Regrets

Neither of us set an alarm but Maria and I are both early risers thanks to waking up early for jobs. We were both awake at 7 and ready to leave the hotel at 8. Breakfast was in the hotel again. Today I ate an entire bagel and some yogurt and cottage cheese.

We sat in the lobby for a little bit, trying to decide what to do. A lot of places don't open until 10 or 11. What's up with that. I don't know!

We had a list of things we wanted to do so we started with the thing that opened first: the aquarium.

We had to walk for 10 or 15 minutes. The aquarium was near Pike Place Market. We walked by a new Amazon Go store that seemed neat so we checked that out. Maria had the app and we jut scanned her phone, grabbed a few drinks, and walked out. They even gave me a free amazon go bag that I can use for grocery shopping when I get back to Montana.

Wake me up before you (Amazon) go-go!

We went back through the Pike Place Market and over to a park, not totally sure how to get to the street level to the aquarium. I found a big ol' piggie though.

Twins

We got outside and looked at the view for a hot minute. It's pretty. I love the water.

Anyways we found the aquarium at Puget Sound (which I think is a location? It's called Puget Sound, I'm not sure) at 9:45. Maria didn't really want to go to the aquarium. It wasn't that she didn't want to go. I think she didn't care either way and it was out of her price range. I bought her ticket for her and called it an early birthday present. I think it was $30 a person.

I love aquariums! They're better than zoos. Some of the employees latched onto Maria and I and talked our ears off. I think they were just happy to have an adult visiting, and not a child or an adult with children. We spent a lot of time at the interactive part where you can stick your hands in the water and poke lil sea critters.

I wanna hold your hand!

There were two octopus there as well named Vincent and Umbrella. There lived in separate tanks because one of them ripped off an arm from the other. I didn't know octopus could be so hardcore.

Stone cold.

There were a lot more exhibits for fish. Maria really liked it and that made me happy. This is her first time at an aquarium and I really wanted her to like it!

Outside they had exhibits for mammals. I saw my buddies the harbor seals. There were 3 of them and they were swimming around, doing seal stuff and being good boys. I remember when Cam, dad, and I were in Oregon and saw the seals and they splashed water on my Camin and made it look like he peed his pants. God damn that was funny.

We saw northern fur seals too! They were also busy doing seal stuff.

We went below deck and there were aquariums above us. It was neat.

They had a lot of salmon too. Mostly babies. I guess they release the salmon back into the wild when they're old enough.

There were sea otters to watch too. I love sea otters! They had cute names like Mishka (which means "little bear" in Russian). They swam around and played under a blanket. I tried to get a good video of them but I couldn't even get a good picture. Oh well!

We went through the giftshop and I found a cute starfish magnet for myself. Then I found some octopus shaped ice cube makers so I bought one for Ian. I spent about $15 total.

Maria and I went back inside to take our picture together.

Besties

By now it's 11:00. Everything should be open! Since we were right next to the ferris wheel (and we forgot to do it last night like I wanted, oops) we went there. It cost $14 a person and Maria bought out tickets. We weren't guaranteed a private compartment and we had to wait in line with 6 other people but I was prepared to offer money to the guy running the place so we could get our own compartment area. Luckily he was a bro and gave us our own place to sit so we didn't have to share!

It was great! Very peaceful and not scary (okay it was a little scary the first rotation but by the second and third time it wasn't).

After that we tried to find some lunch. There's a lot of restaurants on the pier and we both wanted seafood. We decided to try a place called The Crab Pot. I got a bowl of clam chowder and 6 oysters for $18 and Maria got fish and chips. My bowl of soup was huge, I should have gotten a cup.

I made Maria try an oyster and she had to try really hard not to gag. That's okay, more for me. I happily ate the other five!

The food wasn't as good as Moes but it was still pretty good. I left very full.

It's been raining constantly since yesterday. I accidentally stepped in a puddle once we left the restaurant so my left foot was cold and wet.

