Off having too much fun the last couple of days. That, along with having a lousy Internet connection out at the State Park makes it hard to find time to write much down. Took lot's of pictures over the last couple of days though, so a few photo's will be posting in the next couple of days.

    Back tracking a bit though to Wednesday evening, my friends, George and Marge and I made it out to the Post Playhouse at Fort Robinson for another play on that night. The entertainment that evening was the play, 'Oklahoma' and it was indeed entertaining. I have been getting front row seats for the past couple of years at this play house even though I usually like to be a bit further away from the stage than that, just for the flying sweat factor alone if nothing else. In this case though the stage is small enough that it can all be seen from the front row and even though all the actors are 'miked' it helps to be able to hear them speak all of their lines as well as see all the facial expressions they have. In the case of this play that was a wonderful part of the experience as the lead actress had the most wonderfully expressive face and body language I think I've ever seen. We all remarked on it on the drive back to the trailer after the performance. Of course all of the actors were very talented and the music and singing were as good as I remembered.

    We hung out around the trailer for most of the day on Thursday. It was hot of course, 105+ degrees, in the afternoon. But we drank lots of fluids and sat in the shade talking and reading our books. It's nice that so many of my friends are retired school teachers and other professional people. Conversations can, and often are, about anything you can think of. Lot's of different view points but always stimulating.

   My nephew, Luke, and his family came out around 5:00 with the intent of swimming at the park pool. But it was closed because of to much Chlorine in the water. Rather than disappoint Aubree and Marge they decided to run back into the town pool for an hour or so while I started putting together some dinner. There are always a couple of emergency meals in the trailer so I pulled out a pound of spaghetti noodles, a jar of sauce and a bunch of left over veggies for a salad. Added a few crimeni mushrooms and a pound of andouli type sausage to the sauce, made a nice tossed salad and some garlic bread. A standard river trip meal, that always tastes good if you are hungry enough. Had a good time with the kids there, Aubree is always a joy to be around, not what you would expect from a 6 year old, and Rykin is just a kick to watch as he stares at the tree leaves and makes weird sounds.

   We decided to do a road trip yesterday as another day of sitting in the heat didn't really appeal to any of us. So we loaded up their van and took off heading east from Chadron to start. Not much of a town out at Hays Springs any more, but we drove down the 2 blocks of what was once it's downtown area. Headed south from there towards Alliance where we stopped and wandered around 'Car Henge' again. I had been there before of course, but they hadn't. We took a few pictures and I found a neat 'shot glass' at their gift shop there.

   On through Alliance then, with a short stop to get a cold drink with some ice in it, before continuing west and then north back towards Crawford and Fort Robinson. We had a very nice lunch there at the Post Cafe in one of the old buildings from when it had been an actual military post. I had a buffalo burger that was to die for while G&M both had a hot plate of sliced buffalo, mashed potatoes and gravy. It all looked and tasted wonderful.

    We wandered around a small museum there on the grounds next. Actually run by the university of Nebraska, it had little to do with the fort or it's history, but was actually mostly about a couple of mammoth skeletons they had excavated back in the 60's-70's. The unique thing about these two skeletons is that they had died locked together in combat with each other. One of only two known excavations of two animals dieing in battle in the whole world. A nice little museum and a cute little gift shop with really inexpensive gifts... that is if your taste runs towards rocks, gems, crystals and critter stuff.

    We wandered around the grounds for a couple of hours checking out the herd of 'Longhorn' cattle they have there as well as some of their Buffalo herd. We had stopped to check out the inside of one of the officer quarters buildings when Georges oxygen generator in the van decided to stop working. Not a good thing as he only had enough bottles of oxygen left to actually make it back to Denver if the machine wasn't working. So we were a bit screwed as far as staying out there for dinner and the start of the play as we had intended. Instead we loaded up and headed back to the campground where we hurriedly packed them up and sent them on their way back to Denver. Bummer!!!!

    Meanwhile, I had made plans for dinner with 'them' and my two nephews at the 'Ranch House' restaurant in Crawford. So I called Brian and Luke up to tell them I'd be about 10 minutes late and for them to call up any friends who would want to go to a play with us that evening. We had a wonderful dinner together and it turns out that only the 3 of us made it into the play. I turned the other two tickets into the box office though, and they did manage to sell them again, so they made a little extra money on the whole thing, which is a good thing.

    The play, 'Grease', was terrific of course. This was the second time for me to see it, but it was still a lot of fun to watch the antics on stage and listen to the music once again. I think the boys both had a good time also, this was Luke's first time to see any version of the story, so I think he was pleasantly surprised.

     Off to lunch after this and then a couple of us are going to take a drive west into the Nebraska Forest and see some of that country. It'll be pretty much new stuff for me so that will be fun. For now though, here are a couple photo's of a visitor to the trailer the other night.

This little guy evidently flew in the open door this evening when no one was looking. About 2 inches long it isn't very big yet. Was glad I spotted him/her before sitting down though. Also, the thought of this guy crawling over my face while I was asleep really creeps me out

Another view showing the front legs and their claws for catching and holding onto bugs. I am so glad these things don't grow 6 feet long. I wouldn't like the idea of being hunted down and eaten by one of these things.

A view of the classic 'preying mantis' pose. Does anyone but me see the resemblance between this bugs head and the charector 'Guido' the bounty hunter in the first Star Wars movie?

One last view. No I didn't swat him with the fly swatter. But since he didn't seem to interested in catching the flies buzzing around the trailer I did take him outside to grow up a bit bigger.