Ice Fishing

Our neighbor and elementary P.E. teacher, who is one of the more legitimate cowboys I've ever interacted with--former rodeo steer wrestler, or "wrastla," as he would say, former ranch hand, and he still breaks horses on the side--invited Luke and I to go ice fishing at a lake a little bit out of Wanblee with him. Neither of us have fishing licenses, but it's pretty clear that it wasn't a very big deal: in the two years that he has been fishing at the lake, no ones ever asked to see his papers (nor has he caught anything since the first time he fished there...). Near 60 degrees out, it was the perfect day to be sitting around outside, although perhaps not the perfect day to be out ice fishing on a lake. When we pulled up we could see a big patch where warmer water flows into the lake from a spring, and the ice had melted clear through. But we stayed on the other side of the lake, and no one had to be rescued from the water. I haven't been fishing since I was about eight years old, and for about one week I decided it would be cool to fish. Back then I realized fishing required patience, and that I wasn't patience. Maybe I've matured since then, or maybe I was resigned to fishlessness today, but I was able to enjoy a day of kicking back on the ice. Unfortunately there will be no fish fry tonight.

The pull up to the lake.

Unloading the truck.

Drilling into the ice.

Fishermen at work.

Portrait of a cowboy.

In search of the perfect spot.

Apparently we were fishing for some big ol' slimy guys. Luke got a bite at one point, but it ripped his lure right off and swam away, so he had to get set back up again.

Nemo

A little over a month ago, Marsh and I were looking for a luxurious yet cheap cabin in the Black Hills for a relaxing night off the Rez. Scouring the free internet at Dunn Brothers in Rapid City, I came across this website, so we decided to give it a try. It was a little farther from the ski slopes than we were thinking, but it was far more luxurious than anywhere else we looked at, and also far less expensive. The place turned out to be spectacular--just a beautiful little house surrounded by nothing but Black Hills Spruce. On our first trip out, we needed groceries but I figured we could buy them when we arrived in Nemo. Nemo, it turns out, consists of about seven buildings, one of which did indeed sell groceries--we ended up buying both of their frozen pizzas.

When we arrived at the Lodge we were surprised to find that we were the first visitors since July. Since then the place has become a kind of TFA retreat in the Hills, as we have given them some $900 over the past five or six weeks. It's gotten to the point where a couple of us ended up beating out a rival group of TFA teachers who were also planning on booking the lodge for this weekend (sorry, guys). There has even been some talk about renting the house out for the entire summer.

Reservations secured, I met a bunch of friends out at the lodge this weekend. On the way out I stopped over in Rapid to finally get my South Dakota driver's license (I am now a full-fledged legal resident, and no longer a resident of Connecticut). I also stopped in to the Subaru dealership to get an oil change and to get a small grinding noise I've been noticed checked out--so I was quite pleased when I discovered I would need $1,200 of repairs on the car. That cancelled any plans for skiing.

It was still a perfect winter weekend, with temperatures getting up to almost 60 degrees on Sunday, ideal for lounging around a cabin in the middle of nowhere. (Many photos thanks to Shannon.)

Jenny napping on the couch, a common activity.

Walking Kim's dog.

Some of the girls built a snow fort while I was napping inside. They had hoped to have a snowball fight, but everyone else got back from skiing too late. The next day they built a snowman while I was napping again (see below). Dave invited me out to look at the snow man, and I was ambushed from the snow fort.

Shannon is demonstrating proper snow fort technique in the second photo.

Kim, Irv the snowman, and Kim.

Detail of Irv. Note the man boobs.

The national forest started about 30 feet behind the house (right where the fort was built). There was a beautiful clearing another eighth or a mile back into the woods. This is what it looked like before we sullied it with snow angels and snowmen.

Kim in the clearing.

Sleeping in the snow.

Matching $20 Men's large snow overalls from ALCO.

More snow overalls. Note the massive animals mounted to the wall. That elk's head is about 4 feet in lengh and stares you right in the eye as you walk out of the upstairs bedroom. There is also a bearskin rug mounted to the wall off to the left, and in the study there is a collection of photos depicting Vince (one of the owners--they are super nice) after taking the bear down. I'm considering hiring him for a hunting excursion in the spring.

