Sunday Drives and Death Marches

So a couple of weeks ago, DB and I took the kidlets on a nice Sunday afternoon drive. We saw llamas, wild turkeys, horses, cows, the nests of "mud dobbers" and just had a lovely time. Despite the fact that I do not particularly love going on drives (I blame my parents--they know who they are) I thought that it was actually quite nice and that I'd be more than willing to do such a thing agaion. Obviously, this was DB's plan to lull me into a false sense of security.

This Sunday, we decided to go on yet another Sunday drive. This time, we thought we would go find out where the Pictograph Caves are that are located right here in good ol' Yellowstone County, MT. As it was just a drive, I didn't change out of my church clothes, which consisted of a long black skirt, black shirt with poofy sleeves and sandals.

You know what's going to happen here, right?

The Native Americans, rather than putting their pictures on caves near Target, which would have been my preference, instead decided to put them far out of town 2000 years ago. So we drove about and found the right road, which looped through sage brush, cattle and a grove of radio and TV transmission towers (part of the natural landscape in Big Sky Country.

I noted, as Dave pulled up to park, that he seemed to intend to get out of the car. I also noted that there were rather steep trails leading to the cave.

Yeah.

"Well, they're paved," was Dave's excuse for what became the great pictograph death march of 2009.

I, always one to be a good sport, headed up the trails behind the young and energetic legs of my children. About halfway up, I collapsed with my very dusty, sandal-clad feet upon a bench which had been conveniently placed there by park workers who seemed to intuit that one day there would be a plump Mormon mother dressed in church clothes who needed a nice place to die.

But it wasn't that easy.

We reached the first cave, called "The Ghost Cave". It was really just a big depression in the rock, presumably named for the aforementioned Mormon Mommies who gave their all to get there. And were there pictographs? Uh...no. Apparently they were in the other cave, some 38,000 miles across a chasm rivaled only by the Grand Canyon. So after snapping some pictures of my children for future archeologists to find when they dug up our bodies, we headed off to the second cave.

Wow...good times. Like the moment was when a 2-year-old little boy pretty much lapped me on the trail. Or when DB had to escort me through and down the clumps of sandstone while I had to manage not to trip on my skirt. There was the time when we had to stop for Ethan to "christen" the trail (perhaps we should have gone potty before leaving home), and when Emerson, who wasn't at all phased by the steepness of the trail, ran hell-bent for leather away from all of us.

When we finally did arrive at the second cave, which was to contain all of the beauty of the pictographs, we found some very faded red marks on the wall. Apparently, some well-intentioned folks in the past decided to try to clean them using a delicate sand-blasting method. Yep. Sandblasting. So we looked at (and in my son's case, climbed on) a sign that showed what the pictographs looked like before said sandblasting incident. Quite the historical moment for all of us.

Let's just say that I don't see a Sunday drive coming any time soon in my future.

Ready For His Close Up

Today Ethan began his modeling career...for a coloring book. We're working on a really awesome program for a local surgery center, and they wanted a coloring book that was specific to their group. So at 6:30 we were at YSC, with Ethan eagerly getting into a surgical gown and puffy hat to pose for his close ups. He did so awesome, and I'm fairly certain that most of the nursing staff there is now in love with him. He got to see an operating room, have a "pretend" i.v., have his blood pressure checked and, most importantly, got a snow cone and a stuffed animal. Justin, our graphic artist, will be taking the photos and reworking them into line drawings, and I wrote a story that goes along with the coloring pages. Of course I took pictures of him getting pictures taken, because I am THAT mother. Anyway, I'll try to snag a couple of extra copies of the final book so that you can all see it. I'm sure that Ethan will be happy to autograph them for you! :)

My First Freebee!

Big news! I got my first free sample last night in the mail. It was from Betty Crocker--one of their 150 chocolate "Warm Delights". The kids are excited; we're going to microwave it this weekend. And I just went to the website and found out they're still available for those of you who want one! Yay free stuff!

I really need a life.