good weekend….

 well, i had a really good weekend.

now, not only do i know what a gridley days is, but i know a lot more about my state’s history than i did, and at the same time, got to hang out with some really cool women, have fun, relax, dance, hike, see people from my own town that convince me yet again that the world is too small, and see some of the most disgusting, prehistoric mutant ninja bugs from hell there ever were, to be sure =)

so, who knew that austin, nevada, was so integral to our state’s and our countries history? not me….considering it almost looks like a ghost town. turns out the gridley days were named for someone named, you guessed it, gridley. seems this man lost an election bet and had to carry a 50lb sack of flour from one town to the next on his back. he did this, and then auctioned off the flour to raise money for the Sanitary Commission, which was a relief organization for Union soldiers and also the precursor of the American Red Cross. He auctioned off the same sack of flour all over the place, eventually raising $275,000 for this organization. cool, i can celebrate that =)

as we were driving into town, we passed a few brown smears on the road. our biggest fear was that we would have to experience mormon crickets, some infestation of these disgusting bugs that happens here in different places each year. i see how folks could truly consider this a scourge of biblical proportions. they are absolutely disgusting and they come in such numbers that they swarm over everything. *shudder* the arrived in the town just as we were leaving. yuck!! i am very much a "live and let live" kind of girl, but these things are just gross, truly. this is what they look like on the side of a building:

on the road:

nasty, i am telling you. it makes my skin crawl just to think of going through them, stepping on them and they crunch. just, ew.

overall, however, the weekend was a roaring success. we were there to cheer our friend on in the parade. we think we were definately the loudest of anyone in the crowd watching the parade, which probably numbered less than 50 people. in fact, i daresay that the number of people IN the parade was greater than the number of people watching the parade =) ahhhh, small town americana, to be sure.

the cool thing, though, is that we did learn an awful lot about nevada history, got some really cool resources that applied to the whole state and this little town might have had only two restaurants, no viable store, and more bars and churches than anything else, but they had some damn fine shopping =) nevada is like a geologists wet dream apparently, and there were crystals and gems and native turquoise that was awesome.

we had take a lot of booze with us, but really, our paltry offerings were nothing compared to the level of seasoned professionalism we experienced in the drinkers that were there for the festivities. we saw a man vomit his way down the main street, and it honestly made us wonder if this is the real reason they once made sidewalks from wood planks….because the vomit just sort of runs through the cracks, no mess cleanup =) we had a bucket of margaritas and some home brew. it made things a lot cheaper for us, but really, we were no match.

there were two restaurants in the town, and apparently neither of them were ready for the influx of about 100 people into their normally 20 person town =) the one cafe, we waited over an hour for our food. apparently they needed to keep the cow alive until the last second and only cut off a piece at a time so they could use it for other stuff as long as possible. this was surrounding my friends request for a chicken fried steak =) or, it could be that we are just spoiled city folk who are used to immediate gratification and smaller town folk just don’t respond well to that, which is more likely the case =)

the town is sort of like virginia city, without all the touristy trap stuff. this is kind of laughable if you’ve ever been to virginia city, that might have a population of 500. when i think of the fact that i saw that many people on a single subway train in new york city, it puts things in perspective rather nicely for me =) i may post more pictures when my friend posts them.

on the way home sunday morning though, we had a really good time. every time we saw a historic marker, we stopped and read what everything was about. we learned about nevada’s pony express, early settlements, and mining towns. it’s pretty amazing that a hundred years ago, there was a booming town in the spot of the marker and now, there’s just nothing. sometimes not even a rock or a part of a foundation. just emptiness.

we also came across a petroglyph site that was pretty amazing. they estimate the glyphs are between 5,000 and 10,000 years old. pretty cool stuff and a very, very easy hike. there are some hidden caves around that sound pretty cool too. so, we found lots of stuff to do on future forays, also.

i talked to my son for about an hour on the phone last night. the life lessons are coming hard and fast now. he totally blew me away last night. he called my husband, who he’s always had an adversarial relationship with. he’s always looked down on my husband in that "know-it-all" way that is so charming with teenagers like he was a washed-up old man. now that he’s kind of doing stuff on his own, he sees that d has always been there for him and he’s had a pretty nice life. d has proveded for him, and we’ve always allowed him to be his own person and supported him in whatever he wanted to do. the competition and discension between them has been something that has hurt me forever. to have two of the people i love the most in the world act like they hate each other just tore me up.

so my son called d yesterday and told him that he loved him, thanked him for being a good dad, told him he was proud to call him dad, and apologized for not being the greatest kid in the world. this made me cry to think that he’s finally seeing these things. you can’t force a young person to see stuff like this, they have to come to it on their own. he wasn’t a bad kid, but he did always treat us like we were inferior or something. it was an attitude thing. it’s good to see that he’s seeing life a little different these days….

as soon as they finish up where they are in petersburg alaska, they are headed to nome, alaska, where he hopes to do a bit more technical stuff. he’s doing good, no more near-death experiences, which is good.

daughter did good all weekend, she worked and to hear her tell it is a rising star at one of the ice cream shops where they make your combinations by hand on cold slabs and sing you songs when you tip them. it amazes me that this is fun to her, but more power to her if she enjoys it.

i better end this novella for now. good to get it all out, though.

peace.