SkiFA

Lots of things have gone on over the past couple months, but I've been too busy either doing those things or teaching to take a chance to write about them. This weekend wasn't supposed to be long, but we had been planning for a long time to make it a vacation anyway, and then lo and behold on Thursday afternoon it was announced that school would be cancelled for Friday due to the cold conditions, so I got out of town and towards the ski slopes on Friday morning.

A big group of us rented a few cabins in various places near Terry Peak, the primier mountain in South Dakota, and supposedly one of the best east of the Rockies. I was considering just relaxing around the house instead of skiing myself, since I haven't done it in ten years or so, but as we drove up the mountain to our cabin--which was about five minutes from one of the lifts--it was pretty clear to me that that wasn't an option.

I was sort of a mess when I first arrived. As everyone else headed to the lodge, I had to drive back down into town to pick up some cheap snow pants in order to top off my rag-tag assemblage of winter gear. When I came back I was very lost as to how to go about getting started. Luckily, though, a second group of SkiFAers arrived soon after. I had bought a beginner pass, which limited me to just two short green runs, but a few of the new arrivals had paid only a little more for an all-access pass and a ski lesson, so I decided to jump on that.

At the bottom of the trail map, there was a statement about how the slope rating system is relative, and even if you have been on a black diamond somewhere else, you may not be prepared for Terry Peak's black diamonds. I had never been on a black diamond before. As I rode up the lift to the top of the beginner's run, it was clear to me that what passed for a green run here would definently be at least a blue run at the dinky slope I had skiied on ten years earlier in Connecticut. But I decided to throw myself into it, and after one of my companions headed down the hill, I shrugged and followed. Of course, I didn't stop to think long enough that some kind of turns might be a good idea, so I basically tore down the slope and full speed, with nothing to slow me down--and no way to control myself--until I ran off the edge of the slope and into the trees. At this point I was also drenched in sweat. It turned out that the six or so layers I was wearing were more than enough to withstand the sub-zero temperatures. So I had to go inside and shed some clothes before going for another more controlled run.

After a couple runs on the beginner slopes I was pretty glad I hadn't stuck with the beginner pass, because the same two runs would've have gotten very boring pretty quickly. A few of us more novice skiiers tried out some of the shorter blue runs and I started to get into the groove of things. Once we had made it from the top of the mountain to the bottom, we rode back up and decided to take a long, winding green trail down. The only problem was that near the bottom the green trail was blocked off, and our only way to the bottom was on a black diamond called "Holy Terror." Quick learning, I guess, and it was about to get quicker.

After having made it up and down the mountain, Ryan (a longtime snowboarder, first time skiier) and I felt pretty comfortable with the way things were going. When we showed up for our lesson, we told our instructor that we didn't figure that the "first time on skis" lesson was really going to be very fun for us, to which Ted (our instructor) happily said, "Great! Well let's just go skiing then!" He took us to the top of the beginner slope, showed us some exercises to help us get comfortable on our skis, and then we did one run down to see how our wedge turns looked. He was happy enough with that, and started to give some instructions about turning with your skis parallel, most of which I didn't follow. We did a couple easy to moderate runs working on some basically skills. We rode to the top of the mountain. And then he says, "Okay, let's do Holy Terror." I'm skiing for the first time in tens years, I've never skiied a black diamond before, and he wants me doing one half an hour into my first lesson? But he was the boss, so we did it. Ryan was pretty controlled, but I was on my ass about every five feet. But I made it. When we got to the bottom Ted remarked that slopes don't get much steeper than that, and that we had done pretty well on it. I don't think I believed him on either count. The lesson continued, we kept skiing some of the steeper runs, and I kept falling. But I definently felt myself improving. By the end of the lesson, though, I was shot, just sore all over. I tried to a couple more mellow runs on my own, but I was exhausted and it had gotten very icy, and even those beginner slopes I had started the day with started to look daunting again. So I packed it in half an hour early, waited for some of the more committed skiiers to come in just as they were shutting down the slopes.

After a round at the lodge bar, we headed back to the cabin and I made a move straight for the hot tub. Nothing beats soaking in an outdoor hot tub when it's zero degrees out and you have been skiing all day. The only problem comes when you are done soaking and you need to put the cover back on the hot tub, so you're standing there barefoot and shirtless and soaking wet, and it's still zero degrees. But it was all worth it.

