Ft. Bridger Rendezvous

About 35 miles East of Evanston there is a small community of about 150 residents called Ft. Bridger. Once upon a time it was a Fort and a trading post named after James (Jim) Bridger - Mountain Man Extraordinaire. Once a year over Labor Day weekend Ft. Bridger's population swells to 150,000 (according to some experts) as chronologically displaced mountain men and present day bikers and hippies congregate to the valley for a rendezvous. Wanting to enjoy and experience all the local events we took journey ourselves to Ft. Bridger today to take in all the sights, smells and sounds of the rendezvous which did not disappoint. Tee pees and RV's pack the otherwise vacant pastures of the sleepy old town out of which traders and craftsmen peddle the pelts of nearly any North American animal, knives, clothing, beads, black powder guns, metal works, wood works, leather works, food and beverages. The Fort rings with the sounds of blacksmith pings, Indian drums, the echos of black powder rifles, jovial mountain men laughter and bargaining as though it were a Bombay street market. Hygiene is low on the list of priorities among the mountain people as their scent can be observed readily amidst intermittent wafts of marijuana, leather, campfire smoke, manure and moonshine. The event is not lacking for colorful characters as the participants include the skankiest of all trailer trash, casual everyday folks along with the most legitimate of mountain men in the West and quiet observers. After about 3 hours of perusing the goods of the rendezvous and purchasing some we got back in to our air conditioned steel steed and let the horses run us all the way back to Evanston for a warm dinner at Grandma's house taking with us both the treasured memories of the day as well as a longing for the gathering at Ft. Bridger in 2009 as we are now approximately 364 days away from being able to fill that empty space in our hearts left by the conclusion of today's events.

Hindsight

I hope that when I die I can look back at my life in music montages and see breakdowns of my life in various statistical categories. Like if I could have every audible burp back to back how long would that be. Or if I could have in front of me all the food I ever ate, just a big massive pile of food, how big would that be? I would like to see a music montage showing every time I bit my cheek and one of every time I fell down. I think it would be interesting to know how many bugs I swallowed without knowing. I would be curious to know how many times other people prayed for me or how much of my life I spent praying for others. I would want to know how many steps I've taken, how many times I've lied and an exact amount of time that I actually wasted. I hope I get to see how many times I avoided tragedy or if I could see a parking lot of every car I ever rode in. I wish I could see a list of the songs I know all the lyrics to. I would like to see a container holding all the blood I ever lost, all the hair I ever cut, all the spit I've ever spat and a pile of my finger and toe nail clippings. I think it would be cool to see a room full of all the people I ever had a two way conversation with how many books I read and a field full of all the delicious animals I ever ate. Just seems interesting. Wouldn't you want to know?

Too awesome to not post

I hope they sell t-shirts at this thing. My favorite part is at the end where the author actually writes "nut specialists..."

Sunday Drive

There have been a few dirt roads that I drive past all the time that I wanted to check out. Finally having some time we took a little family Sunday drive to find out where they go.

I love badgers. When I saw that crazy little guy waddling across the road I nearly drove in to a ditch. I started firing off pictures and spinning the tires which was a bad idea cause they are well worn but it was a BADGER and I couldn't contain myself. Anyway, I think when I did that I punctured both my back tires. Luckily we got back to pavement before too long and I changed one while Sarah plugged the other with her thumb to keep as much air in the sucker as possible until we made it back to town. Somehow it struck us as funny and not sad. I think cause I am pretty accustomed to flats. I get about 1 a month it seems, plus all my tires have been punctured (I think this was puncture number 7 for rear lefty) and worn to the point that I was planning on buying new tires before winter anyway. Which in Evanston means within the next 6 weeks. It was well worth the effort though. I had no idea any of that stuff was out there and now I know where the road goes so when I get in a car chase with Boss Hogg and Roscoe me Bo and Luke can lose him and meet up with Uncle Jesse and Cooter at the badger hole.

Airplanes!