Next on the agenda was the Chihuly Gardens. This was something Maria really wanted to do and I love plants and gardens so I was game for this. It sounded really pretty!

On our way to the gardens we passed through the market again. I wanted to see the gum wall up close and personal so we looked around for it for a bit before finding it in some random alley.

Barf City

oh my god it's even uglier up close

The alley smelled sweet, isn't that gross!?

It took us about half an hour to get to the Chihuly Gardens. We walked by the Space Needle to see if it was open and set the record straight. It was closed.

Bastards

That sucks, I really wanted to see this from the top. Oh well! I was excited for the gardens.

Big surprise for me, the gardens aren't actually a plant garden. It's a glass art exhibit. I feel so stupid, haha. There was some foreshadowing I should have caught (like the fact that's it's actual name is Chihuly Garden and Glass. And that Maria's artsy sister said she loved the artist who created the place. And that Maria said she was excited to see the glass sculptures). I don't know why I thought it was a plant garden. Dammit!

Tickets cost $24 a person. I bought one and then went to the giftshop and looked around. They had some neat stuff. I got Camin 2 bars of chocolate. One was milk chocolate with caramel and the other was super weird, it was edamame chocolate with sea salt. I hope he likes them! They cost $12 total.

The museum started indoors. There were several different huge rooms to showcase the sculptures. It was quite pretty, although it did give me MoMA flashbacks which I do not care to remember.

It was all glass too. My brain couldn't really comprehend that and kept thinking "aye, maybe it's plastic". There were some other forms of art like photographer and blankets and posters.

I don't know how to smile

But it was mostly glass.

None of the pictures really do the place justice. It was so vibrant with color, the photos dull in comparison. And everything was huge. Even the smallest glass sculptures were bigger than me.

We went outside and it was more glass. I liked indoors better because it doesn't rain indoors and the glass outside didn't look as impressive next to plant life. I prefer it on its own.

There was two woman who were doing a glass blowing exhibit. Maria and I stayed to watch them for a while as the created a terrarium. I learned that if you were to let the glass cool on its own it would explode so when they finished creating the bowl they had to put it back in the heat to cool off slowly.

We walked back to the hotel after that. I didn't love the gardens and as we were leaving I felt like I had been pretending to be happy all day. I don't know if I was actually happy at all. There's this awful emotion I have that's hard to describe but it's been there all day in the pit of my stomach and in my chest and in my throat. I'm trying to ignore it. I thought I would fail the polygraph and I did. It doesn't make sense for me to feel sad about it but I do.

Back at the hotel, I got caught up on blogging. I have a love/hate relationship with this blog. It's all love until I have to update it. Then it's hate. As soon as I'm done typing it's back to love. So I was in full hate mode for an hour or two. Maria and I went back to the hot tub to soak our feet.

I was hungry at 5. Maria went with me to find food. I led the way to a little sandwich shop and got something simple, a turkey and cheese on whole wheat called The Washington Wrecker (not to sound dramatic, but it seemed a fitting name after yesterday). I also got a big bag of salt and vinegar chips. It cost $12 and then I led the way to a bubble tea shop. Maria paid for my tea. I got an earl grey with tapioca balls and jelly. It was really good!

I haven't had bubble tea in a long time. We drank our tea on the way back to the hotel. It rained a lot and we got lost but I didn't mind.

It was around 6:30 when we got back. I ate my sandwich (it was a bit spicy! my mouth was watering like a mofo). I did more stupid and awful blog stuff and Maria and I listened to music and hung out.

Finally I got the Seattle blog posts done. Right now it's almost midnight. Our flight leaves tomorrow morning at noon so this will be the last post. I am ready to go home.


REFLECTION!

I don't believe in regrets. It's a silly thing to have. You make the best decisions you can at the time. Part of me wants to say I regret coming to Seattle or I regret applying for CBP, but I don't. I made the best decisions I could at the time and they led me to here. Things didn't work out but I don't regret any past actions. Even the ones that led me to failing the polygraph. I lived. I don't regret that.

