it to say that there was plenty of snow. I was very excited about that, but as I left the car and began to wade through the snow, I realized that flip-flops were very bad shoes to where in snow. So I donned my wool socks and re-applied the flip-flops. They were soon soaked and my feet were freezing again, but I had to sled at least a little bit, because I'd never done it before.

Not long after that we came out into the broad sweet onion valley. I don't think that's it's formal name, but apparently Walla Walla is quite famous for there sweet onions. I wish I'd tried some while I was there. We dropped Shama and Temple off at some of Shama's friends house to stay there and then dropped Brian off at the dorm with his friend Irving. Kurtz and I stayed at a glorified retirement center with his grandma. It was actually a very nice facility. We were rather hoping to be able to play some shuffleboard, but alas the opportunity never arose. That evening, we three guys went to some of Karissa's friends house to eat. (Karissa is one of our friends that lives in Walla Walla; I think I mentioned here in my previous blog.) The family had lived in Hong Kong for many years and we had sushi for dinner. I will have the respect to admit that I was a little doubtful of the tastiness of sushi, but once I started to eat I couldn't stop. There was so much sushi, and it was so good. There were also some noodles and podded beans to eat, but the sushi was definitely the highlight.

Back at the retirement center Joel and I hit the high and I slept fitfully. I've always wanted to say slept fitfully, but to this day, I'm not sure what it means. Anyway, Sabbath morning we awoke to a breakfast of split pea soup toast with peanut butter and little carrot and grapes in equally small receptacles. Well, actually the grapes were all de-stemmed and stuffed into a mason jar. Despite the appearance though, it was a quite tasty meal. We went to church with his grandma to the village church in Collegeplace. After church we took grandma back to her apartment and we went to a Sabbath school that Karissa had recommended to us that was on campus. It was interesting, though very different than the typical Sabbath school that I'm used to.

The whole weekend that we were at Walla Walla happened to be the weekend that they had some big hot air balloon event going on; so all weekend there was the balloons floating around everywhere. Many times very low. We went and watched a couple of balloons land that afternoon, and Karissa and Brian even helped them fold one up so that they could put it in their trailer. While chasing one balloon, I ran across a brown hair rubber band, so I picked it up and washed it off and it's been on my wrist ever since. You might even see me wear it if you see me.

On Sunday we were off to Auburn on the other side of Washington to go visit my grandma and grandpa. Shama opted to stay with her friend that day, so she didn't get the pleasure of meeting them, but from what I hear she had tons of fun watching old black and white movies from the 20s... or something like that. At my grandparents house in Auburn one of the primary things that we did was to move all their bookcases and all the books on them out into the hall where grandma though they would be more aesthetically pleasing. I must admit, they did look nice out there all lined up perfectly like ants marching into little mound of habitual habitation. Our services were also beckoned upon to remove an offending limb that was hanging dangerously low over the driveway. After much grunting that first evening we finally fell it only to find out the next morning that it was the wrong branch. Oh well, Kurtz climbed up the right tree and we pulled that one out too.  My aunt Mindy and Uncle Mark also live in the same house on the top floor, so we also saw them as well as their delinquent mutt, Billy.  I must not omit to say that that one eventide that we spent with them grandma made us this delectable curry with whole cashews, which was quite tasty.

That was the first week of our road trip. Still far from being over, I will recount as far as the Eller's house for reasons of time and space and laziness mostly. Besides it will probably save me some embarrassment at the same time.

Monday we had the task of taking a detour to south Washington to pick up the renegade Shama. She seemed happy enough to rejoin the group. We were originally planning on staying somewhere in Idaho that night, but we gave that idea up and decided to go all the way to the Eller's place in Montana that night. Before we did though, we got sidetracked on a few routes to see a few old places that Kurtz used to live when he was a little wipper snapper.

Arrival at Eller's was fairly late. I remember that I was driving and I was kind of scared because I was going the speed limit on their little windy roads at night, but it still seemed really fast to me. No problem though, I was in a rather subdued morose mood that evening anyway for some reason. That night the three guys stayed in the authentic official 1980 winter Olympics camp trailer. Once I saw the little plaque I was so enraptured to be honored to stay in the same trailer that possibly Craig Kressler or Tom Plant slept in anyway. How could I ever know?

The rest of our time in Montana was spent canoeing, watching bald eagles soar, having snowball fights, snowboarding, fixing and eating delumptuous food, pruning blueberry bushes, hiking, getting thrown in the lake, kidnaping Shama, and searching for goose eggs. If I were to go into detail I think I should pop. So I won't. If you really want to know you could just ask me. Ah, I just remembered, someone had the privilege to experiment with new hair cutting techniques on my hair. There was also experimentation done on Kurtz' and Brian's respective pates as well.

Last but not least. I don't have any pictures up yet, but you can find a few pictures at the following links. The first is Shama's blog and the second one is on Phoebe's myspace. Also I'll put a link from Joel where you can see the map of our route that we took.