6/30/92

Posted in Monday Memories

6/30/92
7:11 a.m.
Place: The Sealey Lake Motel,
Sealey Lake, Montana


     Jasper, Ula, and Nika are still asleep. We all stayed up late watching the movie Yellow Beard on WGN (channel 9, Chicago). The black and white portable television here is hooked up to cable.
     I have already taken a very long hot shower and washed my hair, but now I can't get the bathroom light to turn back on, so I'm assuming it burned out when I turned it off.
     I was thinking that sitting here writing would be a nice quiet activity, so I wouldn't wake anyone up, but when I sat down in this chair, it creaked so loudly that Jasper woke up, half sat up, looked at me, and laughed. He did go right back to sleep, though.
     Nika is having a happy dream. She just laughed in her sleep.

10:45 a.m.

      We've checked out of the motel and Jasper is picking dead daisies off the front of the van.
       Ula's voice is very hoarse today.

7:20 p.m.

       We are camping on the side of one of the daisy covered dirt roads, not far from M______'s property. We didn't find a place to camp on the property, because by the time we got this far, Jasper was far too exhausted to go hiking and carrying everything, and I wasn't in much better condition.
        To get this far, we had to cross a creek that had no bridge. It was only two or three feet across, but there was a steep muddy bank on this side of it. The van was stuck in the creek and then in the mud at the edge of the creek for three hours.

      We had to unload the cargo area to make the back end lighter and then jack up the van to pile wood and stones under the wheels. Twice we got the van completely out of the water, only to have it roll right back in again, while we were trying to move it forward. It was also caught for awhile on a cement block that was in the middle of the stream. Jasper managed to move the block once we had the van up on the far bank and then used it under the tire when the van slid back into the water, because we needed to create traction to get out again. While he was carrying the block to place it in front of the tire, he dropped it as he slid on the mud and skinned his ankle.
    The decision has been made not to drive back over the creek too often. We're going to be walking to Condon to get our mail.
    We did get a post office box in Condon and a savings account at the bank in Sealey Lake, before we came out here today.
    The kids are just too full of energy tonight, and they keep climbing all over me.