This was still a fun trip. I got to spend time with my best friend Maria and we got to have another adventure. I love the North Pacific and no trip here can ever go wrong. I don't see myself coming back to Seattle any time soon but I never thought I'd be here a month ago so I don't know. It was a good trip and I'm glad I got to experience every bit of it!

Don't cry for me Seattle

The polygraph

By 5 am I gave up on sleeping and decided to stop trying. I stayed in bed for another hour and daydreamed before getting up. I was ready to go at 6:30.

Maria and I had breakfast in the hotel. I knew I wouldn't feel like eating but I managed to consume half a bagel and half a banana. Then we killed time, went back to the room, hung out in the lobby. My polygraph appointment wasn't until 8:15 and my map app said it was a 6 minute drive away.

At 7:30 I requested an Uber for 7:45. A driver accepted my request, then he got lost and drove by the hotel twice. It was 7:55 when he picked me up. Then traffic was kinda bad. I was stressed out but there was nothing I could do about it. So that made me less stressed, in a weird way. Like if your plane is gonna crash and you're at peace with it because you're not the pilot.

I was about 5 minutes late anyways. The uber cost like $10. I went through security and was escorted to the CBP floor by a security guard. Then I met with my polygrapher guy! I liked him immediately, he was professional and kind. He asked if I got enough sleep last night (not really), if I had eaten enough breakfast (nope), and if anything traumatic happened to me recently (yeah my fucking hamsters died last week). Stuff to see if I was mentally/emotionally unprepared. I was honest and he didn't find my hamsters deaths a concern so we went on.

I don't want to go into the details of the polygraph. I didn't sign anything saying it was confidential, I just don't want to talk about it. I was there from 8:30 am until 2:20 pm. I was hooked up to the poly and asked questions for maybe 15 or 20 minutes total. We mostly talked. It was very stressful and I had anxiety the entire time but he said that was totally normal and he never tried to stress me out more. He calmed me down a lot actually. Going into this I thought I would fail. The statistics I had read were against me. Then my examiner gave me the correct stats and it was worse than I thought. Less than 15% pass.

Anyways I failed. I got flagged on two questions: drug use and contact with terrorists. One I admitted to prior to starting the test but I kept getting flagged anyways, and the other one I denied. I'll let you guess which is which.

As much as I don't believe in the science behind polygraphs, I do believe I was treated fairly by my examiner. I gave a statement afterward about the one offense I admitted to. He suggested I apply again in a year or two as well and that I have a good chance of getting it then.

And that was it. I called an Uber and drove back to the hotel in the rain.

I called/texted my parents to let them know their daughter is a drugged out, friend of Al-Qaeda failure and they were both surprised. Maria was really surprised too.

I thought I would fail and I'm still disappointed. I don't know why. It even hurts my heart to type this now and it's been over 24 hours.

Maria and I left the hotel soon after I got back. Being a failure wasn't gonna stop me from exploring the city. We decided to go to Pike Place Market to drop some fat stacks.

There were a lot of stalls with arts and crafts, flowers, food, all kinds of fun shit. I bought my dad a tiny jar of honey that I could take in my carry on.

Then I passed a cherry stall and got some red wine chocolate covered cherries for my stepmom. God I love shopping for other people.

There were some fish markets too that had the fish out on display in piles of ice. It smelled like... fish.

"Monk fish" more like "fucking nightmare fish"

Someone bought a fish and the people working the stall threw it up in the air and another guy far away caught it in paper to wrap it up in. I guess it was entertaining because a crowd gathered to watch them throw stinky fish. One of the guys carrying ice for the stall pretended to slip in front of us and nearly spilled ice on Maria. I think he was flirting with her, oh ho ho!