After a delicious dinner, courtesy of Kate, we took Ted the ski instructor's tip that we head into Lead to check out a bluegrass band at the Howlin' Wolf. I was somehow picturing a bar that was bigger than my kitchen, but basically the whole place was 12 feet by 12 feet, with a bar, a stage, and a small scattering of seating packed in. The band (Oakhurst) was sweet, throwing in some Wilco and MC5 covers, and the plywood floors were perfect for cowboy boot stompin' dancing. Sometimes on weekends like this I feel like this year's going by too fast, and I hardly have had a chance to hang out with everyone. And then Sunday comes around and summer starts looking pretty good again.

Still Kicking

I'm still alive, I swear. And I'll be updating soon.

South Dakota Bars

This weekend we had a TFA professional development session in Rapid City. I was hoping to get out to Rapid on Friday night so that I could get a little extra taste of the big city and sleep a bit later on Friday morning before the session began. But alas, with my nose to the grindstone all week, I wasn't really in contact with anyone, and when I started to call folks up after school on Friday, I couldn't find anyone who planned on spending the night. So instead I joined my friends from He Dog at the R Bar in Vetal--a town which, as far as I can tell, consists of only this bar. The R Bar was hosting a "fun night," as the flyer advertised in, in which teams of three competed in indoor mini-golf, pool, and darts. I didn't arrive until competition was underway, so I spectated while the He-Doggers' golf ball wobbled its way back and forth across the very uneven hardwood bar floor; I especially enjoyed watching a team of cowboys in ten-gallon hats as they puttered their way through the mini-golf. This place was about as unpretentious as a bar can get, and the bartender had a few tricks up her sleeve which I will have to wait to reveal until a future date. We're hoping to bring back a larger crew for an All-TFA Tourney at the R Bar.

After a day of professional development and errands (I got a flashy new cell phone, which still fails to provide me quality service), we were supposed to all meet up for dinner at Chili's, followed by the unofficial TFA Rapid City Pub Crawl. As Jess and I were jumping in the car to head to dinner, we both decided we had little interest in Chili's a much greater interest in sushi. I've had sushi before, but never at a sushi bar. I don't know if Rapid City was the best place to start that experience, but it was good. Then it was on to tour Rapid City's bars.

The pub crawl begins at the Firehouse, South Dakota's first brew pub. Here I am enjoying a "Brown-Eyed Girl" while watching some good ol' rodeo on the television.

A few bars later, we ended up at Murphy's Sports Bar. As we were dancing on the dance floor, the MC started saying something about "who wants to be our guest DJ?" I kind of ignore this at first, but when he started calling for 5 volunteers, I led the charge out, dragging Wes and Dan into it to fill out the numbers. After two other random volunteers joined in, they held a "cheer-off" to decide who would be the guest DJ for fifteen minutes ("based purely on looks"). There was absolutely no noticeable difference in the volume of the cheers, but the MC seemingly randomly cut it down to me and a big fellow in a baseball cap. And then, again entirely randomly, I was crowned victor, and so found myself behind the laptop and in control of the dance floor. As many of you know, this is a position I relish.

Here I am winning the looks contest, which is ridiculous.

The DJ gives me the lowdown on how things operate: you click the "play" button on the laptop. Hhe wouldn't let me mess around with any of the fancier toys too much (no crossfades!), although here he is pointing out where the button for the smoke machine was.

Some teachers enjoying my music selection. If this teaching doesn't work out, I think I have a future rocking the dance clubs of South Dakota. Although I have to admit, mostly it was just my friends dancing. I guess South Dakota doesn't appreciate "My Love" as much as it should. And my fifteen minutes dried up just before I was going to play "Since U Been Gone." (I don't know if my music selection was what people were anticipating when they cheered for the guy in cowboy boots.)

Omaha

Last weekend was the long weekend that got most of us through the fall, a nice four day break from teaching. Thanksgiving is also my favorite holiday. I certainly like being thankful; and I also like eating lots of food and sitting in front of the TV and hanging out with family. Unfortunately that wasn't really a choice this year, with plane flights costing upwards of $500 and not much time for travel. Instead, at the very generous invitation of Juliet, I joined a crew of homeless TFA-ers in Omaha.

