The adventure continues

Audra:

To anyone who's still reading this: sorry we never finished the Brazil stories! To sum it up, Rio continued to be pretty sketchy (I went to a place called Lapa where not only did a random guy try to make out with me without so much as a hello, and as I walked through a crowd after two other blondies, dozens of men grabbed at us and said stupid lines in bad English, but also I saw a group of obviously drugged and huffing ten-year-olds, one of whom stuck her hand in Eric's pocket and just wandered off in a daze when he pulled it back out), but at least the sun came out! Then Carla left and went back to Argentina in a burst of great airplane karma. Then I went home and repacked and saw friends for 48 hours before flying to Seattle to prove, in case anyone doubted it, that I am one of the principle causes of global warming. Oh, and to kayak for 8 days in the lovely San Juan Islands between Washington and Canada.

Kayaking was awesome, and more importantly, I got to catch up on sleep, relax, mentally process the whirlwind that has been my life for the past several months, and read and journal. I came back to the mainland in a much better state of mind, and after a few sunny days in Seattle, I left with my buddy Tom to drive his car to his new home in Washington, DC. So despite the fact that this blog is supposedly about my trip with Carla in South America, certain events have merited description and I will continue, for the moment, to update it.

Story one: Creepy crawlies.

The first night on the road, Tom and I camped in a national forest in northern Idaho. We didn't set up a tent, just slept out. Sleeping out is a mixed bag. On one hand, you get to breathe fresher air, see the stars, and generally feel closer to nature. On the other hand, nature is sketchy, and you are subject to bugs, rodents (I once had a mouse run over my face, no joke), and...

In the pitch black of the wee hours, I sleepily turned over, and my hand touched something wet and slimy on my ground pad, near where I was going to put my face. This woke me up a little. Then I debated with myself whether I wanted to know what it was. After all, if I just put my face somewhere else and went to sleep, maybe it would go away (assuming there WAS something and it wasn't my imagination). If I dealt with it, I would surely wake up and either have a hard time going back to sleep (if there was nothing) or have a REALLY hard time going back to sleep (if there was something). I put my hand back in the danger zone and sure enough, cold and slimy.

I was definitely awake after that. I sat up and again debated whether I wanted to know what had taken up residence on my ground pad. Finally I decided that it couldn't be anything deadly, so I might as well. I turned on the flashlight, and saw a slug that was approximately three inches long by one inch thick and one inch tall, chilling on my ground pad in a pool of slime.

I threw it away with a stick and eventually got back to sleep (turned the other way on my pad), and in the morning, lo and behold, there was a DIFFERENT slug at the formerly-head-end of my ground pad, and this one was at least six inches long. I have never seen such an enormous slug in my life. Slugs were all over the ground where we were. It was gross.

Story Two: Canada.

As a background to this story, I have gotten into the habit of calling Canada Canadia (pronounced canAYdee-a). I don't know exactly why I do this; it's sort of like saying "the internets," with the added benefit of making it seem like Canada is not important enough for me to get its name right.

So Tom and I took a 14 mile hike in Glacier National Park (note: this park is SUPERB. You must go.) and came out 5 miles down the road from our car. We didn't want to walk anymore, so we thumbed and got picked up by a Canadian fellow, with whom I proceeded to have the following conversation:

Me: Where are you from?
Him: Well, I live in Alberta, just over the border.
Me: Oh, is Alberta that close? Oh wait, Alberta is a state, not a city.
Him: State? Now you sound like an American!
Me: (trying to recover and sound smart) Right, it's a province. Well, I bet I can name all the provinces and territories! (I then did so, I only missed one)
Him: You just missed the Nunevut
Me: Right, Nunevut. So, as you go east in [Canada], does the land flatten out?
Him: (pause. pause) um, yeah, more towards Saskatchewan...

Anyway, he dropped us off and we got in our car, and after about 5 minutes, Tom said to me, "By the way, when you asked that guy about the land flattening out, do you realize you called it Canadia?"

I. Was. Mortified. I hadn't done it on purpose, or even noticed that I had called our neighboring country by the wrong name. Ugh. I bet that guy had a good story to tell the wife and kids, about some American who could name 12 out of 13 provinces and territories, but not the country itself.

Story Three: I'll make this brief, but I went to the concert of the band of an old friend I haven't contacted in years, and surprised him, and the band was the most unbelievably fun bluegrass show I've ever been to! It was better than Ozomatli in terms of energy and skill and crowd craziness. And I got invited to finish their tour with them, so I'm going back to Montana for two more days of crazy music and band tour living! I will have to report on what that is like, so stay tuned...