We woke up this morning some time after day break (I have no idea what time it was because this vacation is so great we don’t even have a watch or phones with us) and grilled some bagels on the wood stove. After breakfast we all went back to bed for a little while, mostly just to bask in our laziness. We got down to the business of cleaning up the cabin at what I think was about 11 am. We washed up the dishes, swept the floors, shovelled the steps to the yurt, and collected some more firewood before finally packing up our bags.
Matt left the yurt while Aaron and I were finishing cleaning up because he was hiking the 8 miles back to the car to pick up the rest of our food and meet our friend Scott who was supposed to be hooking up with us for the rest of the weekend, whereas Aaron and I were taking all of our gear to the next yurt (a measly 5.5 miles away). I can’t speak for Matt’s hike out to the car, but Aaron and I had a pleasant hike with the dogs to the next yurt. We traveled the same trail that we had been on the night before and yet the hike seemed infinitely shorter in broad daylight with fresh legs. Upon our arrival at the Little Union River yurt we found that the previous occupants had left recently enough that it was still warm with one log still burning on the woodstove, a very welcoming sight. This yurt is exactly the same was the one we were in last night, aside from having a larger woodpile, with four bunks, a table and chairs, and a woodstove inside.
Matt arrived back from the car about an hour after Aaron and I got to the yurt bearing an ample amount of food but not accompanied by Scott who we had expected to be arriving with him. We all just figured Scott had run into some delays along the way and would catch up with us later in the day. We got down to the business of making lunch, brats, chips, and cookies and relaxing. After about an hour of sitting around I was starting to seriously regret that I had forgotten to bring a book along because there were no playing cards in this yurt. I decided to take control of my situation and beat the boredom by making my own cards out of the cookie box…they were tiny and terrible and didn’t work at all – but making playing cards kept me busy for about 30 minutes.
By dinner time I began to worry that Scott hadn’t shown up yet. It was solidly dark and we were making New Years dinner without him, but we were too hungry to wait for the steak and potatoes that Matt had so graciously lugged through the snow. After dinner we started to get antsy again so I attempted another home-made game, Scrabble, this time with more success. I have no idea how many letters there are supposed to be in scrabble or how big the board is supposed to be but my game sort of worked. I think I made too many of the hard to use letters and the board was too small, but we played and all enjoyed ourselves just the same. “Muds” is not a word, I tried, but I couldn’t convince Matt and Aaron, it’s too bad to because I totally could have won the game with “muds”. It’s time for bed and still no Scott. I hope he’s safe wherever he ended up. Happy New Year everyone!
You can see Aaron’s post about the trip on his blog HERE.
