Montana Sucks, North Dakota has Oil, and South Dakota needs to Learn How to Sing

I love a good adventure. I also enjoy a little reggae music.  Take those two things, 2 national parks, and karaoke night in South Dakota and it comes out to be a pretty good weekend.

I spent last week working in North Dakota.  I had never been to North Dakota.  There's not much to it.  Especially in Crosby, ND, population 1,089 (1,090 last week).  I left on Monday and traveled through Montana, and arrived upon my destination, just 5 miles south of Canada, just in time to enjoy a t-bone steak on Samson's tab.  If you have been following my blog this summer you have probably learned that I like lists.  And since I'm always trying to look at the cup half full, here is my list of things I enjoyed from North Dakota.

• Northern Accents

Ok, so North Dakota sucks.  It's ok though, because they have oil and I got paid.  This entry isn't about ND though.  It is about adventure.  It all began on the way home.  I left ND Friday with some bread, gatorade, and my sleeping bag in the back of my truck.  I drove throughout the day and arrived in Rapid City, SD around 7 or so.  My plans were simply to find a coffee shop with free internet and waste about 3 hours.  I found what has become one of my favorite coffee shops (although chances are I will never go there again) in Alternative Fuels, located in downtown Rapid City.  This place was great, but like all great things, not perfect.  Karaoke.  It is not necessarily a bad thing, but I think SD needs a few lessons in Karaoke.

1. It's not a concert. I feel as if I should be able to answer my phone whenever I please without having to exit the building.
2. A few bad singers are kind of fun to make fun of every now and then, but it gets old when the same crappy person sings 3 songs in a row.
3. If no one wants to sing, just give it a break. DJ funky mamma needs to take a few minutes off.

So this was a solid few hours of entertainment.  After the coffee shop closed I walked outside only to hear the sounds of South Africa.  Just down the street from the coffee shop there was a reggae band playing at a block party.  This was great, and I listened to every Bob Marley song on my ipod after the concert.  It was finally time for sleep.  Now when you are by yourself in a tourist town where you can't find a decent room for under $100 dollars what do you do? You got it, I busted out my sleeping bag in the back seat of the truck and slept like a baby for 6 straight hours.  

I woke up the next morning hungry and with an idea.  In this tourist town with many many expensive hotels, I figured it would be easy to find a free breakfast.  I was right.  I drove down to the local Quality Inn and found their breakfast bar where I enjoyed a waffle and delightful conversation from a nice family from Kansas. 

Now it was time to continue my along my journey to the main attraction. Mount Rushmore. I understand many people may find this national monument lame and not everything it's cracked up to be, but I am not one of those people.  I am the nerdy guy who goes there by himself and spends two hours taking pictures (some of which can be seen on fbook) and watching the video on how it was made. If you haven't been to Mount Rushmore before I would suggest you put it somewhere around half way down your list for semi-near future enjoyment. After seeing the giant heads of my country's great presidents, I went to the second national park on my list, Devil's Tower. This was neat, but once again in a nerdy geologist kind of way. Finally my adventure was over and I continued home.

So what did I learn from this experience you ask? I love tourism. I'm a sucker for it. Some people want to go to the places where there is no one, but not me. I mean, if there are thousands and thousands of people who want to see this "tourist trap" every year, it's got to be pretty cool right? So there, I said it. I'm not ashamed.  I'm a tourist. Bring on Jackson Hole and Yellowstone!

If April Showers bring May Flowers, What do June Snows Bring?

You know that 10,000 ft above sea level, side of a mountain looking straight down a 300 ft cliff in your Saturn Ion after you had just driven past a sign that definitely didn't have a picture of your vehicle, "What the hell am I doing" feeling? Ok, well maybe it isn't as common as I might have perceived at first, but it really is quite the rush.  I felt this rush for most of my day on Saturday as I decided to go exploring in the vast Wyoming wilderness.

On my adventure last Saturday I encountered snow.  At first I was excited. For a kid from Oklahoma, the snow comes few and far between, so whenever I saw piles of snow in the mountains I instantly pulled over the car and started to play in it.  A little childish yes, but still fun.  Now if this were the end of my snow story, things would be great. Sadly though I must continue.  As my Saturn Ion and I both continued to try and be things we are not, on off road vehicle and a mountain man, we came upon a section of road covered in snow with tire tracks going through it.  The snow was fairly deep, but to turn around and go back would cost me an extra 25 miles of mountain terrain to cross.  I should have turned around.  About 10 ft into this snow my car came to a stop.  A complete stop that is, where it will go neither forward nor backward.  Hmm... After 30 minutes of trying to solve this problem I was faced with a dilemma. Do I call someone from work and open myself up to be ridiculed for another 10 weeks, or do I go Man vs Wild on the situation? You guessed right, I took on the mountain in a fierce battle.

Step 1: Identify the problem - I was stuck.

Step 2: Ration Food and Water. You never know how long you are going to be out there.

Step 3: Become Oriented with your Surrounding - There was snow all around.  

