The Thursday talk with the physicists and engineers went well, a lot of questions which I think I bluffed through well enough. Most of Thursday was taken up with the conference itself, with kick off at 9 am. I sat in on a few seminars which were ok, although nothing really struck my interest because the day was mainly biologically orientated. The poster (poseur?) session and free lunch ran from midday till 2 pm and was nothing I hadn't seen quite a few times before. The vendors were out in force and so I scored a free coffee mug and other junk. I spent most of the afternoon getting ready for my talk and so didn't attend much in the afternoon. The worst part of the day was when I realized I'd misplaced my rings. I wear three silver rings, each with it's only brief history which I'll recount here.
Right thumb : A thin plain silver ring which I made myself in an SCA workshop back in mid 2001. It never comes off unless I'm shampooing my hair.
Right Ring finger : My original ring, probably stainless steel I bought it in Canberra in May 2000 I think. I found it at an art and craft bazaar on a day that it snowed in Canberra. It has an interwoven Celtic band design. I usually keep it in my pocket when I'm working with chemicals.
Left Ring finger : Another stainless steel ring, black with a raised, silver, Celtic loose band design. I bought it with Ally on a hot day on Venice beach pier at a jewellery stand. It's a little small, so I often keep it in my pocket.
I took them out of my pocket at one of the seminars and left them there by accident. I realized they were missing just before my Physics talk and so after that I spent an hour frantically looking for them. I told the janitor and put up some “Lost” posters, and did all I could for that late in the afternoon.By a coincidence, Tiffany was working on the window washing crew on my building that day, and we bumped into each other and started chatting. She mentioned that some friends and her were going camping that weekend and would get back to me with more info later on. I came home and crashed out knowing that tomorrow would be a long day.
I woke up Friday with the perpetual question of what to wear? My wardrobe pretty much makes the leap from jeans to little black dress with seemingly no ground in between. In the end I went with my little blue dress which I'd bough in Miami, it's somewhat low cut and with thin straps, but with a white linen shirt over the top I think it looked smart without being too casual or slutty. I took sandals with me to work, but I wore some comfortable shoes to walk in since I didn't want to ride my bike in a dress. Overall I think I actually looked pretty cute. :)
I got there in time for the early morning Physical chemistry talks, and then I spent an hour chatting with one of my bosses after that. My presentation was right after the lunch break, so I had plenty of time to kill before hand. It turned out that one of the talks in our block had been cancelled and so we had more than the 15 minutes we'd originally anticipated. The talk itself went fairly well, there was no laser pointer, not even a bent stick which made it somewhat difficult, but I soldiered on,. There was a lot less people than the previous day which I hadn't expected, but that also meant very few questions also.
I sat round for the next few lectures and then everything finished up about 4 pm. Tiffany had called to let me know that we were going to be going out camping later that night. I had no idea where to get a sleeping bag, but by an amazingly fortuitous happenstance, I passed by the Campus equipment shop when I remembered that they hired out camping gear. I got a sleeping bag and a ground mat and bag liner for just a few dollars which was very cool. Tiffany's friend Ryan was already out at the camp site, but was coming back for a softball game around 8 pm and so we were going to head out with him. As I had plenty of time to burn, I packed my bags, ate a big bowl of pasta and then took a nap for an hour or so. Tiffany called me around 10 pm, and she came by in Ryan's truck a little later. Ryan is an engineering student from Colorado originally, and like many of his type is a little brusque, but nice enough once you get to know him.
We drove out to the campsite with the three of crammed into the front of his truck and all our gear in the back. It was dark by this point, so the forest seemed more ominous than perhaps it should as we winded our way through the mountain pass to the lakeside camp site. Two friends of Ryan's and Tiffany's were there already, Mike and Wednesday, by chance it turns out I once knew another American girl named Wednesday back at Hawkesbury. We dumped our gear in Ryan's big tent and then sat around the campfire in classic tradition drinking beer and just catching up. I was coming up to sped with new people so I was a little quieter than usual, but I think Ryan had taken a shine to me and so he was asking a lot of questions about Australia. Mike and Wednesday crashed a little after midnight, and I left Tiffany and Ryan talking around the fire about 1 am. The night was unpleasantly cold away from the fire, so I crawled into my sleeping bag fully clothed except for my shoes.
I didn't sleep particularly well, the sudden change from my own wonderful mattress to a sleeping mat being the most obvious contribution. Nevertheless I did sleep for a few hours, finally waking up around 8 am as the sun illuminated the tent with it's might. Ryan, Wednesday and Mike were in various stages of being either up or awakening, and so I took a little time to make myself somewhat presentable. We sat around eating bagels and talking until about 10 am when Tiffany finally woke up. Considering that she has to wake up about 6 am for her week day job, I can understand her desire to sleep in on the weekend.
We were not completely certain as to what we wanted to do that day, hiking obviously, but which of the many trials? We decided to head up towards the “Grotto Falls” which was a relatively short hike once you got to the trailhead. We drove the 5 miles or so to the trailhead with three of us as “cargo” in the back of Ryan's truck (Australians would probably call it a ute). It was about a mile walk or so up to the falls, and so we took it at our leisure. The walk really was amazing for me, having been stuck in an artificial lab environment for so long, every rock and tree seemed vibrant and telling. I would run my hands over the tree trunks as I passed to feel, as if for the first time the texture. Every rock had a story, every wild flower a mysticism about it as if all of Nature was crying out to be seen and heard that day. We came to a great pile of granite, evidence of a major landslide many years ago, someone had taken rock art forward here with carefully composed, balanced rock structures. I'd seen this before on the beach in Vancouver, and so naturally on this day the desire to construct and add to the sum was unsupressable. Mike, Wednesday and I puttered about amongst the rocks putting together this natural Lego, whilst Ryan was significantly more cynical, knocking one large pile over with some thrown rocks.
