Pee, Elks and Prison Shanks (OH MY!)

I've been slacking on adding pics from Arizona. In my defense, I haven't yet actually finished the rest of the disposable camera that I have those pics on. In my prosecution (heh), Dad sent me some pics AGES ago from the night that Mom and Dad rented a cabin up in the mountains by their house. It says it's "rustic". Mom did not know what "rustic" meant. The look on her face was pretty much priceless when we walked in.

No. Mom is NOT picking out my fleas. She is NOT GROOMING ME. It only looks like it. We're sitting on the front "porch" of the cabin and she's trying to help me dislodge a pesky barrette. She may have saved my life. Seriously. People have DIED by barrettes. Okay. Not DIED. But really, really sprained their ankles.

Seriously. It took like FOREVER to free me. But bonus shot! Front of the cabin and Dad's back end. OF HIS TRUCK. Sickos.

The cabin is basically two rooms. This is room number one. The living area, bedrooms and kitchen. Dude. It has electricity, running water and a fridge. It was totally awesome. The second room is the bathroom with a for-reals toilet, sink and shower. I am a person who refuses to pee outside. Ask my friend Tracy about road-tripping with me in the hills of Garland and me making them drive back to town so I can pee. I'm pretty sure that peeing outside is detrimental to your health. Maybe I should have invested in this. God love the internet.


The top bunk is where I got the best night's sleep of my life. Or I didn't hardly sleep at all since I was pretty terrified I was gonna fall out. The mattresses are this super plastic from NASA that was really loud. Dad was sleeping on the bottom bunk and Mom had the bed in the corner. She's pretty freaked by little spaces, so she called the bed immediately. Every single time I moved, the sleeping bag I was in made this awful noise and I KNEW I was waking up Dad every time I moved. Getting into it was okay, but getting out of it in the morning was a comedy of errors. It took Mom, me and a crack team of extrication specialists to get my butt out of bed. But really, that's not that different from every single morning of my life.


Dad had only to make one trip down the mountain to their house for something. Pretty remarkable, although we did pack 3/4 of the house. So after he got back and we were getting ready for food, we had a little friend stop by. Yeah. It was an elk. Kick ass. Read more about them here. Mom was very excited. Until he decided he REALLY, REALLY liked us. Then he named us George and petted us.

This is her supremely uncomfortable look. The elk obviously wasn't too concerned about us shooting him. Dumb elk. Dad totally has a carry and conceal license. And if that elk would have made a move on us, Dad would have shot it and Mom would have shanked it.

Yeah. He was super close. The possessed ELK FROM HELL!!! I think we probably could have just fed him bread out of our hands, but fortunately we're not idiots.

Dad is pretty brave here. But again, he is totally packing heat. The elk is literally raising it's back leg to scratch an itch on it's head. Pretty much never seen a hoofed animal do that one, so that was cool. He did eventually leave once dusk hit, but Mom was thinking he as about to bunk down and since the only available bed space was with her, she was freaked.

End of magical cabin trip. It was fun and thanks goes to the padres for hooking me up. I'm still on my sabbatical from work as I'm awaiting a new contract to come through. Luckily, I have things to do (and yet, still find myself being a lazy bum). I've been spending a little time painting the old house so that we can put that BIATICH up for sale. Anyone needing a house in beautiful Wyandotte county? Let me know and we'll talk.

Love,
Belinda