Last of Bozeman

Wrapping things up here, I suppose...  I didn't realize how long it'd been since I updated, but wow, this post took forever!


Wednesday 07/30
Chris and I went to Bite of Bozeman our second-to-last Wednesday. Nick was supposed to come but forgot and was riding his bike when we went to get him. This seemed to happen an awful lot this summer...

Basically what happens is restaurants around town set up stands and have sample-sized foods you buy.  There was some really good grilled corn, steak and mushrooms, mashed potatoes, and some other stuff Chris had that I didn't care for.  And dessert thanks to the Sweet Pea Bakery.

The bands were actually good at this thing, which seems to be a rarity at small-town events.  Then again, so says the music snot...

I was really jealous of those guys on the roof.

Nifty clouds!

Thursday 07/31
The next day I had to give my presentation to my lab group! Hugh wanted me to present to the lab as a trial run, and even though it was a test, it was way more terrifying because I actually cared about their opinion on how my presentation was. Unfortuately I had this conundrum where I wanted my morning espresso, but didn't want it to make me jittery. Instead I just gave a sleepy presentation which didn't go as horribly as it could have, which was all I was really asking for that day. They told me to add more pictures - because everybody likes pictures - and Dr. Smith got nitpicky about the words "convert" and "ideally".

After this I was pretty much done with work, other than making some minor improvements to my powerpoint. That night I met some of Chris's lab (and, well, Chris too) at Plonk wine. Tasty times. I got to be really jealous as the lab made plans to go to Yellowstone the next Tuesday. Why couldn't my lab go to Yellowstone?!


Friday 08/01
Not much happened on Friday. Nick had decided to do a crazy-long bike ride the next morning, and Chris and I were hiking with Robbie and Ben to Heather Lake. Therefore Nick, Chris and I just watched some of Eagle vs. Shark and went to bed.


Saturday 08/02
Hike photos! I'm sure they all look the same to you guys by now...

Ben took that one up there.  He always takes the best pictures.

We got back in time to chill out before Lebowski night.  A long time before it was decided that we needed to dress up and watch The Big Lebowski and drink White Russians.  Nick, Chris, Eric and I went to Nathan's that evening (through a storm, which is another story entirely) to celebrate.  Orion and some of his friends were there in fantastic getups.  Orion had the hair, robe, shirt, boxers, and general attitude down perfectly, and his friends were all decked out in bowling wear.  One even had a bowling jumpsuit!  Chris and I were nihilists, Nick also wore a bathrobe, and Eric just came as he was.  After the movie the guys started up some beer pong, and halfway through the game Nick looks over at me and says he wants Perkins, so we just get up and head to Perkins.  Eventually everyone else realized we were gone and gave us a call, and after that anytime someone vanished we'd joke about how they must be going to Perkins.

Blurry beer pong with Nick and Bowling Jumpsuit Fellow.

Nathan somehow lost his bowling shirt that evening but kept the pants.  After Nick and I vanished, Eric joined the other team and Nathan and Chris, who were doing well before, lost haaaard.  I'm not really sure if this means that Eric has skills or there was just a sobriety handicap going on that evening - I was enjoying a waffle at Perkins.

Sunday 08/03
I went to Donut Man in the morning with Nathan, Chris, Eric, and Nick, and as usual, we went to the duck pond. There were all kinds of baby ducks being adorable, but every time I tried to feed them I just hit them with donut pieces and made them freak out. I soon gave up.

That afternoon I watched Juno with Chris, and we got popcorn and drinks from the grocery store on College Street in our pajamas because it was Sunday and we didn't care. We decided to keep the pajama theme going, and for dinner we ordered pesto pizza from McKenzie River. We were shocked when it was delivered to Chris's room and not the front desk, but it was nice that the lazy theme of the day was obviously smiled upon by fate.


Monday 08/04
I dropped by the lab for a bit, but there was not much to do, honestly. I left after lunch and it made the guys jealous.


Tuesday 08/05
I attended the Solar presentations - Dario, Keara, Chris Plumberg, Krista, and Ben went.