This was my first trek to a city larger than Rapid since my arrival. Since I live in a time zone west of the rest of the Omaha crew, I had to drive myself and meet them there (although I passed them--twice--en route). The drive at first was standard West: open road, open planes, few cars. But by the time I hit central Nebraska I felt cramped and boxed in by all the cars on the road, and the 1,000 strong towns every ten or fifteen miles. You know things have changed in your life when you are overwhelmed by central Nebraska. Hitting the outskits of Omaha, though, felt like coming home: the lights, the cars, the unending pavement. Never before has four miles of strip malls felt so glorious.

The weekend was for the most part uneventful. We dined with a large group of family friends, and mostly took comfort in our ability to sleep late and easily access suburban amenities like Hollywood Videos and Indian restuarants. I managed to convince everyone that Thanksgiving was a great night at the bars, so we scoped out Omaha's hip downtown, Old Market.

I was a bit trigger happy with the camera, being back in the big city. This is a rather blurry rendition of the Christmas lights, just previously turned on, in Old Market.

He-Dog Elementary staff meeting at Billy Frogg's.

Dave is a master dart player. In the bottom picture he is celebrating his stats.

On Saturday, on the recommendation of various parties, we headed to the Omaha zoo. Not the least of these parties was Mara, Juliet's four-year-old cousin and our zoo companion.

Mara and Juliet at the zoo.

Omaha has the world's largest indoor rainforest.

I have an irrational fear of parrots. I think maybe my uncle's pet parrots scarred me as a child.

Omaha also has a giant desert dome. Here are some cute little deer like critters that live inside the dome.

Goats at the petting zoo.
We took pictures with the goats. Everyone else's picture came out good enough to use as their facebook photos. Then this is mine. How is that fair?

I went in anyway.

A Very TFA Christmas

It’s been quite a while, which I guess means that I’ve gotten accustomed enough to my life here that most weekends no longer seem notable; plus, at least until Thanksgiving, for the past few weekends I've just been re-treading old territory. Three weekends ago, over the three-day Veteran's Day weekend, I was supposed to go to Denver, which certainly would have been worthy of writing about, but a combination of snow, sick travellers, and weakened resolve beat that plans, and I ended up shuttling back and forth between Mission and Rapid City.

Two weeks ago I headed to Pierre; those of us who did not head to Vegas for a TFA conference had a TFA professional development session and Fall Social on Saturday, but a few of us headed into town Friday night to take in the night life. As far as we could tell, there was only one bar in town, which is why I was surprised that it was rather empty, mostly an older crowd, some country music, and a surly bartender. There was a downstairs that I suggested we check out, but we idled away a couple hours before finally going down. Here, it seemed, was every young person in Pierre, getting down to Snoop Dogg and 50 Cent. So we stuck it out for a while longer. That's almost as good as Vegas, right?

The first event the next morning was the decoration of the Teach For America Christmas tree in the state capitol. Non-profits from all over the state are invited to decorate Christmas trees, and, despite our lack of planning, I'm proud to say our tree was one of the two or three best in the place. Part of the reason I waited so long before posting was because I had no pictures to illustrate this, but now I do:

Prepping ornaments. Wes is sad because I crushed one, but that was only because they said they were shatterproof. But I guess not crush proof. This should offer some satisfaction to those of you who wanted to see a picture of me in my cowboy regalia. I'm not walking into a Wal-Mart here, but you've got a good view of a boots. Too bad I haven't worn them since this day, because after walking for a mile in them in the wrong socks they gave me a pretty brutal blister. I think I'm ready again, though.

Anna decorating the tree. Our theme was a "literacy tree," and Shannon made little miniature books and had pictures of her kids reading. She was the only one who brought ornaments.

Here I am topping the tree with a dream catcher.

The TFA Tree.

Decorators.

North Platte

Our original plans to camp in the Badlands north of Wanblee fell through, but because it was supposed to be so nice a few of us decided to hold out on camping. On Saturday morning, off a tip by a security guard at the St. Francis Indian School, Jen, Ryan, and I headed towards Lake McConaughy, just north of Ogallala, Nebraska.

