You're going to love this....

"Hey Sharee...it's going to be a nice afternoon...we don't have very many left."

"Brad...are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"Sure am, let's run out to the lake and wreck the boat trailer!"

Can't sleep...you get some photos!

Hayden Lake at the Cabin. Sunrise, August 2008.

We went doubles on our Anniversary!

Brynn pulling us...she's an amazing boat driver.

Dbo rocking it at Hayden Lake at sunset.

Sharee and Keri...we miss you Keri!
Adam getting some killer air...Brad wishes he could do this.

5 years and running!!

On Sept 6th, Sharee and I celebrated our 5 year anniversary! It was her year to plan the fiesta and she did a fantastic job. We have not had so much fun in a very long time! Sharee woke me up early at our house and told me to get in the car. She got on I-90 and headed east...we kept driving and driving and I did not have a clue what we were going to do.....

First stop was the Hiawatha Trail. A 14.5 mile mountain bike ride through an old and historic train route. Taken from the program...."The 15 mile trail winds through 10 tunnels and over 7 trestles in the rugged bitterroot mountains on the Idaho/Montana border. The route is best known for the long, dark St. Paul or “Taft Tunnel” that burrows for 1.8 miles under the state line. The best part is – it’s all downhill at a mild 2% grade and provides a shuttle service back to the top. When finished, the Route of the Hiawatha trail will extend approximately 46 miles and allow a bicyclist or hiker to ride or walk the Route between St. Regis, Montana and Pearson, Idaho."

Here's some more photos....

After the ride, Sharee took me even further east in Montana on I-90...about 30 miles later, she turns north! I don't know where the heck I'm going. About 20 minutes or so on that road, she pulls over to this place...

It's in Paradise, MT! How did she find this place! It was super cool, the food was fantastic, the mineral pools were awesome. See the picture here...

You can see that these pools are separated...they are all at different temperatures and are filled with natural spring water and minerals. It was very unique and tons of fun. We stayed the night in our comfy cabin and Sharee woke me up early again! We ate a fantastic breakfast at the lodge...Sharee went to get direction to our next stop from our waitress. She was very clear not to tell me anything or say anything...sure enough the old lady came back to our table and says, "I'm so jealous that you guys are going white-water rafting..." I got super excited and Sharee was giving the "evil eye" to the waitress...she wanted to kill her for ruining the next surprise. It was still awesome to me and just as much of a surprise.

So we go on the road again and end up here....

(hope you like my wetsuit!)

Our guides name was Kristin and she was awesome! She has been all over the world and is a "master guide" or something like that....she was so cool she actually started a story saying..."When I was living in an orphanage in Cambodia..." How many people, especially 22 years old, can start a story saying that?!! We loved her!

When we showed up it started to rain and we put on all of the warm items that we could...the water temp. was only a bit over 50 degrees. The coolest part is that we were the only ones on the trip! You'll often go to these types of things and you'll have other parties in the raft. We were lucky. After a quick safety lesson, Kristin had us on the Clark-Fork going over class III rapids! I almost fell out of the raft a couple of times and the girls were laughing at me. 1/2 way through the "float" we ate lunch prepared by Kristin. It was really good!

The whitewater rafting was the coolest part of the whole trip and I'm so grateful I have a wife who thinks "outside the box" when planning our anniversary adventures! Anyone who is thinking of doing this, use PANGEA EXPEDITIONS http://www.leaveboringbehind.com/ and ask for Kristin :)

Here's us loading the raft back up...I wish we had some action photos, but I promise you there was some killer rapids!

Africa Photos

People keep asking for Africa Photos....here are some of our favorites. (not in any order)

We decided to get brave and go down towards the watering hole and this guy popped up!

Since Hippos kill more people in Africa than any other animal...we left promptly.

Here we are at a Masai Village in Kenya. Brad is jumping with a Masai Warrior...it's a whole macho thing the different tribes do to see who is the "coolest" and best jumper. Brad is higher in this photo because of the cowboy/safari hat. The jumping is actually part of their ancient welcome ceremony.