Step 4: Locate items that could be useful; hammer, sticks, baby pine trees, rocks, snow, 

Step 5: Go MacGyver and get out of the snow

So here is what I did.  I got the jack out of the back of my car and lifted the front end of my car.  I wandered around in the forest until I found a handful of branches and put them under my tires.  I then cut down a few small pine trees to lay down as a track to get the car backed out.  Guess what? It worked! I was free and took the long way back around and safely arrived back in Rawlins.  Crisis averted once again.

So I know there is one question that is still bugging you.  Did I go fishing? Yes.  I suck at fishing.

The Weather

I think if you live in a small town you are required to talk about the weather at least once with anyone you have more than a 10 min conversation with.  I have a couple of hypotheses about this, but I'm pretty sure there is just not much else to talk about.  Yesterday it hit a blistering 80 degrees and it was the talk of the town.  Come to find out this was an extremely hot day for this town.  I love the weather here! 

So while on the subject of small towns I want to share a little bit about Rawlins with you.  It is in the middle of nowhere! The nearest Wal-Mart is 100 miles away.  It's ok though because between Alco and Davidson's Gun and Grocery I think I can get pretty much everything I need. 

My favorite place in town is Huckleberry's.  Huckleberry's is the local coffee shop.  I have lived in Rawlins for exactly one week now, and I have already become known by name and offered a job at this wonderful local expression of Wyoming pride. 

While I am in the middle of nowhere, there are some great people up here.  I attended a church at First Souther Baptist Church Rawlins during my first weekend in town and I was chased down and invited to lunch by one of the nicest ladies I have ever met.  I have also already been to one of the local lakes to go fishing and to a bbq all within my first week in town.  Although I am very far away from my friends, family, and loved ones, the community of the Equality State have been very kind and welcomed this okie into their state for the summer.  

So I would like to conclude this post with a list of my favorite things about Wyoming so far in no particular order:

• Pronghorn Antelope (google it, they are everywhere out here!)
• Huckleberry's Espresso
• Prairie Dogs 
• John Stuart
• Natural Gas
• Mountains
• 40 degree nights
• 70 degree days
• SNOW!
• Work Truck

The Art of Deception

So my stay in Denver is almost over.  I have seen people on the side of the street playing guitar, harp, bass, djembe, flute, and probably a few other instruments I can not recall at this moment.  That is not important though.  I arrived in Denver knowing I was going to get treated well, but by no means did I know what I was getting in to.  Before I go about listing off the ridiculous amount of things supplied by Samson, my company for the summer, I would like to remind you that if I were filling out a survey I would check the box "high school degree and some college." So this is the list of a few things I have received during my first week in Denver:

• 5 nights in the Sheraton in downtown Denver which is a literal hop, skip, and jump away from the office
• Meals for the week which include but are not limited to The Cheesecake Factory and world famous Denver Chop House and Brewery
• A moving stipend which is approximately 25 times the cost of gas to travel to Rawlins, WY from Norman
• A window office on the 30th floor of what might possible be the largest building I have ever been inside of.  Did I mention the view of the snowcapped Rockies out of that window?

I really hope they don't find out who I am.  This is kind of fun.

Denver

So here it goes. I'm a blogger. I hope that in the future this will entertain you and bring you excitement and laughter, but tonight it will be some of the many thoughts I have had after a 10 hour drive from Norman to Denver and the hour and a half I spent wandering the streets of downtown.



Let's back up for a minute. I am blessed. I have some very wonderful friends and live in a gospel community. What does that mean? I have no idea, but it is better than I could ever imagine. I spent last night with some of the people I love most in this world. We sang hymns and cried together (a manly sort of got something stuck in your eye crying that is). Not that odd right? Who wouldn't want to spend their last night in town with their best friends? What is crazy is that most of these people I have only been friends with for a semester. In that short semester they have truly brought joy and community into my life. Even better than that, they have brought the gospel. They confront me about my sin and praise me for things I haven't done. You guys are great, and you know who you are.



The Drive

I was really dreading the drive from Norman to Denver. I am not the biggest fan of being alone and 10 hours staring out at the beauty of western Kansas while my friends prepared for summer conference wasn't exactly my ideal lazy Sunday. I did prepare for it however though. A play list including the best of Simon and Garfunkel along with a long list of hymns, radio lab, and sermons seemed like they just might be able to do the trick. To my surprise the drive was not nearly as terrible as I had once assumed it would be. The bulk of it was spent listening to hymns and Kevin Twitt lecture about the postmodern hymn movement.



Denver

Wow. I arrived to the Sheraton around 8 mountain time and approached the front desk only to be greeted by the greatest British accent I could have imagined. She soon had me checked into my room and sent to room 915. Wow. I don' mean to sound like I have never stayed in a place like this before... but I haven't. There is a receptionist desk in my room for crying out loud. On that note, I will be taking applications for a personal summer secretary position. Pay sucks, but the company is great.



Downtown

To some people a nice relaxing night in the room after a long day driving would sound great. Not to me, I had to go explore. My hotel and office are right in the middle of downtown Denver. Wow. I felt like a freshman on campus as I walked around with my head pointed straight up looking at all of the giant buildings. I even found a map. I was a little intimidated to walk around by myself, but that did not stop me. I even made friends. One guy offered me pot while another asked me if I knew Denver very well because he was, "Looking to find some honies and rebound."



This is an exciting place. Maybe I will come up with more exciting stories from Denver. Maybe not.