Trouble til Cour D'alene

*Note* There will be no pictures from this segment of our journey for various reasons ranging from "i just didn't have my camera' to 'i hate the world to much to take photos for other people'

So we had our tent set up. We walked down to the lake to check out the view and it was in fact, awe inspiring. There was a blurry pillar of smoke reaching up form the forrest across the lake that covered the western half of the lake. The moon was rising through the smoke and the water reflecting the sky was truly magical. I could not believe how beautiful it was and how happy it made me.
I met a guy by the name of Aaron sitting by the water with his camera set up photographing the smoke. He was doing a time lapse of three shots every five seconds (three exposures, one high, one low one mid grade) and had been sitting there drinking beer for two hours already. He was a road trip with his friends as well and was doing photography as a love. I asked him his end result and he said he was moving to kansas for storm chasing photography as more love. Had no idea how he was going to support himself but he was gonna do it. I told him I was proud of him already and he said the same to me. We had a nice half hour of just staring at rising smoke and not talking but just enjoying a smiling peace.

The sun started setting behind the trees so I said goodbye to Aaron and headed back to camp. Upon returning to the camp Dylan and I made some sandwiches and decided to get into warmer clothing and walk around. After raiding our bags we found no long pants were present. We had left them in Sarika's dryer after walking through the rain...oh bother.

It got darker and it got colder. One of our neighbors mentioned it was going to get down to forty degrees that night. I stared at dylan in disbelief. This was going to hurt.

I put on two pairs of shorts, two hoodies, my amerika beenie, and stuck my legs through a long sleeve shirt. We each had one foam pad and a long sheet that stretched down to our feet and wound back up to cover us individually. Almost no sleep was had. At some point I got up and went to the car because I couldn't get comfortable enough to ignore the cold on the floor. I reclined the seat and ate two granola bars trying to get any kind of calorie warmth I could. Again, no sleep was had. At about 6 the it started getting light and the windshield provided no cover so I got up and went to sit on the beach. My feet were frozen solid. My lips were blue. I could neither straighten or bend my knees. So I sat in the sun exposing as much skin as I could tolerate in an attempt to thaw out. After three hours or so I was able to move enough that I could go back to camp. Dylan had wrapped himself in a sheet cocoon and was just barely asleep. I unpacked the car, cleaned it out and repacked it just so I could keep myself moving.
Around ten-thirty I had had enough and woke dylan up. We threw the tent in the car and drove off in search of coffee and sleeping bags. There was a general tourism store that we pulled into. They had weak coffee for $2.50 and sleeping bags for $95. We got coffee, gas, and decided to hit a few sights before leaving the park entirely. Dylan, having slept the morning away drove. I drank my coffee to warm up then did my best to keep my eyes shut as much as possible. We stopped a few times but I was in no mood to be a tourist. I felt like I fell down a flight of cement stairs, I hadn't slept, I was still cold, and now we had to leave yellowstone after only one night. Not a happy camper.

Saw a waterfall and Old Faithful. I admit Old Faithful was impressive in how long it kept spewing out steam but I was too busy hating the world and everyone in it to admire the wonder of nature. We got back in the car and Dylan drove us out of the park while I slept. I remember stopping for lunch and getting a cheeseburger and beer. That made me feel a bit better. At about 2 we stopped for gas and swapped places because Dylan was crashing. I was still a bit agitated and driving gave me a good reason to be focused on something else. I powered through a good six hours or so til we hit Cour D'alene, Idaho. We stopped there for dinner and HUMUNGOUS beers. Seriously, glasses the size of our heads. I demanded we stay in a motel for the night because we still had inadequate camping gear. Dylan agreed that there was really no other option so we found a place. El Rancho motel. We paid, got in the room, threw on Futurama and crashed out hard.