Traveler

So, last week I travelled just under 5,000 miles.  I'm still tired.

I had a meeting in St. Charles, MO and finally took the time to go see the Arch.  It was so worth it.

For only $10 you can ride a little capsule up to the top and look out over St. Louis and over the Mississippi River to Illinois.

Since the girl I was traveling with was willing to be a loner like me, we went up in separate shuttles so I had to ask a stranger to take my picture:

These shuttle were made for 1965 Americans, not 2012 Americans.  The people in my shuttle did not even move to let me in.  I was last and had to sit in the middle and they looked at me like I was asking if they wanted to buy a bagful of turds when I tried to get in.

After the trip to the top, you can wander through the museum.  It was vaguely interesting.  Lots of information about the Oregon Trail.  Since I live on the other end of it, there wasn't much I didn't already know.

I did get really close to a long horn though.  Even though he was dead.

I got a migraine the next morning and had to leave my meeting for a while because I thought I was going to die and/or barf.  The rest of the two-day trip was fun until it was time to come home.  My layover in Chicago was delayed because of a huge thunderstorm over the airport.  I got home at 2 a.m.

Then I got up at 6 a.m. and went to work.  Yay Work!  I justified my lack of sleep by telling myself that I could sleep on the way to Roseburg, OR that afternoon.  That didn't happen.  As a matter of fact, I didn't go to sleep until about 9 p.m. that night.  So, in a 39 hour period, I had about 4 hours of sleep.

The next morning, I went hunting with The Girl and her friend.  They hunted, I walked.  We wandered around, got a little lost, and made it back to camp in time for breakfast.  Later, a larger group of us went out and made a "drive".  Hard to explain, but basically, a few hunters stay stationary and the others walk through the woods and try to scare any deer out to the people who are hunting. 

Lucky for me, I was stationed at a tree.  I had a nice view:

 I checked my gun to make sure it was loaded. 

Aaaaaaand, I feel asleep.  I don't remember taking this picture but I must have wanted to record my day.

Uncle Biggee had to come and wake me up.  He called my name three times, kicked my leg and finally had to shake me awake.  I was out.  He thought I might have died.  We went back to camp and I napped for three more hours.  Later I almost caught my hair on fire and had to pick three ticks off the dog.  It was a great day to be alive.

The Girl shot a deer yesterday morning.  We're going to butcher it on Sunday.  In the meantime, it will hang in our friend's cooler.  I think we'll make him into sausage mostly.  We have lots of venison and I always like to have some pepperoni or sausage made.  It's nice when you have to whip something up quickly when someone comes to visit.  If you have plenty of cheese and crackers and some sausage around you're set.

We came home last night, unpacked, showered, gave Clover a bath and Clover and I fell asleep on the sofa.  I finally feel like I'm getting caught up.