Evanston had an air show on Saturday. I didn't know what to expect, and I wasn't expecting much. Jack and I drove over to the airport just to check it out. I was pleasantly surprised. They had some really cool old planes. They did a bunch of tricks and even had sky divers. Jack's mood was oddly reminiscent of the time we went to the Aquarium. This happened during his nap time again. Since it was outside and he was allowed to push his stroller all over the place he stayed happy, but we were only able to stay for part of it. We'll definitely be attending again next year.

Demetri Martin says...

Sometimes I get jealous of my nephew Colson's most excellent quotes. Since Jack doesn't talk like that yet and it is pretty socially unacceptable for me to talk like that (plus I'm not sure I'm smart enough to put a sentance together that is both witty and complete with a fair slathering of boyish charm) I thought I would continue to promote my favorite comic.

"Sort of’ is a filler, but at the end of a sentence, it can mean everything,” “I love you. You’re going to live. It’s a boy.” - Demetri Martin

Do they sell Olympic Spirit as an alcoholic beverage?

It has been a ton of fun watching the Olympics this go round. It has been a long time since I cared so much and thanks to DVR I've caught way more than I ever even wanted to watch. At least its commercial free! The swimming was amazing and I think I effectively taught Jack how to chant "U S A" during the relays. The dominance of our beach volleyball teams has also been a lot of fun to watch and definitely worth staying up late to see. I can't say its all been fun though. Has anyone else been watching the track and field events? Let me preface this by saying that normally I love watching the track and field stuff but I honestly think that the commentators have been effective in making even amazing accomplishments seem disappointing. Like last night Jeremy Wariner came in an unexpected 2nd in the 400m, but the US swept the medals. Maybe I'm just too naive and think that it would be cool to come home with any Olympic hardware but all the announcers could talk about was how disappointing a race it was for one guy. Not anything like "that's fantastic! US men just swept the 400". Now I'm not an idiot, I know that the track and field has been a huge let down. I know that DNF for relays is bad, I know that hitting hurdles is not good, I know that second place isn't as good as first. I just think it would be a lot more fun to focus on the good that is going on in stead of dreadfully awkward track-side interviews, hugely over-hyped disappointments and whatever Jamaica is killing us in at the moment. Maybe that's just me. I still love watching track events but maybe next time WE could get Michael Johnson in stead of letting the BBC have him. Maybe we could pull Al Trautwig away from platform diving for a second and get some people in there who have some more positive stuff to say about the overall performance of US athletes and not focusing so hard on the disappointment of individuals.

A few of my favorite things...about Evanston

I've said it once, and I'll say it again...summer in Evanston is the best! The temperatures and wind make being pregnant in the summer bearable. Its supposed to be in the low 70s today, but last I checked, it hasn't made it out of the 60s yet.

Almost everything in Evanston is within walking distance of our house. This is something I love because Jack and I like to go on walks, and its nice to be able to walk to cool places rather than just around the neighborhood. We like to walk down to Historic Depot Square and watch the trains go by. I'm not sure where Jack's train obsession came from, but he does love trains! Also, they recently opened an ice cream parlor downtown called The Scoop. Its really fun. We went last Monday. You could tell that everyone was there for family home evening. There are at least 3 playgrounds within walking distance. There may be more, but I haven't needed to find out. 3 is plenty for us.

He's pointing at the train.

This is the where the passengers used be buy tickets and get on the train. There is a walkway around back of the building where Jack likes to watch the trains close up.

One of my favorite things about Evanston is coming soon...the Labor Day parade! My first taste of Evanston was 5 years ago when Eric brought me out here to meet Grandma Aanerud. We arrived just in time for the parade! I was surprised at how many people were there to take in the festivities, and even more surprised when I learned that they had a pancake breakfast before the parade started. The parade is always jam packed with rodeo royalty, clowns, and candy! Maybe this year we'll make it to the breakfast too!



And, of course, the best thing about Evanston is having Eric's Grandma Aanerud near by. Most of our (immediate) family lives in Texas, with a few exceptions in Utah (and 2 brothers on missions), so we love having someone close. Jack recognizes Grandma's house now and gets really excited whenever we pull into the driveway. He loves to chase Molly (Grandma's dog) and imitate her when she howls. He never leaves without his bowl of ice cream or giving Grandma goodbye kisses.

