Wyoming is beautiful, by the way.

So, I spent this weekend in Idaho again. Tianna's second reception was up there on Friday night, so I drove up that afternoon. Saturday morning, we all went to the Museum of Idaho to see their latest exhibit, World of the Pharaohs. Saturday night, we went up to Jackson Hole to see the Bar J Wranglers perform and have dinner. Then on Sunday, T's nephew was being blessed, so I stayed for that, too. After a celebratory lunch, I caravaned back to Utah with the newlyweds. We stopped at BJ's family's house for dinner and to open gifts. I finally made it home a two o'clock this morning. It was a long weekend.

Enough of the boring stuff! It wasn't only a long weekend; it was also filled with bizarrity. So now, for your reading pleasure, a list of oddness I encountered on my trip:

• strange stores I passed:
• the House of Hose
• The Dam Store (located, predictably, near a dam)
• Stinker Stores, complete with skunk logo
• my favorite: The Midnight Taxidermist (Seriously, if you have an animal you need stuffed so badly you can't wait until morning, well, we just don't have anything in common.)
• I drove by a farmer (cowboy hat and all) sitting on a riding lawnmower out by the road; not moving or anything, just sitting there.
  
• There's a Potato Museum! Those crazy Idahoans.
• I spent quite a while behind a car with a skull on the back window; this was special because the skull was flipping me off with both hands.
• After hearing about it for so long, I finally got to pay over $4/gallon for gas! Thrice, actually.
• a couple of fun signs:
• "Game Crossing." Yes, I am well aware of what was actually intended (I'm not that much of a city girl), but I swear that when I read it, I pictured Monopoly, Scrabble, Twister, and the like toddling across the road. Try it! It's a funny image.
• In front of a handicap parking space: "Stupidity is not considered to be a handicap. Park somewhere else."
• I actually saw, with my own eyes, square ice cream. (We didn't get any because the line was forever long and we were on a schedule. But it looked cool!)
• On my way up, I'm driving through the middle of nowhere, right? I mean, there's just nothing around except the highway. Well, perhaps as a marker that this was, in fact, the Middle of Nowhere, there are these two street lights. One after another. Just sittin' there. No others for miles and miles in either direction. Odd.
• fond memories that were brought back to me:
• On the way home, we spent over an hour stuck in construction near Ogden. I saw a couple of cars pulled off to the side (tricky, when you're surrounded by orange barrels), and it reminded me of a time I was driving home to Texas. I was stuck in construction, in either Oklahoma or Arkansas. Not sure which. Well, I wasn't really stuck; we were crawling along at about 5 mph. I looked down at my left leg and saw a huge spider on it! Its body was at least the size of a quarter, and it had very kind and helpful neon yellow markings on it to let me know that it could kill me. It was situated just below my knee, and I promptly started to freak out. But what could I do? There was nowhere to pull over, and I couldn't just stop. I could brush it off my leg, but then it would be loose in my car, an idea not to be born. So I stayed very still (as still as it's possible to keep your left leg when you're driving stick, anyway) and waited until I got out of the construction and could pull over. This was quite the test of my composure, let me tell you. But I was so relieved to finally get rid of it!
• I passed a billboard advertising My Turn on Earth, available for sale at a bookstore. I saw this movie for the first time last year, and I am now scarred for life. Particularly as regards a certain lullaby that my mother always sang to me but never told me came from the most ridiculous, cheesy movie EVAR. When it started to play, I had a very violent reaction, let me tell you.
• I mentioned the construction traffic nightmare. Well, BJ and Tianna and I conversed a few times during said madness, and a new game was born. Freeway Karaoke! Just roll down your windows, hold out a sign telling your neighborly sufferers to tune to a certain station, and everybody sing along! Sadly, no, we didn't actually try this. If everybody was as near to insanity as I was (I am quite certain you can only push the clutch in and out so many times in an hour before you go stark raving mad), it probably wouldn't have been received very well. But it was a fabulous idea.
  
• I also learned how to signal an "S.O.S." with my headlights. Needless to say, nobody came to my rescue.