This was the last Colombo's family night, and I went with Nick, Nathan, and Brian. Nathan and Brian got there first and split a pitcher, but Nick had to finish our pitcher by himself because I don't like beer. He also cursed me many times for not liking beer, but then again, he did that all summer long. We also cursed Chris for being in Yellowstone and missing the last family night, which brought Nick full circle to cursing people for not helping him out with his pitcher.


Wednesday 08/06
I went with Chris to the second part of Solar presentations. That day was Eric and Nick in the morning, followed by Jacob and Jenna after lunch. After presentations Nick rode Bridger Canyon, and then got angry when Chris and I invited him to Aleworks in the middle of it.

Eric being all cute about it.

Nick and his bowie.

Nick and his feet.


Thursday 08/07
Mine and Chris's presentations - well, all of the CM ones - were today! Nick was the only Solar kid that came, but Eric and Jenna apologized for sleeping through mine and Chris's. I was second, Chris was third, and Robbie was fifth, right after lunch. We all made a pact the night before to "shoot for average" so that we'd stop stressing out about it, and it seemed to have worked, because I think the three of us easily got above the mark. Actually there wasn't a bad presentation on anyone's part. My lab came to see me again, and it was kind of nice because I was the only person whose entire lab came to see them. And they got to see me dressed up! *gasp* I solved the espresso problem by waking up at 7 to go to Daily and drink it, and by the time I gave my presentation (~10:30) any jitteryness had vanished.

That night Nathan, Eric, Robbie, Brian, Nick, Chris, and I all went to visit Orion at his job as a sushi chef...and of course to eat some sushi! It was a tasty celebration indeed. Nathan and Brian knew one of the other sushi chefs, so they ordered two "chef specials" just to see who could come up with the best roll. Orion cooked up some insane roll that blew away the Originality contest, but it was decided after some debate that the other got the Taste award. Of course there was plenty of nigiri and shashimi to go around on top of the rolls, so I was happy about that. Rolls are just texture parties, and that's too much for me to handle.

Orion's crazy roll.

The other one.

It was a pretty swanky place.  I didn't want to use flash, though it would have helped a lot.

Friday 08/08
I went with Chris to pick up his friend Cole from the airport...apparently his parents flew him out just to drive back with Chris. The two of them were booking it to Wisconsin for a canoe trip and I guess their parents didn't want them to try to drive 20 straight hours alone. Because that's what they would have done. So it was rather sad that Chris's last day was cut short, as they left at 7-ish, but Carbondale's a reasonable 5 hours away, and I'd say some visiting will go on.

There was a final REU picnic at Dr. Neumeier's house, but it was rainy outside and I was just kind of bummed the summer was over, so it wasn't super great. Ironic in that our first picnic was rainy, I suppose. There was also a magic pen that Nick couldn't put down, and a bird that really enjoys attacking people.

Nick and I just packed after that, and wondered how in the world we were going to fit two rooms and two bikes into his car.


Saturday 08/09
I couldn't sleep at all that night after we got my bike in the car, so I just wandered around Roskie for a bit and eventually ran into Ben, who also couldn't sleep. He said that a bunch of them were leaving at 4:30 and if I was still up I should run down and say bye. And wouldn't you know it, I was still up then. Unfortunately it seemed that everyone but Robbie, who was riding to the airport with Max, had gone outside to wait on thier cab. Seeing as I didn't want to stand around in 45 degree weather in pajamas, I just sat with Robbie until Max came. This meant that I had the pleasure of seeing Eric tumble out of the elevator with three bags and a pillow at 4:29 AM. He hastily checked out, said "see you guys" as he opened the door, paused, and then ended it with "well, probably not."

It was one of the best goodbyes I've ever witnessed.

I eventually did get to sleep, but woke up at 8 to shower and finish cleaning my room. It took all of two minutes to check out, and then it was off to Donut Man for one last time with Nick and Nathan. We had warned him we were cleaning him out on our last Saturday, so he was prepared. We got all kinds of tasty donuts, Nick got to make his own sprinkle donuts, we got free cinnamon rolls, and a mix CD for the road! That brought immeasuable amounts of joy to our souls.

We got the car packed.

Barely.

Making sprinkle Donuts!

Mmmm donuts.