One good thing about summer ending

Can't wait for the Office to be back on. It's a good thing that the Olympics are such a good distraction from the otherwise awful remaining summer television programming. We love the "slap face" commercial they've been showing.

Just a few pictures

We took Jack to the railroad park tonight. He liked it.

It's pretty neat. They have an old engine set up for kids to climb all over.

Still likes his trucks.

Some things on my mind

It's been a while since I've taken the time to write a post, I'm not sure that anyone cares but I do find it a little therapeutic to write something that doesn't include some kind of appraisal jargon. Things have been pretty busy for me over the past couple of months. In a nutshell its like this: 60 hours of my week goes to my job, about 15 hours goes to the project house and the rest is peppered with my church calling, sleeping and spending some time with the fam. I struggle a lot with finding some kind of balance in my life, but that conversation is for another day. There are a few things that I want to get off my chest today. I'll start with the debauchery that is now commonly referred to as country music. I love country music. I think I love it even more now that I find myself among real life cowboys all the time (Wyoming is the "cowboy state"). Somehow the suits in nashville have decided that I should like Jessica Simpson, Jewel, some australian turd, Darius Rutgers (as in Hootie, yes, Hootie and the Blowfish Hootie...yes he really has gone country), Rascal Crapps, and Kid Rock as the preferred country and western artists. I guess I am just out of touch and living in the nations least populated state has finally caught me, but near as I can reckon these folks have no business singin country. I think if you were to take a poll of the guys out there who have ridden a horse or grown up in rural America they would be completely offended. Honestly I don't know why I'm surprised, it's like a microcosm of our country's current political climate. You have a handful of arrogant idiots crappin it up for the rest of us.

I think I'm getting old. Here's how I know: I tend to prefer music that already exists to new music (don't get the wrong idea...I still take a lot of pride in knowing who sings what across all genres...and I would bet that I could hold my own against anyone in a music jeopardy game)

I prefer staying in to going out.

I'm tired a lot... and you know what, it's alright to go to bed before 10 sometimes.

I, Eric Aanerud actually called the police on some kids that were throwing firecrackers in my backyard. For those who may not know, on any given 4th you can find me with a couple hundred dollars worth of explosives in the truck and in my lifetime I have burnt, blown up or killed countless things living and non that would populate a list too lengthy to report here. Probably about the same as any male reading this.

Every once in a while I will do something that stops me cold because it reminds me so much of my dad. Not a bad thing cause I love my dad, just eerie.

The list could go on, but instead I'll tell a completely unrelated story.

I was sitting in the middle of Elders Quorum the other day. It was a pretty successful EQ sunday cause we had about 10 guys there. It was in the middle of the JS lesson on finding consolation in death (or something close to that) and the teacher was sharing an incredibly personal story about how he had lost a young child several years before. In the back of the room there is this gentleman who easily weighs 4 bills, maybe 5, enough to where he only wears sweat pants. But he's just a big guy, probably about 6'5". He often nods off during lessons and snores like a kodiak bear. His voice is quite booming too. I imagine its like a cave and deep in the abyss of his chest where his vocal chords begin a noise starts that bounces around so much inside that by the time it gets to his mouth its amplified 5 times louder than it would otherwise be. So this guy is sleeping, a very spiritual and personal moment is being shared and all of the sudden some kind of techno, euro-trash ring tone sounds. Wouldn't you know that it's our friend in the back who jolts (too big to jump) so hard that he wakes himself up and is I would have thought a little embarrassed...not so...how do I know? Keep reading. His massive hand plunges deep in to his sweat pants pockets that are ironically quite small for something belonging to a piece of fabric that could easily shield the northern hemisphere from the sun. He pulls it out and I think to myself, finally he's gonna turn the stupid thing off, but no, he answers it carries on a 3 minute conversation right there in the middle of the room, middle of the lesson with that big booming voice. I couldn't believe what I had just witnessed. I am a firm believer that every person should be given 12 grenades when they are born for there lifetime that they can use as they please. I would have gone through 3 of them right there.

Addie Bump!

This was really hard for me to want to do. I feel like this baby (and my stomach) get bigger every 20 seconds, but here is the current status...

I'm 28 weeks along, and I have 83 days to go!!