Yellowstone

I am so sad that all the students are gone. Thursday was our last real day of school, and I almost choked up when Louis read to me. I've been working with him every day since March, because he was so far behind the rest of the 2nd graders. He's still behind, but he read me a book all by himself, and the only word he missed was "gooey". And he knows that he can read now, when before he refused to try.

This weekend we went camping at Yellowstone with Barb's ex-boyfriend John, and her cousin Jim drove out from Idaho to meet us there. A random assortment, but they were fun guys. Jim brought dinner for Saturday, which was good, because we weren't sure we were going to camp, so we didn't really prepare as much as we should. Then we all went to sleep in the same big tent. At Barb's request, we put John as far away from her as possible, so her boyfriend won't get jealous, and then Maureen, me, and Donna in one room, and Jim and Barb just over the line in the front room. Sometime in the night, I heard a...sound...of two sleeping bags moving against each other. Donna and Jim were making out. I turned over and pretended I hadn't heard anything. I don't want to ruin anyone's fun, but it did amuse me that they thought that no one could hear them when Barb and I were sleeping right next to them. Barb didn't hear anything, she said.

Yellowstone was wonderful. I can see why its so popular. I wish we had more than two days there. We hit Old Faithful, of course, and hiked all around the Upper and Lower Falls. I walked down Uncle Tom's trail, which had 328 stairs on the side of a cliff. Then once we got down, we had to go up the stairs. I saw a lot of buffalo and an osprey. I didn't see any bears, but I did see a very put-out ranger ordering a bunch of people out of the woods where they had seen a bear and rushed there with their cameras. Idiots.

We got out of Yellowstone very late on Sunday, and we had to go to work on Monday to clean our classrooms. I told all my house not to look at the clocks when we got in, so that way if the Sisters asked us what time we got in, we could say honestly "Oh, I didn't look at the clock. Sometime after dark."