Been a while

Well, long time no talk: can't believe the last time I wrote was in July and I feel bad so I will try and be regular now that I am back at school!

Speaking of which, I am back in Lethbridge and trying to settle in to my new place. I had a brief trip to California (much too brief due to moving for almost 2 weeks) of hanging out with as many of you as possible and of course spending as much time as I could with Jenn, my GF and yes I ignored some very sage advice from Brian (glad I did though) and fell for a girl right before I moved out of the country, but that's just the way it goes: like Tensen always says "cuz he asked her out" which in this case is definitely true.

My dad and I then began a long arduous journey up to Chico to grab my stuff out of storage, seeing both Red, Brian, and the Stuarts (Kristiaan thanks again for dinner) which ended up taking an extra 2 days from what I planned (also hitting the dump and goodwill stores to get rid of some stuff, but staying one night over at Gold Country Casino Hotel where their deluxe room which was only $10 more than the regular midweek was FANTASTIC andalmost made it worth it but I lost $40), we then headed north through Alturas to Goose Lake. The rest stop off of hwy 299 was my favorite rest stop yet with a nice breeze and surrounded by pine tress. We luckily got a room in Oregon >>>>> due to a large number of hang gliders in the area for some reason; must have been a conference or something.

We got up, had some breakfast and started our way towards Twin Falls Idaho. The scenery between Oregon and Idaho is pretty but we had a couple hills as well as in the Alturas part and with the temperature in the 90's with a heavy trailer my Xterra was having some heat issues that we had to watch. We missed looking for the Sawtooth Mtn's (I think the link for Idaho is theonly view we ended up getting of them) though but it was hazy and I assume we couldn't see them on the first day anyway. We stayed in Twin Falls.

Our next destination was West Jellystone where originally we planned to just drive right on through the Park but it takes a hell of a lot longer to get places with a trailer on your tail, so we aletered plan and decided to stay the night and go through the park in the early morning. Besides, you have a better chance of seeing wildlife early in the morning. We briefly saw a moose in a wetland on the side of HWY o\just outside of West Yellowstone which was the only one we saw during the whole trip (don't even think of complaining Pop - I asked if you wanted to turn around!!!!) . We got into town and walked around a bit because my dad thought we should go to this one particular restaurant (but I have a general rule not to go anywhere that has no cars nearby , other customers etc., or in general appears to have no customers which is usually a very good indication of a bad restaurant but...). The place wasn't open yet and after looking for other places that met my Dad's high expectations we ended up right back where we started right when they opened and we gave it a try. The place was called the Oregon Short Line and they had a refurbished train car museum, as well as lots of train memorabilia which dad loved. Our waiter was great, the food was great, and the creme brulee was fantastic. But I still think my rule is agood way to go!!!

We then headed into Yellowstone early in the morning but that will be the next post!