Bar & Grill in Cody, Nebraska, where we stopped for a deep-fried lunch (Jen, a vegetarian, had french fries--that was about all that was available). This is actually the backside of the bar. Cody is the town "Too Strong To Die." Or something like that.

About 20 minutes after pulling out of a small town, I was looking at a map, and said, "Wow, that security guard was right, there's nothing for the next sixty miles." To which Jen replied, oh, I meant to gas back there. For a while we it seemed like there was a very real possibility that we would be stranded in the middle of the Sandhills, 30 miles from anything, with no gas. But we coasted on fumes into Hyannis, Nebraska and got refueled.

Hyannis, pop. 280. There are "rooms" above the bar, and I suggested that at some point we end our road trip in Hyannis.

Somewhere in route, Buffalo Bill's ranching cabin. It been relocated from some other town.


Upon arriving at Lake McConaughy, we experienced our first bout of road trip disappointment. "It's so big it looks like the ocean," we had heard, and there were some implications that it was beautiful, as well. Not to be an elitist, northeastern, coast-dwelling bastard, but usually you can't see the other side of the ocean. And usually a bloated puddle next to an oversized, industrial dam is not beautiful. The campsites we found looked like they were at the bottom of a quarry. Not pretty. So we cancelled camping and fell back on Plan B, heading for the bustling metropolis of North Platte.

North Platte is the hometown of "Buffalo Bill" Cody, creator of a Western circus that established many deeply entrenched stereotypes about cowboys and Indians. There are a lot of Cody-themed attractions in North Platte, none of which were open at this point of the year or at our late hour of arrival. Beyond these sites, North Platte is essentially an interstate town, two one-way streets filled with McDonalds and Dairy Queens and Motels. Luckily we are able to make our own fun.

Sunset over beautiful North Platte.

Our first stop was the Cody Trading Post, conveniently located just off I-80.

It looks like a sweet fort.

Me with fake bear outside the Trading Post.

Buffalo Bill Cody. My favorite restaurant when I was a kid was a BBQ place called W. B. Cody's, so this whole town gave me a hankering for some ribs. Considering Jen's lunch of french fries, we decided to go some place more vegetarian friendly for dinner, though.

Inside the Trading Post are not only Western tourist wares (I bought a bobble-headed buffalo), but also an extremely informative "museum."

Educational taxidermy. See, coyotes eat birds.

Two-headed calf. It was born in 1948 and lived for something like 17 hours.

Miniature version of Buffal Bill's Western circus. You can watch the Indian figurines dance!

Authentic Indian mannequin.

After leaving the tourist trap, we headed into town. Soon we stumble across a Goodwill, where I picked up a rugged, cowboy-esque flannel shirt. Next door was Town & Country Western Wear. I've been planning for a while to get myself some cowboy boots, and this was finally my day. The sales girl was very helpful--since I had no idea how cowboy boots were supposed to fit--and hid her bemusement well. Now I just need to break them in.

After dinner we scoped out a few bars, and finally settled on one in North Platte's little downtown area. This wasn't your typical Nebraska scene: these kids were wearing vans and backwards baseball caps; one even had dreads. So in walks flannel-shirted, cowboy-booted me, and I'm clearly the biggest hick in the place--at least until the bartender came over and checked my Connecticut ID (when Ryan ordered a pitcher of Boulevard--instead of the offered selection of Bud, Bud Light, and Miller Light--we were quickly labelled as "rich northeasterners." Although Ryan is from Michigan.) I was also singing loudly along to Weezer and Three 6 Mafia, probably not typical cowboy behavior. Later we went to Wal-Mart to do some late night shopping, and as I walked into the All-American store in my All-American apparel, Jen took a photo. A couple of other shoppers walked by and asked sarcastically if we didn't shop much. And when it comes down to it--no, we don't.

Boots!

And that was about it--enough to make it a good Saturday night. The next morning we headed back on the road. Because I had no school Monday, I was pretty relaxed on our drive back Sunday afternoon. We pulled off at a scenic overlook to admire the Dismal River (not deserving of its name) and dream of easy days of floating with the drift.

Dismal River.


Later we were stopped by a train, causing the most congestion we saw all trip.

One more photo that has absolutely nothing to do with North Platte (If you can't tell, it's from Carhenge). Its pretty much the perfect photo though, so I had to put it up.