cuchillo

I had a fun-filled weekend. My friend Nate, from Ohio, who I know from Alabama, was still visiting. Saturday, we stopped by the Farmer's Market briefly before meeting up with Chris to go pump up the rafts. It was really busy there, and we only had about ten minutes, so I quickly bought some cucumbers and got to practice my Russian with the man selling them. Then, I picked up a little bag of fresh huckleberries.

Judging from the gas stations and gift shops, if you weren't from Montana, you might think that huckleberries were to Montana what potatoes are to Idaho, or pineapples to Hawaii. This is not really the case. Huckleberries have proved to be difficult to domesticate, because they require more acidic soil than most areas. Actually our top commodities are:

1. Cattle and calves


2. Wheat


3. Barley


4. Hay


5. Sugar beets

but enough about all that.

We met up with Chris, and pumped up the rafts, and then the eighteen of us headed down the river. It was a cloudy day, and quite a bit cooler than the rest of the week. It seems the weather cooled down just for the weekend, because it is really nice again today, like it was Friday. It was still a great float. The headwind made the trip a bit longer than predicted, but these trips always last longer than predicted. I was surprised to get sunburned, because it was really overcast. I noticed looking back at the pictures that Scott was a bit sun burnt too.

After the raft trip, Nate and I picked up Shannon and headed up to Blue Bay on Flathead Lake. Flathead Lake is the largest, natural, freshwater lake west of the Mississippi. Even though it has a dam on it now, it had this title before the dam. It was great hanging out with my parents, and the weather even cleared up enough Sunday to go for a boat ride. We looked at the mansions along the shoreline, a popular boating pastime for my family, and then we went to M&S Meats - just about a yearly tradition. Shannon and I picked up some Polish sausages, German sausages, and bacon which I would later use to start the weiner roasting revolution.

On our way back I did a little water skiing in the 65 degree water. It felt a bit cooler than that, but I'm not complaining. It's not everyday you get to go for a ski. When I got back in the boat, Shannon handed me my lukewarm coffee from M&S Meats to help me warm up. For some reason she didn't want a hug.

That night, we roasted some German sausages. I cooked mine on the fire a bit, and then wrapped it in bacon for the rest of the roasting. I think it would have been really good had I not over-cooked it. Everyone says it doesn't look appetizing, and P says it looks like a dead squirrel. Revolutions don't always catch on I suppose.

I almost omitted a certainly interesting tidbit about the fire. We had really green wood, but we found out that it helped to give the fire oxygen. Then to improve upon our discovery, my dad fetched the cordless air pump, normally used for blowing up mattresses. It was like pouring gasoline on the fire! We've been thinking about marketing metal ones for use on campfires.