Dat 16. Morning. Gillette, WY

There’s nary a cloud in the sky but it’s still chilly, 43 at 6 AM.

Turns out, wifi here works after all but it’s wimpy and doesn’t reach the camp sites. You have to haul your laptop up to the laundry room to get online, which we did last night and will again this morning.

The campground is near a hospital where they’re building a parking garage. Many of the camp sites are occupied by construction workers, which is often the case. Given the size of the place, Gillette has darn few campgrounds; in fact the entire state of WY seems to be lacking.

So, it’s 9 PM last night and Trish is taking a well deserved break, sitting up in bed with her book and a glass of wine. She’d done the laundry, changed the sheets, bathed Ranger, and made dinner. Tired woman. I mentioned in the last post that Ranger goes nuts after his bath and last night was certainly no exception. He’s hopping back and forth from bed to sofa and killing stuffed bear for the umpteenth time, occasionally flinging it off the bed and chasing after it.

No sooner has Trish gotten settled in than Ranger hops back on the bed, kills the bear yet again, and throws it for a perfect strike – dead center on the full glass of wine. There’s wine all over the freshly laundered sheets, the blanket, the wall, the floor, and of course, Trish. The air in the immediate vicinity instantly turns blue: Trish is NOT a happy camper. Ranger is cowering in the corner and yours truly is trying desperately to avoid extensive collateral damage to my physical person that would result from falling down on the floor laughing my ___ off.

No! Being the super sensitive and supportive guy that I am, I keep a straight face, make sympathetic noises and grab the paper towels. Trish mops up the spill, strips the bed and trudges off to the laundry again. The one bright spot in this little disaster is that it was white wine, not red.