wyoming

We have finally reached Wyoming. The first thing we saw this morning was a trail sign that read "Medicine Bow National Forest. Colorado was long and difficult,  and being past it is an accomplishment, so we celebrated. though it was only mid morning, we opened the medicinal whiskey, and had a snort to celebrate being out of Colorado. My sisters eldest son, Riley, now considered an adult, stepped up to drink his snort, and with bravery and daring, drank it all in one gulp. I have never seen a young man turn so many shades of red and green, while still trying to appear cool, but he did. After several minutes of color changing, and coughing, a few half hearted attempts to remain cool, he manged to choke out a sort of snuffled "good", and much to his dismay, uproarious laughter from the entire family. Then it was Shawna's turn. She, of course, had just witnessed Riley's experience, and would've been happy to pass were it not for her husband Scott encouraging her. "come on" he said, "it affects different people differently", "you have a strong constitution, it shouldn't affect you like that". She looked to me, her loving father for advice. "daddy?" she queried, "is it gonna burn me?" "oh yeah" I told her "its gonna hurt". "no" Scott said "it won't do you like that, everybody else did, are you wimping out?" Gathering her courage, she took a big swallow and reacted worse than Riley  had. Much to the cackle of laughter from Scott. After chasing him around the clearing for a few minutes, she finally tackled him and proceeded to releive him of his shoes, and pants. He was laughing to hard to protest and she ran away with the offenders pants, and filled with them with grass, twigs, dirt, anything she could find, and tossed them back to him with a cavalier smile, and a jaunty accent,saying "your pants sire". Shawna can be very determined at times. It was a good day.