Day 36

In the middle of the night, I woke with something inside me cringing at the almost echo of dripping water on my pillow.  I rolled over, then I heard it again.  Blasted.  I felt my pillow and rubbed the the beads of water into my pillowcase.  I felt along the tent above me.  Nothing.  I laid back down suspiciously.  There it was again.  So I got up.  I’ve slept many a night in cheap Ozark Trail tents and never gotten dripped on and here I am in a tent that I won’t tell you how much it cost.  Getting dripped on.  I traced the source to the zipper where the wind was blowing it underneath the zipper cover.  I cinched down the liner until it was touching the zipper, hoping It would run down the liner instead of onto me.  I’d woken everyone by the creaking of my cot as I as I stood on it feeling around well aware that if I shifted to far forward the thing would collapse, and by shining my headlamp around.  Jeremiah pointed out the weakness of the zipper after Mom had tried to convince me that it wasn’t dripping.  *insert angry cat noises*  :)

I burrowed back into my sleeping bag and did some thinking and praying as I tried to go back to sleep.  I woke with a start a 8:50am.  40 minutes to get on the road for church.  

I promptly started raining.  I was quite grateful for the mud-colored embroidery  on the bottom edge of my skirt as I leaned into the van to throw away a cream cheese box.  I cut my thumb as I was slicing bagels on top of the cooler using the hatch as an umbrella.  I taped it up and hurried on making a to-go breakfast for everyone.  Everyone was finally in the car by 9:45.  We stopped at the wrong building first off and finally found Emmanuel Chapel on the second go around.  There were only 3 families and a few others there.  Later we were told that the other 5 families were in Missoula at the Reformation Celebration there or in Moscow for a prospective student orientation. 

After church, we went to Sportsman’s Warehouse to try to find something to help us cook inside the tent without making messes.  We got gas and ice and went to the Good Samaritan Thrift Store again. Mom decided she would get the odd words dictionary for Grandpa.  I found some fabric.

Back at camp...

"Walking the dogs", he says.

Started a jar of hopefully alfalfa sprouts yesterday!

... we managed to get packed, lunch made and on the road in an hour and forty minutes.  We headed toward Missoula.  The hills that way are beautiful … dark blue with bright yellow trees, little homesteads nestled here and there … one in particular had two large pigs, a bunch of chickens, several colorful goats, and some sheep all in the same grassy lot, a very happy little picture.  The larger stretches of bottom lands were sprinkled with cows and large herds of sheep, even a few haflingers.  The weathered wood of the barns is lovely, lines of dark brown and golden yellow, not at all gray.  

I got a thing for snow fences, especially this style.

I'd love to know how they make these!

The high school football field in Drummond was squished on the west side of the road where they had eked out a flat spot before the hill shot up again on the other side.  It made me laugh, the flattest spot I’d seen in ages!  

We went through Missoula about 6pm, then Lolo and Florence.  

We got to the Charles Waters Campground up Bass Creek Road about 7pm. 

I cut a piece of Tyvek to go over the picnic table to prepare dinner on since everything was soaking wet and dirty here.  We heated up some roasted red pepper and tomato soup in the tent to try out the oven dome.  Then outside, I sautéed some broccoli stems which went in the soup along with a can of black beans.  Feta cheese got sprinkled on top and we had that with grilled cheese.  

I started coming down with a whopper cold.  I took everything we had except garlic.  I didn’t feel like draggin it out and chopping it up.  The boys rigged up a rope full for the tipi zipper.  It works very well and we don’t have to crawl to the edge of the tipi and get wet agains the side wall to get out anymore!  Joshua staked out the bottom third of the tipi so we’d have more room before the liners hit the tipi wall since that’s about the level our cots are at.  It rained intermittently all evening.  

Jeremiah and I told each other it would be way much work for the other person to do dishes tonight.  I’d have to wash dishes and he’d have to pull down the shower bag from under the canoe and get it rigged up so I could rinse them.  We both happily went to bed.  ;)

To bed about 11pm and slept very bundled up.