We also saw the infamous gum wall from one of the windows. It looked colorful and disgusting!

Free gum

The market place had 3 levels. The top was the best and the bottom ones were O.K. I guess. Lots of unique shops. There was a magic store but I didn't get anything.

I wanted to go on the ferris wheel and Maria wanted to drink. I figured we could do both so we went to a cool bar near the pier called The Pike. The bartender was super hot so I was glad we choose the drinking route first. I had a beer that was light and crisp, I think it was called Naughty Nellie or something. It cost like $5.

Neither of us had had lunch and it was like almost 4 by now. Feeling buzzed, we left (without the bartender. Sad!) and went to go get food. I made us take a deour to one of my favorite shops in the world.

LUSH.

And I smelled every bathbomb.

I haven't been to a Lush store since I was in Vegas. I fricken love Lush man. I got a lemongrass bubble bar and bought Maria one too and called it a belated Christmas gift to her. Then I got my mom a bubble bar too because it really reminded me of her. It's called Karma and smells like patchouli so I think she will like it!

Here you go mama!

At this point Maria and I are hungry. We decided weeks ago that tonight we would be eating at Cheesecake Factory because I have never been and wanted to go and she really liked the place. Apparently they don't just serve cheesecake. It's an actual restaurant too.

I ordered a pasta dish that sounded weird but good. It was a lot of vegetables like roasted and sun dried tomato, eggplant, broccoli, pine nuts, zucchini...

It was like $15 or whatever. Way overpriced for a meatless dish but it was a big portion and I liked it a lot. There was a fair amount leftover to take back to the hotel.

Then we got cheesecake to go. I got a cookie dough one. I ate a lot of cookie dough after my hamsters died last week (RIP Wolfgang and Knoxy) and now I'm eating it after failing the polygraph. Cookie dough is one of my top 3 favorite foods but if I'm not careful I'm going to associate it with sadness.

Maria and I walked back to the hotel. It rained all day today. We've passed by the same cool looking building a few times now since coming to Seattle. It's this big glass ball looking place with plants inside.

I think it's still being built and not open to the public. There was a lot of construction going on. I liked looking at it.

Once we were back at the hotel we changed into swimsuits and went down to the lobby to soak in the hot tub. It was relaxing. Maria and I hung out and laughed.

It was an early night for us. We went back to the room for good around 7. I took a shower to get the chlorine off. Once I got out of the shower I thought about taking another one. I thought about crying too. I had been holding back tears all day and now was the time to do it. I decided against both and hung out with Maria instead.

We finished off the bottle of wine from yesterday and played games the rest of the night.

Sleepless

The backstory to how this trip started is a long one and I'm really not interested in telling it all. Basically I had a job opportunity with Customs and Border Patrol and this was part of the hiring process. After jumping through hoops, I had the opportunity to take a polygraph test in Seattle. I was about 80% sure I would fail the test but it was still worth the risk. I would get a mini vacation in Seattle and I would be able to say I'd taken a polygraph test. Win or lose, it would still be a cool experience!

My lovely friend Maria agreed to come with me and I am sooo thankful. It would have been fecking miserable going to a new city by myself. My plane ticket cost $220 and buying it was the last thing I did in 2017. Seemed like an appropriate way to end the year.

We would fly out on Monday the 22nd and fly home on Thursday the 25th. Maria arranged our hotel situation and she found a decent place downtown for only $80 a night, which is a good deal. I had the 23rd booked (polygraph day) but we had the 24th to explore so we found some fun things we wanted to do and see.

Then there was some drama with the government shutting down. I got an email saying my polygrah might be postponed unless the government reopened. My flight was nonrefundable so no matter what happened we were still going to Seattle.

Okay that's a brief enough explanation. Anyways our flight left around 3:45 from Helena. I goofed off all day and finally packed some shit around 12:30.

Hello old friend.

and Maria picked me up at 1. We hung out at her apartment for about an hour before her boss gave us a ride to the airport.

