in which I retun to the internet world

Stasia's universal theorum about blogs: the longer it is between posts, the harder it is to regain momentum.

I have a good reason for being gone, though: more summer adventures...



...namely, in the form of an epic backpacking trip through Wyoming's Wind River Range. Really--we started at the south end of the range, and hiked our way up to the north end, 10 days and 101 miles in all. For an abridged travel narrative, check out my pictures.

The heroes of the story are The Great Outdoor Shop, a little, well, outdoor shop in Pinedale, WY. Since we started hiking at one end of the range and finished our trip at the totally other end, we paid the kind folks at the Outdoor Shop to shuttle Mike's car for us.

A shuttle is no ordinary feat. To get to our starting point, we drove for a pretty significant chunk of time over windy, narrow, unpaved roads, then left Mike's car amidst a sea of other cars in a totally free-for-all campground/day-use/long-term/who-knows-what-else parking lot. Since Mike couldn't find his spare key, we just left his normal key in a top-secret location that we'd told the Outdoor Shop folks about. And that was it. We left the car there for them to find and then shuttle (a 3-4 hour endeavor) to the northern end of the range, where we would be coming out of our hike.

Thinking back on it, I wasn't even sure if I'd told them Mike's license plate number or even what kind of car he has. They did know we were from Oregon, and they definitely knew where we left the key. But as we hiked, we both had visions of them driving out to shuttle the car and then having to check every single vehicle with Oregon plates for the keys, hoping that they'd find the right one. In fact, we were somewhat concerned that they wouldn't shuttle the car at all, that we'd get out after our 10 days of hiking only to discover that we had to find a way to hitchhike back to the beginning.

But the lovely folks at the Outdoor Shop totally came through for us, despite whatever information I didn't give them, and Mike's car was right there waiting for us at the end. Hooray! If you ever find yourself in Pinedale, WY, you should definitely head over there and give them a big old hug and thank you for me:)

For more exciting (mini) stories, again, check out my pictures!