SOUTH DAKOTA!

Well I thought i would get on and give a little more detailed description for everyone of the most awesomest hunting trip of my lifetime! So here it goes... Tyler and i drove from utah up to idaho falls to meet dad and we got there around 6:00 pm. on the way we took a brief stop in tremonton to have a little arbys with mom who was on her way to utah and that began a long five days of the sick road gut we all experienced. we rolled into the shelley are with the gas light on so to prevent running out of gas i called dad to see if there was any gas out at his tanks off the shelley exit. dad immediately assumed we had run out of gas a was NOT happy about it thinking he was going to have to come rescue us, which made for a good laugh, but we made it to a gas station and all was well and dandy. after a quick stop at sportsmans warehouse, we were on the road headed for bozeman montana. from there we passed through good ol red lodge and billings. dad drove to bozeman and i took over til about 230 am where i began entering into what tyler and i refer to as the "hallucination stage" where you are so tired you begin to see things that arent really there. in my case i kept thinking the black skid marks on the road were huge pieces of tires to which i was swerving to avoid! tyler took over for a while followed by dad and then i went in for the final leg through the gauntlet. i call it the gauntlet because there are so many deer on that road. we finally arrived in gettysburg south dakota at 10:05 and bought our licenses and headed out to hunt. we hooked up with our local mormon friend frank, who is about 65 or something like that and has sooooo many cats! so we hunted alot of his property and on one push i had a big ol rooster come right over the top of me and i just rolled him over! i ran to pick him up and he started running from me so i swung i gun at him as i have done so many other times in my life, and my gun snapped in half! i broke the whole back end of my gun off and when i realized what had happened my heart just sunk and i really just wanted to cry. ive had that gun for ten+ years and has so much sentimental value to me. so now i have to get it fixed and i guess it just adds to the value. luckily for me i had told uncle steve earlier in the week to bring his old shotgun for a back up which paid off. so after that we split up and we went off on our own, dad, rob, tyler, and myself and started driving around. we ended up getting into them pretty good and shot our limit in no time. that night we ate at the firehouse cafe, food and board is never a luxury in gettysburg, and then crashed for the night. at dinner steve ordered an apetizer plate for everyone to share which consisted of anything they had deep fried and served on a big platter. curt ate a bunch of that stuff and then ordered fish and chips and ended up getting gut sick probably because everything he ate at dinner was deep fried. satuday we found what came to be known according to rob as the "field of dreams" which was a corn field out in the middle of nowhere just full of literally hundreds of birds. sunday we went to church at the branch, we more than doubled their attendance as they only had 7 members. after church they had a break the fast potluck dinner that they had us stay for and even with all of us they had enough food. monday we shot our limits and then some in less than 2 hours and headed back to montana. i had the late driving shift again and i really think i saw a wolf but i was approaching hallucination stage so i could be wrong. anyway dad told the buffalo story so i will pick up from after the killing of tatonka as mom calls it. we were low on fuel so we finally found this tiny town in montana that had a gas station. the gas station ended up being a bar with an old gas pump, you know like the ones down at sids y service, and we fueled up there. tyler and i went in to use the bathroom and it was just creepy with all the old locals in there smokin it up. so we went back outside to find dad chattin with some good ol boys about his buffalo. we loaded up and dad started pulling out and then BANG!!!! the truck came to a complete stop in no time, crushing my knee caps into the dash. we jumped out to see what we had hit and it was a huge cement post that put a big dent in the bumper to which dad responded, "this truck is on its last leg" so that was it we jumped in and were off. so that pretty much completes the trip. we missed you tim so get done with that school so you can come again. all is well here in springville. we both got callings in our ward, i am a teacher in the elders quorum and shelane is a teacher in the relief society. hope all is well with all of you. we love you!
Rich and Shelane
P.S. thanks for all the great compliments on my past christmas presents! Mom your hammock is almost done, i really can make hammocks marci!!!:)