We waited at the airport for maybe 30 mins before boarding at 3:15. Maria took the window seat (I wanted it specifically for the way back) and we played hangman and drank complimentary wine to pass the time flying.

Hangman, Seattle themed

It was a solid 6/10 on the fun scale.

The flight was almost 2 hours and we landed around, I don't know, 4 or 5. It was still light outside so we didn't get to fly into the city at night which is a tragedy. We took the light rail to downtown. It would get us about 8 blocks from our hotel. The tickets cost $3 a piece and I bought both of ours. It was pretty boring. It reminded me of the London Underground. The ride lasted maybe an hour until we got off at Westlake. By then it was dark outside.

Welcome to Seattle!

It was a little confusing getting to the hotel, but that's only because we're not that good with directions. We found where we're staying and Maria got us checked in. It's called the Loyal Inn. It looked a little dingy on the outside but was fine inside and the staff was nice.

We dumped our luggage in the room and left to go find food. The guy at front desk suggested this place called The 5 Point Cafe which is pretty popular and has been featured on travel and food shows. We walked a few blocks to get to it.

The 5 Point Cafe is a dark little pub type place with the slogan "Alcoholics Serving Alcoholics Since 1929" and seemed like my kinda restaurant.

I liked it.

I ordered a philly cheesesteak and fries. It was really good!

I ate nearly the entire sandwich and took the fries in a to go box. I think it was like $20 with tax and tip. I'm so used to living in Montana, I forgot the rest of the world has a sales tax. It's some bullshit!

We walked back to the hotel and it was a nice walk. We're staying very close to the Space Needle. I'm hoping it will be open. So far we have found contradicting information on whether or not the place is being renovated. Their website says it's closed through the 22-25, but the sign on the Needle says "We're Open!". They are messing with my heart is what they're doing.

Maria wanted to make a quick stop at the liquor store and she bought a bottle of wine to take back to the hotel. We got back around 8, maybe 8:30 (I'm losing concept of time day by day).

We got back to the room and had the hardest time opening the bottle of wine. The bottle opener Maria bought broke, leaving half of it in her hand and the other half stuck in the cork. She had to borrow another opener from front desk and we nearly broke that one too. Instead  we broke the cork in half. It was funny, my sweet Catholic Maria swearing like a trucker as she struggled to open the bottle. As soon as the cork was out she was chugging the wine.

The government reopened that night, god bless. My polygraph examiner called me to see if I was ready to go, or if I wanted to reschedule due to the shutdown. I was like , "nah bro I'm finna pass this bitch" (but like, in a more professional way you know).

We went to bed around 9 or 10. I had a terrible nights sleep and kept waking up, anxious about tomorrow.

The fossil hunt

I've been back from India/Nepal for almost three weeks. It was a grand ol time but you know what? The need to travel can never be satisfied.

Earlier this week dad told me he was going to Salt Lake City for the weekend to meet up with some buddies and go hunt for fossils. I was invited (or I heavily hinted how I wanted to go and kinda invited myself, who knows). I applied for a job a few weeks ago and had an interview last Monday. They said I would hear back soon if I got it or not. I told myself if I got the job I wouldn't go to SLC but if I didn't get it then a trip would be a nice way to feel better about my crap life. By Thursday I still hadn't heard from the job so I decided to go anyway.

Yay! A new update to Callapillar Travels!

So Thursday night I dicked around all day until midnight then I packed some stuff. Dad and I were coming back to Helena Sunday night so I only needed 2 outfits. I brought 4. We're driving so I could have brought 8 outfits. When I fly, I pack light. when I drive, I don't give a hoot. I mostly brought loose clothing because it should be mid to high 90's all weekend. I went to sleep around 1.

And woke up Friday morning at 6. Some assholes were playing the devils music (country) outside my bedroom window. I got up and ate some breakfast, packed some snacks for the road, and killed time before going to dads at 9. At dads we hung out for another hour before officially hitting the road at 10.

