Fun and Games Dept

We drove from La Grande, Oregon to Elko, Nevada. The trip from Boise to Elko was along back roads. It was nice to get off the interstate for a couple hundred miles.

We settled for the night at the Ramada Inn at the Stockman’s Casino. It wasn’t very busy and the natives were chatty. Elko has three legal brothels. We didn’t search them out. I’m pretty sure the cocktail waitress that brought me a beer was drunk out of her mind. Another woman hit on Earl and I giggled.

At the end of the evening one of the one-armed bandits gave me $500 so we decided to call it a night.

We drove from Butte, Montana to LaGrande, Oregon by way of Spokane and Richland, Washington.

I had no idea that eastern Washington State was such a “cold desert”.

The more you know.

We drove from Laurel, Montana to Butte, Montana, with seven hours at Yellowstone National Park in between.

I told Earl I’d like to come back to Yellowstone, rent an RV, and spend some time camping at the park, doing some hiking (more than we did today) and just enjoying downtime in the middle of nature. It can be winter, it can be summer, it doesn’t matter. Yellowstone is that fantastic and I could enjoy it during any season.

We spent the afternoon in Theodore Roosevelt National Park (South Unit). It is stunning. I lost myself in the beauty for a bit and it felt good. 

The prairie dogs do it right.

Earl and I drove from Tomah, Wis. to Jamestown, N.D. It’s been a misty drive, with the temperature never getting above 50ºF, but it’s been enjoyable. We’ve been singing, talking, and laughing in the Jeep.

We stopped at the Mall of America for a bit. Earl had never been there. I visited back on a solo vacation in 2013 and liked the experience. It hasn’t changed much in nearly five years, but it’s still enjoyable for a mall.

Tomorrow we continue west. We’ll finally cross into the Mountain Time Zone as we make our way across the prairie into the Badlands. We are off to a great start.

Earl and I were on the road promptly at 5:00 PM Central. We are headed west on a 10-day road trip. We have things to see, states to conquer, and relaxation to be had. I’m looking forward spending every waking moment with Earl discovering what we find.

Make life grand.

I spend a few hours a week “getting away” via Google Maps. While I’m not a big fan of Google (due to privacy concerns), I have to admit their data collection on places around the world is top notch. Being able to drag an icon onto a street and have a 360º view of that spot is awesome. I’ve traveled all over the Americas, Europe, Asia, and Australia by this means. It helps me escape.

A bunch of our friends like to take cruises; they want to go someplace warm and tropical on a big ship, lounge around, get waited on, and see crystal blue waters and a selection of aquatic life do their thing in the ocean. This type of vacation is enjoyable for me as well, at least until we get to the point where I have to baste myself in sunblock so that my primarily Irish skin doesn’t burn within ten minutes of the first whale jump. It’s probably because I grew up in the Lake Ontario Snowbelt in Upstate New York, but I don’t enjoy hot temperatures as much as I enjoy reasonable temperatures, and by reasonable I’m talking low humidity, a decent breeze, and something around 21ºC (70ºF).  One of the reasons we didn’t move to the South when we decided to leave the Empire State was because we don’t like hot and sultry at all. I like the snow, albeit, when enjoyed in temperatures that don’t require mandatory frostbite.

One of the places I’ve visited via Google Maps in Iqaluit, Nunavut. This city in northern Canada is very intriguing to me. You can’t drive there, you can’t even take a ship there year ’round, and the winter nights can be very long. It’s beyond the “tree line”, so there’s little foliage.  But I find the city to be very inviting. I really want to visit there. Convincing my husband that we should go there on vacation is another story. 

I found this video two folks made during their visit to Iqaluit several years ago. I hope you find it as enjoyable as I did.

On Saturday night we went to a party at the local Hamburger Mary’s. The event was called “Grrr, Woof”, and as one can tell by the name of the party, it was geared toward the gay bear set and their friends. We had a really fun time.

Since the marquee on the outside of the building said “Grrr, Woof, Tonight!”, I had to take a moment to wonder why there was a bachelorette party standing in the middle of the dance floor, not moving, when we arrived to a room otherwise filled with good sized men, most of whom had some sort of facial hair. Hamburger Mary’s isn’t in Boystown, where a lot of the bachelorette parties terrorize the streets along the gay bars in the traditional gayborhood. 

Now, I know that public venues are open to the public and I guess I wouldn’t want to see the bachelorette party thrown out of the place, but I can’t understand why they would want to be there in the first place. There were a couple of heavier go-go dancers from time to time. A fully bearded bear did a couple of drag performances on the stage. And there were a lot of sweaty, bigger, shirtless guys milling about the space quaintly named “Mary’s Attic”. But there in the middle of the dance floor was a smattering of women with short skirts, ridiculously high heels, and tiaras looking around looking for some sort of Twinkie fest and there was just none of that going on at this party called “Grrr, Woof!”.

The bachelorette party left after about 20 minutes of standing in the middle of dance floor looking uncomfortable. A second party came in about an hour later, but they bolted for the door as soon as they realized the aforementioned bear drag person was using the ladies’ room as a dressing room.

The gay ‘world’ is just as diverse as the rest of the world. I kind of feel like bachelorette parties are in search of the stereotypical, smooth, oh-so-cute, super thin, hyperventilating twink who breaks into tears every time Katy Perry walks onto his television screen. If you’re into that, OK, but don’t stand there in the middle of the dance floor gaping at the men with a disappointed look.

We know how to party.