Monday, July 31, 2006

The Return

Well, we're back! No damage except for a little bit of sunburn. We drove a lot, hiked/geocached a bit, and did some siteseeing.

Here are some lovely photos from our trip:

This is Jay and I with a little friend we found in a cache at Craik. No, that is not a real snake. I would be freaking out if that was a real snake!



These are the Travel Bugs we found in Saskatchewan and released on our trip.



Here we are at Mount Rushmore. I am very impressed with Jay's ability to take pictures of himself!



We drove around on some scenic roads. On one there were three tunnels and you could take pictures of Mount Rushmore through them. The tunnels only had one lane, so you had to honk before you entered. This one was near a cache that we found. Every time I heard the horns honk I felt like they were chastising us for climbing around in the bush!



One day we went out and followed some trucks as they climbed through the rocks. We hiked along with them and took pictures/video. We also drank a whole lot of water.



That same day we went to Jewel Cavern National Monument. We went on a short tour. It would have been nice to go on a more interesting tour, but at least we got to feel cold for 20 minutes! (Did I mention it was 40 degrees every day and we didn't have A/C in the car?)



These bridges looked really cool, and they were made of wood. It was a bridge over a bridge over a roadway, and they were all for automobile traffic.



Here's Jay when we visited the Cosmos Mystery Area. It was really hard to stand up in that room. Jay tried to take a similar picture of me, but I couldn't keep stable... kept getting sucked into the wall!


And here we are visiting Devil's Tower. If you look closely enough you can see an alien spacecraft behind one of the trees. Just kidding. Legend has it (a Lakota legend, I think) that a bear was trying to climb up the tower to get at some women. Those vertical lines looked like claw marks.

The last three pictures were taken on a stupidly hot day. We actually stopped into Walmart and spent extra time looking around the freezer section to cool off. We also scammed a whole lot of ice water from Burger King. I guess we were giving it to the man.

It was a good trip though. It's been so long since I've gone away for a vacation, so it was extra nice.

Sunday, July 23, 2006

Secret Revealed!!!

Yes, it's true! In this very message I will be revealing to you my secret.... I suppose I should stop introducing or babbling or whatever you call it that I'm doing now... Dragging on! That's what it's called. Oh yes, anyway, here is the message in which I will speak of my secret. Ha ha, already said that. Well, without further ado...








I am no longer a single girl!

Now I am 18 women, 3 men, and 523 cats!!!



And a hyena.







Just kidding. (Like you needed me to clarify that.)





So, in May I started a new relationship with an old boyfriend with whom I have had a pseudo-relationship for somewhere between 7 and 9 years. At that time we decided to work towards getting back together, and now we're both ready to share it with the world. We're going to start in South Dakota, then spread the news on our way back home. Man, I'm full of dumb jokes today. We are going to South Dakota for about a week. It will truly be a test to see if we can stand being around each other 24/7. And it will be fun too. We plan to go to Mount Rushmore, do some hiking and geocaching, see some other tourist-y things, meet up with the Toyota guys on the Cruiser Classic, and camp in a tent every night. And, lucky us, his car doesn't have air conditioning. We will be dying to find some coolness, I'm sure, since the forecast puts the daily high around 31-32 degrees every day. Yay, a week of sweaty grossness! The A/C is going to feel so good when we come home...

On another note, on our way home from a wedding today we dropped off my travel bug in a cache. I hope it starts its journey while we are on ours.

Wednesday, July 19, 2006

Share the love...