Here Sharee is in a Masai House. This house will hold 8 or more people. It's made out of cow crap and wood. Cows are the most sacred things in the world to the Masai people. They even trade them for their wives! Each hut belongs to a wive of a warrior. (they can have multiple wives) The huts are situated in a huge circle bordering the village and every night they bring their cows in the middle of the circle to sleep with them. It also provides protection from lions and central place for the cows to crap so they can have material to build more huts! It's pretty cool.

This is Rafeal. We love him! He was our driver/scout/bodyguard from animals. He is a high ranking Masai Warrior in his tribe. He'll come and drive for the camp we stayed at for a month or so and then go back to his village. He does very well as a driver and purchases cows with his money so that he can get more wives.

Best quote from Rafeal...after Brad asked him how much he paid for his second wife, he said, "10 cows but she's only worth 8."

This is one of coolest things we saw. People have went multiple times to Kenya and never saw a Cheetah...people will actually come just to find one. We scouted out a Mom teaching her two young how to hunt...the scene below was amazing. The mom just walked over to this termite hill and looked for prey on the horizon, while the two cubs just sat a rested right next to us as if to say, "Get your pictures because you'll never see us again." Rafeal said that he's never seen anything like it.

The Demars Family has a tradition of caroling on Christmas Eve...do you think being in Africa in the middle of the heat (opposite seasons) would stop them? The families did not know what to do because nobody has ever came up to their huts and started singing...so they grabbed their books and started singing along. It was awesome!

How funny is this? "High technology available"

We were getting gutsy so we parked the Jeep and went up a small hill at dusk to watch the sunset and get a look at this beautiful land. This picture doesn't do much but the surrounding scene was amazing.

This was even more rare than the Cheetahs! There are 40 Black Rhino in the entire region. We were headed home for good and Rafeal got a call on his radio...he put the pedal to the medal for about 10 minutes (out plane was leaving in 40 minutes)...and there it was...the elusive Black Rhino in the wild! It is huge, pre-historic looking, and scary. The picture gives you a good idea of how big it is. You'll also notice that nothing else is around. Everything runs away! It's a creepy solitude feeling in a place where you are usually surrounded by life.

We pulled up to this guy one morning eating a Wilderbeasts. His mom is in the tree above him and he was very protective of his food, staring us down for a bit before continuing to eat.

You can see Brad swamped in the middle of this group. He just recorded a video of them and that was the first time they ever saw themselves...it was an exciting moment.

The Lions were super cool! This one started going for the Jeep right behind us...or so it seemed. He actually just stopped and scratched himself on the bush, but everyone was a bit scared. The come so close to you, well I guess everything does, but Lions will lay in the shade of your Jeep and they'll be an arms length away from you.

We caught these chicas fighting one morning.

Caught these 2 doing "something else" one morning ;)

These were the cutest things ever! They were so curious and excited. Rafeal said they were no more than 2 weeks old. We watched them play and feed for about an hour.

Here's Sharee giving out presents on Christmas. We could not tell if they liked their gifts or were just more curious to see white people.

This guy was walking right next to our Jeep and was clearly not scared of us. He was bigger than the Jeep and Brad whispered to Rafeal "That thing is huge!" Rafeal replied, "He's tiny...watch when he walks over to his Mom in the distance there." (see below!)

Rafeal was right...comparatively, he was tiny.

Here is a Hippo that Sharee pissed off :) He kept following her on the shoreline and wanted nothing to do with her. You can see blood on his side from a fight he just got into. Sharee was provoking it a bit by whistling and clapping.

This might be our best photo. Rafeal's favorite animal is the Girrafe. They are very shy and usually run or walk away. For one reason or another, these ones just stood next to us and starred at us as if they were camouflaged. Rafeal was super excited. Their heads were literally right over us.

This was our last day at the reserve and we could not have asked for a more pleasant send-off.

Some Pictures

We went to the lake again with Adam and Noelle...and Brynnley. Here's little Brynn w/ Noelle--

It's depressing to think summer is nearly over but that only mean Halloween (our favorite holiday) is right around the corner!

Here's Sharee trying to jump the wake! She's awesome...you wouldn't believe she has only been doing it for 1 season.