Monday, July 28, 2008

Lauren Visits Missoula

Happy Monday to all – I’m having a hard time getting started today. Lauren, our good friend from college, drove from Seattle on Thursday night to visit for the weekend. This meant a long weekend of drinking, eating and generally being more social than usual.

Friday night brought a nice dinner out and bar hopping until we got to the Mo Club (where I met Bill Clinton). I recently got my ass handed to me playing pool and, as the person I was playing with pointed out, it is very odd for me to be that bad at something since I am typically a very competitive person. If I know I’m really bad at it (volleyball, basketball, football. Team sports in general), I usually just won’t play. So, at the Mo Club, Justin was nice enough to spend a significant amount of time trying to teach me to be a better pool player. Some things I learned:

1. Jewelry tends to get in the way of making a good shot. Rings, necklaces, watches, etc.
2. It is not okay to sit on the table. However, it is allowed and, from what I can tell, ENCOURAGED, to lay on the table to reach the proper angle. Good thing I was wearing pants is all I have to say.
3. It is not okay to miss a shot, get angry at the ball (the green ball, specifically) and throw your pool stick down.
4. It is not okay to drink around the pool table. Especially if you like to use your Corona bottle to point at things.

All of these things helped Paige and me to win two games that night. I even carried the team for one of those games (Paige was distracted).

Saturday was pretty low key, but we went to a nice dinner and bar hopped again, ending up dancing the night away at Stockman’s, as usual. This big bartender from Mo Club, who we had hung out with several times, showed up at Stocks and I got way too excited and tried to make him dance with me. Yaaaa – he literally ran away. In discussing it the next day, Paige came to the conclusion that we were just on “different drinking levels.” I think that’s right up there with, “He’s just not that into you.” But I wasn’t trying to hit on him! He’s just really nice and reminded me of my brother, Will. Ah well, another lesson learned.

Sunday we went for my first float trip. Floating down the river during the summer is HUGE here. You’re constantly seeing signs for places to buy tubes and the roads are full of big trucks with beds full of tubes. So we blew up some tubes, Justin strapped the canoe on top of the truck and off we went to the Bitterroot River. Paige, Lauren and I floated on tubes, Justin and Jackson floated in the canoe and Wyatt swam alongside everyone in his lifejacket. The Black Foot River is the most popular floating river and is apparently full of groups of unruly drunks. We hardly saw anyone else on the Bitterroot, but there were definitely times we needed to paddle just to move anywhere. Definitely no whitewater here…
We ended the weekend with an evening at the Missoula Osprey game (our AAA baseball team). Bud Light, hot dogs (ya, the diet died this weekend) and a few hours scrutinizing a team of 18-23 year olds in tight white pants. Kind of a Cougar’s dream :). We ended up losing in the 14th inning, but it was still a great way to spend the evening.

Hope everyone had a great weekend! And a big Happy Late Birthday to Emily.

1 comment:

Kimberly said...

I love that picture on the innertubes. Beautiful. How do you spell innertube??