1. FIRST NAME? Lorianne (read carefully. It does not say Lorraine.)
2. WERE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE? Sort of. I was named after my great-grandmother Laura. We share initials, too (until she got married).
3. WHEN DID YOU LAST CRY? Hmmm, probably in May... in a really big combine.
4. DO YOU LIKE YOUR HANDWRITING? Handwriting is pretty foreign to me. The only handwriting I do is signing stuff.
5. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE LUNCH MEAT? Not sure. Summer sausage?
6. IF YOU WERE ANOTHER PERSON WOULD YOU BE FRIENDS WITH YOU? Probably not. I'd look at myself and think that I'd never want to be friends with me, so why try. Then I'd both miss out.
7. DO YOU HAVE A JOURNAL? I have this blog...
8. DO YOU STILL HAVE YOUR TONSILS? Yup. Been surgery-free since 1974.
9. WOULD YOU BUNGEE JUMP? I don't think so. It seems like the sort of thing that puts jarring forces through your joints, and I'm not into that.
10. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE CEREAL? Probably Cheerios, when fresh.
11. DO YOU UNTIE YOUR SHOES WHEN YOU TAKE THEM OFF? No, like much of the rest of my life, I am lazy.
12. DO YOU THINK YOU ARE STRONG? Not so much.
13. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE ICE CREAM FLAVOR? Fruity anything.
14. SHOE SIZE? 6-6.5
15. RED OR PINK? Ugh! How could you make me choose between the two most hated colours in my life!? Red, I guess.
16. WHAT IS THE LEAST FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOURSELF? I despise my self-loathing. (Can you tell I've been waiting for an opportunity to use that for weeks now?)
17. WHO DO YOU MISS THE MOST? Debbie, Brandi, and Joel (in order of when they moved away). My life would be so much more fun with them around.
18. DO YOU WANT EVERYONE TO SEND THIS BACK TO YOU? It's always fun, but since I'm not actually e-mailing anyone, no pressure.
19. WHAT COLOR PANTS AND SHOES ARE YOU WEARING? Navy shorts, no shoes.
20. LAST THING YOU ATE? Pizza and garlic bread from East Side Marios.
21. WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO RIGHT NOW? The hum of the computer.
22. IF YOU WERE A CRAYON, WHAT COLOR WOULD YOU BE? I would be an orange, green, and purple striped crayon.
23. FAVORITE SMELL? Freshly mown grass.
24. WHO WAS THE LAST PERSON YOU TALKED TO ON THE PHONE? Jay.
25. THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE YOU ARE ATTRACTED TO? How good a person they are.
26. DO YOU LIKE THE PERSON WHO SENT THIS TO YOU? You bet!
27. FAVORITE DRINK? Cold water.
28. FAVORITE SPORT? To watch, short track speed skating. To participate in, Ultimate Frisbee.
29. EYE COLOR? Grey.
30. HAT SIZE? Um, smaller than I can usually get.
31. DO YOU WEAR CONTACTS? nope.
32. FAVORITE FOOD? pizza.
33. SCARY MOVIES OR HAPPY ENDINGS? Happy endings, but not corny ones.
34. WHAT COLOR SHIRT ARE YOU WEARING? Aqua.
35. SUMMER OR WINTER? Summer! Love it!
36. HUGS OR KISSES? Kisses, yum yum.
37. FAVORITE DESSERT? Pumpkin pie.
38. WHO IS MOST LIKELY TO RESPOND? Dunno
39. LEAST LIKELY TO RESPOND? Everyone.
40. WHAT BOOKS ARE YOU READING? The Two Towers, info guide to the Black Hills, How to Make Love to Your Man (just kidding. I do own it though!)
41. WHAT'S ON YOUR MOUSE PAD? Dust and piles of other crap.
42. WHAT DID YOU WATCH LAST NIGHT ON TV? The news at supper time.
43. FAVORITE SOUNDS? My nephews' laughter, my godson's laughter and squeals, and a breeze passing through the leaves of a trembling aspen.
44. ROLLING STONES OR BEATLES? Beatles.
45. THE FURTHEST YOU'VE BEEN FROM HOME? Not very far indeed. Probably Thunder Bay, Ontario.
46 WHAT'S YOUR SPECIAL TALENT? Insulting people and getting them to laugh about it.
47. WHERE WERE YOU BORN? St. Paul's Hospital, Saskatoon
48. WHO SENT THIS EMAIL TO YOU? Joel in Montreal
49. IF YOU COULD SPEAK WITH ONE DEAD PERSON, WHOM WOULD YOU CHOOSE? My grandpa. I'd like to hear about his experiences fighting in World War I.
50. IF YOU COULD SAFELY DO SOMETHING FIFTY TIMES IN THE NEXT FIFTY DAYS, WHAT WOULD IT BE? I'd climb Mount Everest and make all the mountain climbers jealous.

Friday, July 14, 2006

My first cache!


Well, I finally did it! I went and found my first cache. I picked up Tanya and we headed out to a park in Eastview where the cache was located. It wasn't too difficult to find, but I wished I had worn pants. Long grass and bugs make my legs feel super itchy. The cache is hidden in the big ol' dead tree behind me.

Thursday, July 13, 2006

Getting bugged

Well, I did it. I bought a travel bug. My travel bug's mission is to travel to places I've never been to. Now I need to start geocaching so that my bug will get on the road!

Saturday, July 08, 2006

I was tagged!

It's been like three weeks since Taran tagged me in her blog at Tribe.net:
RULES: Once you've been tagged, you have to write a blog with 8
facts/things/habits about yourself, saying who tagged you. In the end, you need
to choose 6 people to be tagged and list their names. No tag backs.


So I guess I'd better get on it! ;-)

1. I have been a belly dancer for almost half my life.
2. I don't eat cereal very often, but if I eat an unsweetened one I like to eat it with brown sugar, never white.
3. I have two right ovaries, or at least that's what a researching gynecologist saw during a transvaginal ultrasound. That means I have a pair and a spare! I'm 50% more woman than most! Etc., ad nauseum.
4. I was the most distinguished graduate in linguistics in 1996. In the Arts building at the U of S they have large lists of academic achievers posted up to 1995, so I can't even show it off to people when I go there.
5. I would really like to get into geocaching.
6. I am afraid of fear.
7. I have a secret life that I'm not very good at being secret about, at least not with my friends. I'm looking forward to getting permission to make it more public.
8. Looking at my age, I should be at my sexual peak right around now. It would be nice to have more opportunity to enjoy that!

So, if you're in my blogroll, consider yourself tagged!