Day 26 + 27 (Monday 7/16/12 & Tuesday 7/17/12)- Emmett, ID

Foolishly we tried taking over the cat's bathroom when we set up camp in Uncle Rich and Aunt Bonnie's living room.  The cats took this as a direct threat and acted accordingly. Around 2am we woke up to Misty hysterical, persistent, and loud (the cat nip must have worn off) and when we got home in the afternoon Tempest had peed on our bed. Luckily for us Uncle Rich and Aunt Bonnie were happier to have us here than the cats. They took us out for lunch at the Idaho Pizza company and we made good on the all you can eat and won hearts and minds in the process. (or at least filled stomachs)

For the first evening Bonnie took us with her and her friend to Bingo. Though it's hosted at the Senior Center people of all different ages were there Monday night hoping to be the lucky one to take home the big prize. No one in our group did win but Bonnie has won the big prize three other times (its $500!) and we were fascinated to see the determination of the serious long time players. (Bonnie played 6 Bingo cards while still being observant enough to notice I had missed a number). We were a little worried to actually take home some money as "newbies." Apparently that happens a lot and doesn't sit well with the crowd. Threats were made. "Lucky" for us we were big losers, but enjoyed the new experience and people we met.

We spent most of the day on Tuesday learning about Rich's Moulage techniques (extremely realistic fake injuries to help emergency personnel train for disaster response) (the equivalent of a personal extra large meat lovers pizza almost escaped on viewing a teenager who had, by appearances, taken a belly flop onto a table saw), viewing Bonnie's elaborate and incredible quilting patterns, meeting a very passionate libertarian neighbor, trying to make up for lost sleep (for some reason Rich, Bonnie and Isaiah couldn't fall back asleep after 4am) (not sure if it was nightmares over the One World Order globalists who are poisoning our food supply and grooming puppet presidents to turn us into deformed corpses or cashless slaves or the half of a boy and his saw blade belt buckle) and learning about the generous spirit of our family as Uncle Rich tried to give us every possible tool we could need for the van/survival/you name it and Aunt Bonnie finding gift cards and other treats to make our day.

I also discovered that there is much more of a town in Emmett, ID than I ever dreamed. (Though Emmit is only large in the sense that Amanda, on her previous exploration of the town, turned the wrong way and missed 3/4ths of it and has now found it has magically quadrupled in size. It was assured to us that the number of restaurants had not duplicated 10fold in the 3 years she's been away). In the evening we had delicious shishkabobs and a jam session (Uncle Rich can also shred a mean axe).  -A

                        Uncle Rich and the helicopter he made