Spokane, Never-nudes, Hitchhikers, and Dance Moms

My best friend, Ammon and I had spent the past couple days driving to Spokane, Washington and back. We drove to Washington because his older brother, Ryan wanted to swap cars with their mother, because Ryan needed a car with better gas mileage.

It wasn't the most eventful of road trips. We still had fun though. Or at least I had fun napping half of the way to Spokane while Ammon chugged a coffee infused maca smoothie while yelling at the radio to keep himself awake.

We began our journey at 5 in the morning. By the time we woke up and hit the road, I stayed awake long enough to watch the sunrise before I nodded back to sleep.

I found it difficult to stay awake while we were driving through Idaho into Montana, partly because I didn't really have much of a breakfast, but mostly because southern Idaho has a heck of a whole lot of NOTHING to look at. There was one rest stop or two that had something interesting to look at. There was this one cool spot that had some interesting lava rock formations. It held my interest only for so long, since I was exhausted and it was really hot by the time we were walking around the trail to look at the lava rocks. I decided to get some energy in me by drinking some of the cocoa-maca smoothie that me and Ammon made to give us energy on our trip. The combination of maca, cocoa, banana, blueberries, dates, and chia seeds are so much better than any energy drink. I drank a little bit of my smoothie, and it woke me right up. Eventually, the vast nothingness of Idaho lulled me to sleep, and Ammon's making fun of crappy country songs by replacing the lyrics with things like, raping goats, making every other word Jesus, and flying horse poop, could keep me entertained only for so long. There's something about southern Idaho that sucks the life energy out of a person. It draws you in with its open road and promises of seeing buffalo, but in reality, it's a trap!!! Not only are there no buffalo, but they trick you into thinking that you saw a buffalo by tying down a fake buffalo with some wire in the middle of nowhere.

Montana had a bit more to look at, but not that much more. We saw a lot of hitchhikers driving there and on the way back home. I have never seen a hitchhiker in Utah, but there were sure a lot of them in Idaho and Montana. I wonder why that is. The most entertaining part of our drive through Montana was the never-nude we saw at a rest stop. I don't know how many of you readers are fans of the show Arrested Development. In the show, there's a character named Tobias who is afraid of being naked, so he wears cutoffs under his clothes so that he never has to be naked when he undresses. Well, I saw me one of them never-nudes at a rest stop in Montana, alrighty! There was this mighty fine specimen of the male variety wearing a pair of cutoff blue jeans. The never-nude and his buddies were going wading in a nearby creek. Among his friends was another nude of a particularly rare type, namely the super tight yellow bootie shorts type. Readers, this sort of never-nude is super duper rare! Seriously, his shorts were so tight that from a distance it appeared as though he were actually nude. Guys, this is major! The only reason a never-nude would wear something that would make him appear almost nude would be if he/she were a recovering never-nude, which has NEVER happened in the history of never-nudedom! This fella would be the first of his breed to make a breech of never-nudeness. Readers, keep him in your thoughts and prayers. There may be hope for this one. Then we can capture him and examine him of his rare condition and recovery process.

We crossed Montana and back into northern Idaho. As we were driving through the canyon, I was pleasantly surprised to see walls and walls of trees canvasing the canyon. It was gorgeous. Of the many things that I love in nature, I think I love trees the most. I love trees even more when there are so many of them that they make a huge wall of green and brown. It took my breath away being surrounded by so much beauty. The only thing that made it better was looking at the view while listening to Joshua James' album, The Sun is Always Brighter. 

We met up with Ammon's older brother, Ryan when we arrived in Washington and we followed him to his house. Ryan obviously needed this car. Without their mother's Honda, his family would go broke just from the drive to get to the top of the big fat hill he has to drive to get to his house! It took us what felt like an hour to drive from the bottom of the hill to the top where his house was at. It's no wonder why Ryan wanted to swap cars. And the car he drove had horrible gas mileage. It took up more gas to drive back to Utah in his car than with their mom's little Honda.

I was glad to get out of the car, until I saw my worst nightmare staring at me in the face. The evil beast that stood before me was a huge, monster, bear-like neighbor dog. It stared at me with it's hungry eyes, looking me over as its next tasty morsel. I was fortunate enough that Ryan scared the beast away. It didn't matter much whether that satanic thing stayed or went, because his family owned a similar, smaller beast. I went to the door and there was Satan's spawn running up to nip its devilish tiny teeth at my bones. Ryan put the devilish beast outside, although his kids kept bringing it inside for its regular torture sessions. I was exhausted. I wanted peace, but the giant devil dog was right at the window staring at me, thirsty for blood. Ammon and Ryan's kids taunted at my fear of the evil beast by teasingly almost allowing it to come inside. Ammon even went so far as to say that me and the hound from Hell were meant for each other by saying that the name on Satan's dog's collar said Shadow on it. For those of you who don't already know, Ammon's nickname for me is Shadow.

Me and Ammon were talking to Ryan when one of his daughters came to the living room to watch T.V. I don't know what kind of sick freaks are coming up with T.V. shows nowadays, but they're obviously sick and freaky enough to make shows like Dance Moms.For those of you readers who don't know what Dance Moms is, and are smart enough to not own a T.V. and just use Netflicks instead, Dance Moms is a horrible show about these evil dance teachers and the mothers of these little dancing girls, and the only thing that happens on the show is that the two rivaling dance teachers yell at and belittle each other, the dance moms, and their girls. That's seriously the only thing that happens on the show! Just yelling, and yelling, and more yelling. Ryan's daughter argued that she liked the dancing on the show, which isn't a very good argument, since only 1% of the show has any actual dancing on it. I honestly fear for the future of this country.

I spent the night in one of the girl's rooms and Ammon slept in one of the boy's rooms. I had a decent night's sleep. I woke up the next morning to the screams of Ryan's many children. Now, I am very grateful for Ryan and his wife taking us in to stay the night. I was glad to be there, and they have good kinds, but they were really loud in the morning. I tried to sleep though it, but they were so loud that it made it difficult to go back to sleep. I eventually got out of bed to join the rest of the family to breakfast. After eating breakfast and getting our things together, Ammon and I made our way back home to Utah. We wanted to spend time taking pictures in the back woods, but it  was raining that day, so that ruined any plans we made to drive around and take pictures of stuff. We stopped by Walmart to grab some munchies for the ride home. Note to self, never EVER buy peanuts at Walmart again. The bag of peanuts I bought was moldy and soggy. A tear went down my face as my heart began to break. The ride back home made up for it though. It was raining, but the drive back through the canyon was beautiful with the fog rolling through the trees. That was the only instance in my existence when the rain made me feel happy inside.