We continued onwards from there up towards the falls themselves which were not much further on. Although small, their sight and sound was still quite moving, and I took my time to enjoy my senses amongst the spray. Ryan climbed across a fallen log to the far shore from where he went to explore up the opposite bank. Tiffany and I went up our side of the creek, but I turned back after we entered some marshy areas for which my running shoes weren't suited. I took some photos of Mike and Wednesday together with my digital camera in front of the falls.
After Ryan managed to cross back over the creek, we all thought it might be nice to hike further up to a lake situated deeper in the hills. It was approximately 5 miles, and although none of us had anticipated this we agreed to go as one. I shared my water with Tiffany as she hadn't brought any, and so we headed deeper into the mountains. They truly are mountains, soaring thousands of feet above us on each side. On top were drifts of snow glinting in the direct sun, and down the sides amongst the precipitous cliffs came rushing torrents of snow melt. It wasn't long before we came across a drifts of snow along our trail, and after a short intermission for a snowball fight we continued onwards and upwards. There were a surprising number of people on the trail for so quite a path, but hiking in Summer is one of the joys of Montanan, and everybody gets out to do it. After some time the snow began to deepen along and on the trail, upon asking some people coming from the opposite how far it was to the lake, they told us that the path to the lake was inaccessible due to the snow pack. At this point, our tired legs had seen enough adventure for one day, and after a unanimous group vote, we turned and headed back down the trail. We had not brought enough water for this unexpected leg, and some people hadn't worn their hiking boots or appropriate clothes either. The trail back was downhill, and yet it still took us over an hour to reach the trailhead and the car park. The car park was completely full, testament to the number of picnickers, day tourist and other people out to enjoy their Saturday.
Our four tired bodies dumped themselves into the back of the Ute and Ryan drove us back to our camp where we arrived tried and somewhat hungry about 3 pm. We fried up sausages (hot dogs) and sausages (Bratwurst) for lunch with a cold water and then cold beer a perfect choice for relaxation. The lake was busy with fishermen and boaters and we sat around enjoying ourselves in the warm sun. After about an hour Wednesday and Mike went to have a nap and then Tiffany, Ryan and I made the decision to stay out overnight. This meant reprovisioning, and so Ryan and tiffany drove into town to get supplies i.e. beer and some more sausages. When they left, I took and hours nap, interrupted for a short while by having to pay the ranger for another night's use of the campsite.
Tiffany and Ryan got back about 6 pm, bringing additional firewood as well as the aforementioned beer. In all seriousness I certainly don't believe the hype that Montana drinks the most beer in the US, I don't even really consider that a badge of honour in any particular sense. I think Tiffany had (has?) a drinking problem which explains a lot about why she didn't pass most of her subjects at a previous university. From what I know of her, I think she suffers from depression, and that may have been a significant factor, along with a cultural background where frequent drinking is condoned. Given the medications I'm taking certainly doesn't encourage me to do a lot of drinking, and I feel sad for people who need drinking to be their outlet. Perhaps even more sad that I can't do anything about it, especially since it's probably none of my business anyway.
In any case, drinking beer is what we did. We sat around the fire in the late afternoon, cooking hotdogs for sinner. We had a single can of “Pork and Beans” which Ryan was trying to open with a pair of pliers, watching him struggle with it was pretty funny, and we finally used the broken can opener to open it up. It was cooked in the somewhat traditional redneck way of putting the can itself over the fire to boil everything up, then the three of us sat around the table clutching a spoon apiece and sharing the spoils of cooking. The other amusing highlight of the evening was the case of “Luck Lager” which they had picked up in town, as a beer it's major highlight is that it's the first American beer which I've seen that comes in “stubbies”, but the most interesting factor is the “rebus” puzzle which comes under the cap. A “rebus” puzzle for those of you who don't want to grab a dictionary is one which is disguised by a combination of pictures and letters. It's perfect for parties and other situations where your normal mode of thought might be somewhat impaired.
So, we sat around the campfire talking as the sun slowly set behind the mountains. We were all fairly tired from the hike and so Tiffany went to bed about 10 pm and Ryan and I stayed up to watch the gibbous full moon rise. Alas a combination of local geography meant that the moon was still struggling to come up from behind the mountain peaks as I got too tired to wait. I went to bed fully clothed except for my shoes as the night was very cold away from the fire.
The next day we slowly awoke around 10 am and struggled into some semblance of consciousness. No hiking was on the plans for today, instead after a breakfast of bagels, we piled into the front of Ryan's truck and took the bumpy fire trails up into the mountains. I'm assuming that the area is a pine plantation of sorts and along the way we saw quite a few people out mountain biking and so forth. The trail took us around the front of the mountain so that we were looking down over the valley. The town could be seen laid out in front of us, and far away on the next mountain range could be seen the “M”. We sat around talking and enjoying the wonderful (though unexpectedly hazy) view. After that we drove back down the mountain trial and halfway down we came across a car that was stuck in a ditch. It was a few older mountain bikers who had tried to turn their car around and gotten stuck. Fortunately Ryan was well prepared for this eventually and after a few minutes and the application of a tow-rope we has them out.
We made it back to our camp by the lake and started taking everything down and packing it away. The tent took a while, but we got the majority of stuff packed into the back of the truck by about midday and so finished off the beer and hot dogs in rather self-congratulatory fashion. With some degree of happiness and regret we boarded the truck and headed back to town, along the way passing a lot of cars heading up to the lake for day trips. We got home around 1 pm, and after being dropped off and thanking Tiffany and Ryan for a wonderful weekend I staggered into the shower to wash the smoke, soot and dust off my body and out of my hair.