we went to a wedding, armed (footed) with the walmart shoes. it was the wedding of greg, who is - you’ve guessed it - an old hang gliding friend of bert’s. he was marrying patti. it was at a little resort in an area just outside kalispell called happy valley. bert met up with some other old hang gliding friends, they talked about how they were older now than they used to be, and had grey hair and things. kirk and debbie were there with their 2 girls, danielle and dallas - debbie told me everyone in her family has a name beginning with d. i asked her if they called dallas dallas because of that show debbie does dallas - she said it was because they ran out of ideas by the time dallas came along and that’s why she got called dallas.
dallas and danielle were cool, and knew lots of dance routines as they do cheer leading, so we did the macarena, and they did a little routine to cotton eye jo which was really funny. we all drank beer and sambuca and danced the night away, and generally had a great time.
sunday 13th september
had slight hangovers. went for a walk after breakfast, sat in the hot tub at the resort, tried to find a cool igloo house i’d seen in the area before but couldn’t find it, lay down and had a picnic, went to bed. a pretty non eventful day.
monday 14th september
went back to kalispell and camped monty at wayne and elaine’s house - the couple we’d bought monty from.
i wandered into kalispell and hung out for a bit at the library and outside an art gallery - i thought about going in to the gallery but couldn’t quite bring myself to do that so sat and ate an apple and swished wasps away instead. i bought a book about the arab-israeli conflict in a library sale for 50c. i have read the first chapter of it and it’s sat in a cupboard since then. i find it really hard to understand things to do with politics and religion, no matter how hard i try. it’s not that i don’t try, i really do, but i can’t quite grasp it. i think people’s brains are just inclined towards grasping some things and not others. like yesterday i was really trying to understand the little drawing of the electrical circuit in the motorhome guidebook, and had to ask bert loads of questions, and eventually he thought i was just trying to wind him up, but i really wasn’t. i did manage to find the fuse box though so felt really good about that. anyway i’m going to persevere with my arab-israeli book as i’m sure i’ll pick something up from it at some point.
i also bought a puncture repair kit as we had bought 2 bikes for $10 each, from wayne and elaine - the previously mentioned falcon bike which the bike shop had written off as a death trap (and i have to partially agree having ridden it a few times by now), and another much better old mountain bike which bert has been riding. we went on a little ride later on today up the road to test them out properly - they are both 10 speed, but really mine is about 3 or 4 speed as it won’t go into the other 5 or 6 gears. the whole headset wobbles when you brake as it needs tightening up, and the seat is pretty uncomfy, but overall the whole bike is just so cool and it was $10, that i do really love it. i intend to slowly get it back to a much more ride-able condition, by replacing all the parts.today i also visited a book shop and stumbled across a book called stumbling on happiness - which i mentioned above about the nature of modern life and happiness and people’s quest for happiness. it’s really well written by some professor of psychology and isn’t a self help style book but more about cognitive science, like the way our brains work in terms of imagination and belief systems and trying to figure out the best thing for us to do in situations, and future planning etc. did you know that the frontal lobe of the brain is the part that deals with the concept of future, and also anxiety and planning? this part of the brain developed fairly recently in terms of human development - ie early man didn’t have it, and thus lived in a continuous present, and was probably a hell of a lot more content. the brain developed from 1 and a half pounds to 3 pounds with the addition of this frontal lobe bit, which is also the bit that they used to remove as a form of therapy for criminals, depressed people etc. anyway i recommend this book, it’s really a good read, and i read it in 2 days as it’s so readable. even if it doesn’t change your life it certainly won’t do you any harm.
tuesday 15th september
we drove up to foy’s lake, just up the road from wayne and elaine’s.
bert used to live here when he was in his twenties. once he was driving home there from town and was a little bit drunk and realised after a while that the police were following him. he turned off his headlights and sped up loads, turned onto his road using the handbrake so his brake lights didn’t come on, drove the car straight into the garage, flew into his house, took his clothes off, put his pyjamas and dressing gown on, waited for the knock at the door, waited a while to answer it and then answered it all sleepy looking and yawning. the police stood there and said - why is your garage light on? bert said i’ve been having problems with that light staying on recently officer. the police said - we know it was you, we’re gonna get you, you better watch out. bert had a red porsche, so was pretty recognizable and had to be really careful after that, but they never did get him.we swam in the lake, and watched some people jet ski and complained to each other about how noisy they were. we rode our bikes up the road from the motorhome, and watched some horses jumping over jumps in the distance. that night we watched dances with wolves, which is my dad’s favourite film, apart from when it was usurped from that position by mamma mia, the strange but compelling and ridiculously unbelievable abba based musical about a girl on a greek island. you may wonder at the extreme polar opposite of father pickles having these 2 films as his favourites, but that pretty much sums him up i’d say. anyway dances with wolves is excellent, i can’t believe i hadn’t seen it up until now, but some things you just don’t get round to, like i’d never had beetroot until a few weeks ago.
wednesday 16th september
i tried on some hats in kalispell. we shared a lemon and poppyseed muffin.
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