Documenting the drive to Denver would be overly tedious. It was a gorgeous day, as you will see, which meant that I was super-sad we were leaving and Nick got angry that he had to go back to Tennessee. We also talked a lot - so much that my throat was sore the next day, in fact - bought Donut Man silly postcards at gas stations, ate a lot of subway minis and cheeze-its and donuts, and switched off driving at gas stations. We also thanked NSF everytime for paying our way back home.

Goodbye Bozeman...

Hey there again, Wyoming.

We drove through a thunderstorm, and on the right we watched the sun set, while on the left there was the largest complete rainbow I'd ever seen.  It was kind of magical, as dumb as that sounds.

We stopped for dinner right before the kitchen closed (9:50) at Oscar Blues in Lyons, CO. It would've been faster but we got a little lost without adequate signage and streetlights, and eventually I had to call Kelsey to get directions from her magical iPhone. They didn't have whatever beer he was pretty pumped about, but it was a good (if sleepy) time nonetheless. I resumed driving to Denver, which was thankfully uneventful. We just listened to a lot of Radiohead. By the time we got to his friend's house it was around 1 AM and we simply crashed on some couches in the basement.

Sunday 08/10
This girl's parents are the most hospitable people ever, which inevitably ends up making me look like a jerk at mealtimes. I'm a supremely picky eater, and all I wanted was some milk and one of Donut Man's cinnamon rolls. I instead got offered cheerios, sausage, coffee, orange juice, cranberry juice, eggs, omelets, bagels, wheat toast, scones...probably more, and none of which I liked. (Yes, that's right, I don't like any of those things I just mentioned.)

We took off and Nick told me we were going to find Mondo Vino, or something like that, which apparently is a wine store in Denver with a fantastic beer selection. We got a bit turned around, but it was short-lived, and soon found ourselves at an AMAZING wine and beer corner store. I picked out a Cab - I love Cab - and the friendly salesman (Note: Salespeople TERRIFY me normally. These people did not.) pointed me towards some stuff he thought I'd like from South America, which was incidentally cheaper than what I had chosen. Thanks, friendly salesman!

Nick got a box of brews - supposedly what amounted to a veritbale treasure chest of beer for a beer geek - and then we were faced with the grim reality of having to find a place in the car for all of our purchases.

After all of the excitement of the morning...there came Kansas. Can we please just erase western Kansas? Please? It's the most terrible thing I've ever seen. An ocean of land that fails to be broken up by anything remotely resembling anything of interest. Bleh. I napped while Nick drove and listened to some stuff I told him he should, and while I drove Nick read me some of Griffiths' quantum book, followed by some Salinger short stories. 

Dumb postcards for Donut Man.  I hope he likes them...

This got us to lunchtime - Subway minisubs again! - and after that my voice had returned and we spent the rest of the time between lunch and dinner alternately bashing Kansas and trying to figure out where the nearest Chick-Fil-A was. Then we remembered it was Sunday and were just left with Kansas-bashing. The best:

Nick: *scrawls all over our map of Kansas*
Me: *glances over*
Nick: You know, I'm not covering up anything we need to look at....because there's not fucking anything here to cover up!

Missouri, comparitively, was a wonderland of stuff to look at.

Monday 08/11
We made it to Big Cat's house at around 2 AM and did a repeat of the night before; that is, we crashed.

The next day the guys had gone to pick up Patrick's (the Big Cat) car, and I got to lounge around, update this blog, shower...enjoy not being in a car, basically. Then Patrick, who works at the arch taking tickets, took us there and got us in for free. The guys didn't care too much, but I hadn't been so it was pretty cool.

Then we met John and Aaron at Schlafly Brewery for a tour and a trade-off (<-me, that is), and got some samples at the end of the tour. I gave the guys my samples, which of course meant that I had to follow Big Cat, who's under 21, back to his house with Aaron's car to load it. St. Louis driving is a bit stressful...

I ended up driving Aaron's car the entire way from St. Louis to Lexington, but mostly because I didn't want to have to sit in the back with all of my luggage.

Yesterday 08/12

Hung out in the guys' kitchen with Aaron, being music geeks, then got Indian food at Punjab with John, Aaron, and Kels for dinner.  Basically...home-sweet-Lexington.