Elf Sternberg

Saturday, we had our usual morning routine of breakfast and Kouryou-chan's dance class. While that went on, Omaha took Yamaraashi-chan out for clothes shopping, since the kidlet was running out of pants and shirts that fit her. I was dispatched home to put together a picnic basket, since our plan was to head out to Flaming Geyser state park and spend the day there.

After unrolling the drop-off routine, picking up Kouryou-chan and the Omaha and Yamaraashi-chan, we all drove out to the park, passing by lovely bucolic scenes of horses and buffalo grazing idly on the long grasses before reaching the park. Flaming Geyser is one of the state's oldest parks; it's been around since 1933, and it's also one of the parks on the chopping block for state maintenance funds. Lisakit thinks that's because, as one of the state's oldest parks, as well as one of the many working parks with a trout hatchery on it for local fisherman, even if the state defunds much of it there'll still be people willing to come and operate the hatchery and fields. There's no money for repairing the trails, however, and the state recently pulled its regular trash service for a "pack in, pack out" policy.

After a lovely lunch in the park's main field, during which park rangers circulated about on mountain bikes– and since when are rangers armed?–, the family sang Happy Birthday to me and then, much at the kids' insistence, we went out to see the eponymous Flaming Geyser. A note says that it used to be as much as three feet tall, but activity with digging and mining in the area has reduced it to less than one.

We then did the half-mile hike along the back ridge. I did the whole thing barefoot, which was kinda fun, although there were a few places where the trail had been graveled and that hurt my feet. Lisakit was a bit winded by the time we got down off the ridge, and I walked back with the girls to get the car, leaving Omaha and Lisa time to talk.

On the way home, we stopped by the valley butcher, who sold us elk burger and buffalo burger meat, as well as some local thick-cut bacon, which I'm looking forward to eating for lunch tomorrow.

I used the gronud buffalo to make sloppy joes when we got home, which were yummy, and gave both women vigorous footrubs. Yamaraashi-chan was dispatched to her mother's house for the evening, since tomorrow would be mother's day, and the rest of us settled down to a quiet evening. Omaha and Kouryou-chan played video games, Lisa eventually tottered back home, I cleaned up the kitchen. That was it, nothing more than domesticity run rampant. A nice, quiet birthday celebration doing the things that I like to do: hang out with my family, cook, and keep quiet.