It would a 6 or 7 hour drive to Salt Lake City. At first it was fun and exciting but then it got boring and there was not much to look at outside.

Mmm.

Dad and I ate power bars and grapes and talked about religion and evolution. The interstate we were driving on was closed for some dumb reason and we had to drive through town and that was a time sucker.

We stopped at an army surplus store in Idaho around 2:30. I needed to get some gloves for the dig tomorrow. I found some for like $2 that fit then dad got a helmet and some MREs.

Army swag

Then it was more driving. I fell asleep at one point. Sometime who knows when we drove into Utah! The traffic started to pick up and it was looking more like a proper city.

Mormon country

I saw a sign that said "COSMO CONTAINS PORN" and below it a website called CosmopolitanHurtsChildren.com or whatever. I thought it was funny. I'm in LDS territory now motherfuckers.

We drove through Salt Lake and into a town right next to it, about 20 minutes south. Then we drove through a very nice neighborhood. Did some more driving. Took some more turns. And we were at dad's friend Tim's place!

His house is gorgeous. He and his wife Lana are both really nice and we had a cold beer waiting for us. We all hung out and talked while they put the final touches on dinner. We were having tacos. I had 2 tacos and drank a whole beer.

Then we sat outside on the porch as the sun went down. I took a few snapchats to let people know I'm up to fun things without having to actually talk to them.

The art of humble brag

We talked about me living in Salt Lake and the job opportunities. I could dig it. From the balcony we could see fireworks going off in the valley. It was a beautiful view.

Around 10 pm dad and I gathered our luggage from the truck and Tim showed us to our rooms. My room has a king bed with 10 pillows! I counted.

I did some blogging but will combine today with tomorrow. I went to bed at midnight.

Around 3 I woke up confused, thinking I was in Montana and wondering why my bed had gotten so big. After a few minutes I remembered I was in Utah and went back to sleep-

-to wake up at 6. I took a quick shower and dad, Tim, and I were on the road by 7. Good for us.

We stopped at a place called Kneaders to get breakfast and coffee. I had an egg and cheese croissant sandwich and an iced latte. It was all very good.

Breakfast

We were going to dig fossils in Wyoming. It was about a 2 hour drive. Tim and I talked politics and he slowly chiseled away at my liberal identity. Every day I stray further and further away from the light that is Democrats. We talked about refugees, universal healthcare, racism, and the gay community. It was actually a fun conversation. We were both respectful.

So the drive to Wyoming was enjoyable. We got to the fossil site around 10:30.

The quarry

You could pay for an hour, 4 hours, or 8 hours. We paid for 4 and dad paid for mine. It was expensive, like $75 a person. The guy running the place gave us a rock hammer and chisel. I put on some sunscreen, my hat and sunglasses, and got to work.

You can pretty much wander wherever. There was maybe 10 to 20 other people there and I never felt crowded. It was spacious. I started my excavation to the far left but eventually started moving right (just like my political views hahahaha).

On the left was a lot of broken rocks. I walked around not really sure what to do but having fun looking at things. Tim came over and showed me what types of rocks to look for. You want big pieces with layers to chip into. Sometimes you can see fossils from the side. He showed me what fish poop and scales look like. It was barely 15 minutes in before I found my first fossil!

OH MY GOD

I told myself if I found one fossil, just one, I would be so happy. And I found one! Only 15 minutes in! It's a beautiful fossil and I love it.

Then I found another!

And another,

Seriously I didn't realize how low I set my expectations. All we did was find fossils.

I slowly started making my way right where you could chip away at parts of the rock walls instead of going through chipped away parts like I had been. Tim would cut off big chunks the size of a torso and throw them down. Then I would start splitting them, usually down the center. then splitting those pieces down the center. Sometimes you found something interesting, sometimes there was nothing.

