Yesterday’s post ended around 1 a.m. – leaving out Sunday’s events. So…a recap of yesterday; Neomi always puts on a breakfast feed for everyone and today was no exception; load up the hotcakes, eggs, bacon, and sausage, sometimes muffins, but a lumberjack would love this menu and all of our group mills through her campsite at some point for ‘the fixin’s’.

Sunday is the day that all the kids from Moses Lake (Neomi’s brood) start heading for home, they’re usually gone by around noon and today they were right on schedule. They came by in small groups to hug and say goodbye for a year. My little poker playing buds came by with hugs and promises of emails and the game next year.

By 1 p.m., it was Josh, Kayanna, Vickie, Monte (Vickie’s beau), and me; we were on our way to Ken and Vicky’s place to shoot. Hell yes – guns! My family grew up around guns and we hunted for food on our table. I have never shot anything, other than targets or cans, and at this moment I cringe at the thought of shooting something and then putting it on the table. But it is a way of life for a lot of people in the world and my cringing won’t change the fact that it happens, so on with the story.

Ken lives on ten acres that border Forest Service Land and his place is isolated from the rest of the world…yup, him and his wife like it that way. He never leaves the house to trek around his property that he doesn’t carry a sidearm of some type. Crossing paths with a bear or a cougar isn’t too uncommon and just recently his dog, Foxy, put the run on a big black bear. At first Ken had no idea the bear was even there but Foxy did. The bear scrambled to get the hell out of the area as Foxy protected her territory.

So…everyone except Josh and Ken’s Vicky fired up the targets arranged in the driveway. We stayed a few hours, I took more pictures, and finally it was time to head back to the campground. Goodbye to Vicky for another year, Ken would be at the campsite the following morning to help us load our trucks and head out. Shit! Where did the week go? There must be a Time Stealing Fairy on the loose.

Josh and I had a heated discussion on the way back into Sandpoint. He’s adamantly against guns even though he used to own a few. He hit me with, “Don’t you think the world would be a better place if guns had never been invented?”

I could say yes to that but mankind would then figure out another way to destroy each other so what is the answer? I prefer the knowledge of handling a gun vs. being in the dark about them and wishing they would just go away. They aren’t going to go away.

During our discussion, I got a speeding ticket. I’ve gotten two in my life. The other one was 20 years ago. Josh brought up the fact that he was with me when I got the other one. I laughed and told him that I’d make sure he never rode with me again.

Our next stop was Kevin and Gayl’s place – horseback riding for Kayanna and Ryan. This year they even got to ride outside the corral and control the horse by themselves. They were in heaven.

It was getting late, we were all starving, Vickie was cooking (no news flash there), and we all headed back to camp. This would be our last night, we’d be out of the campsite by 1 p.m. and heading back to Missoula.

The kids crammed down a million more Smores (include Monte in the kid list). God! I don’t know how anyone eats those things. I do the graham cracker, Hershey squares for everyone, and help them slide that gushy marshmallow off the forks but that’s as close as I want to get to the sugar rush. And why is it ‘a million more’? Because we had campfires during the day and evening and morning – and they are kids.

We stayed up late, sitting by the fire, drinking a brew/wine, and finally Sand Woman Land got me.

Good Morning, Monday! Time to break down everything and start loading. We did. Vickie and Monte were ready to go before we were. Ken came to help me. Thank God for brothers! Finally…it was time to go. That meant Kayanna had to say goodbye to Daddy. They both cried. It was brutal. I have a poem in mind called Watching a Heart Break. Then I cried. Goodbye, Josh! Goodbye, Ken! Goodbye, campground! Hello highway!

By late afternoon we were in Missoula, checked into our hotel, and heading to Vickie’s house for??? Lucky guess here – food. And damned if the kids didn’t have more Smores – she cranked up the chimenea for them.

It was wonderful to be in a hotel room. The camp was great, wouldn’t give it up for the world, but d-a-m-n, sleeping in a bed and getting up in the night to walk eight feet to a bathroom vs. crawling out of a tent and trekking 50 feet to a bathhouse – no comparison.

Reality’s starting to settle in – tomorrow’s the start of that 1,000-mile drive home.