I found the top half of a big looking fish. It's bottom half was on another rock that broke in half. The guy running the place came over and helped me dig him out of his rocky grave. He said it was a freshwater piranha. It had a visible eye and teeth! I took a picture and put it on snapchat.

In my excitement I forgot how to spell the word split

It was hot out but not uncomfortably so. If I stood up too fast I got really lightheaded so I took a break around 11 or noon to put on more sunscreen and drink water. I've been having a lot of fun. There were a couple families there, some had really small children and some had young teens. Then there were professional diggers who had been coming to this site for a week. It was a really cool atmosphere.

BACK TO DIGGING!

Padre on the prowl

I found several fish, lots of scales, and a ton of poop. Around 2 I was starting to hit exhaustion. I took a 15 minute break then got to digging again for the last ten minutes. I found one more fish!

We were done at 2:30. We loaded up all three of our treasures into dad's truck and left.

We had lunch at a place in town called... I don't remember. I had a grilled chicken sandwich, it was good.

We got back to Tim's house at 5 I think. Everyone was filthy and caked in dust. I took a shower and noticed the back of my left kneecap got sunburnt. Dang it! It was the only part of me to get burnt so not bad for 4 hours in the sun.

I went upstairs where Lana, Tim, and Dad were. Another couple was there but I don't remember their names. Drinks were being had! Safe to say, Lana and Tim aren't mormons.

Sister wives circa renaissance

Those are cats in their pockets do you get it

Lana made me a moscow mule! We hung out for about an hour or so then the other couple left and we sat down and had steaks and vegetables for dinner. It was delicious. I didn't take a picture because that would have been so weird. We also had a mascarpone and strawberry pie for dessert.

We sat around and talked. It was really nice. Tim was telling us about an area where you can dig for geos and I thought that was dope. He showed me some of the geos he had found and they're legit. Then he gave them to me which was so sweet! I'm really excited about them.

Geo that's been open and one that has not

We were all pretty tired and went to bed at 9. I stayed up to finish this blog and went to bed around 10. But I had trouble sleeping for whatever reason. I finally crashed around 2 or 3.

I could end the blog here and I intended to last night, but dad and I did some fun things driving back so might as well make this entire trip into one post!

Up at 7. I packed up my stuff, made the bed, and hung out with everyone upstairs. We had fruit and cinnamon muffins for breakfast. then it was time to say goodbye to Lana and Tim. They're very nice people, I enjoyed my time hanging out with them.

Dad and I hit the road at 8:30. We had a long road ahead of us.

I saw my "Cosmo Contains Porn" billboard one last time on our way out. Dad and I we originally going to go to a national monument in Idaho called Craters of the Moon but it would have set us back at least 4 hours so we decided against it. Another trip, maybe.

Instead we stopped at a place called Hells Half Acre which has a lot of super old volcanic rock and a pretty hiking trail to walk around.

Dad collected some sage and I took some rocks.

We stealin'

Then back to the truck. Driving down to SLC we saw a cool bridge we wanted to check out but decided to do it on the way back. Well coming back we couldn't find the bridge! Neither of us remembered what state it was in either. We figured we had passed it a long time ago and simply missed it. Kind of a bummer. But then we saw it up ahead! Dad pulled over and we walked across the bridge and took pictures.

Can I be anymore cute?

Then we drove some more. I took a little nap once we got passed Butte Montana. FINALLY we were back in Helena. Hurray! Dad and I went to the carwash and washed off the truck. It was filthy dirty from driving to the quarry. We got home around 5. Maybe tomorrow dad and I will go through the fossils and clean them up.


REFLECTION!
This was a good trip! Fun people, fun places, fun things. Tim and Lana are great, my dad is awesome, and I liked Utah. I REALLY liked digging for fossils. That was such a fun experience. I would do this trip again. I think it would be great to come back to Utah and do some exploring in the city. I'm happy I got to do this!

Pictured: a paleontologist