The baby's still sleeping so let's make a start on the next one. Also, frick me it's cold!!

The Monday was my birthday. I'm twentyyyyy six? Yeah. 26. Over the halfway mark on the slippery slope to 30. I try not to be depressed by that. Besides, I'm making it past 80 right? So I still have time.

Sunday night was god-awful. Isis was teething and screeching. Nightmare. It was all kinds of bad. Everyone was awake, even the dog (who was apparently very distressed). But we lived. Anyway, so the next morning I was struggling a bit. I had a few things that absolutely had to be done so I couldn't sleep in. There was no milk in the house and thus no tea. D had discovered she'd left her jacket in our car so showed up during the worst of my morning and decided to make light of it. I nearly decked her. Also, don't hug me unless you've brushed your teeth, aight? But they didn't stay long And Amanda showed up bright and early to care for Isis, so we could get the hell out of there for our date.

I still hadn't gotten everything ready for teepees but at that point I didn't give a rats arse. I just needed to GO! So we did. We decided a bit of shopping therapy would help so we got timmies and went shopping for toe shoes!

I hate shoe shopping I don't know why I thought it would make me feel better... but it did! Maybe because I've wanted toe shoes since forever, but they aren't something I could buy here. Oh, they are sold in Australia, but it would cost me a kidney. So god bless Canada. I fell in love with two pairs, one set are similar to those linked but are pink, and another set are a horrible purple colour but are so comfortable! The pink ones are to replace my thongs that are falling apart and the purple ones are replacing my sneakers that are, you guessed it, falling apart.

I'm not like a real woman, I don't own many shoes. And I don't feel the need to own many. I replace them when they wear out, and that's about it. Obi found some toe shoes he liked as well, which surprised me because this boy doesn't even wear thongs! So I asked the lady for a discount... and she actually agreed. I'm usually unsuccessful with my attempts to bag a bargain, but not this time. As luck had it, both my pairs were on special (the signage in the store was terrible, so I didn't know til we got to the register) and the lady couldn't over-ride the machine to knock their prices down further. She's already agreed to give me one pair at 50% off and I'd assumed it was the cheapest pair. But, the machine wouldn't let her and she couldn't go back on her word, so we got the most expensive pair half price, and I was like WOO! And that made my morning much better.

We headed to White Rock for lunch, at "our" restaurant, which was perfect as always. And then did some souvenir shopping afterwards even though we were running late. In the car Obi gave me a card, saying he wanted to give it to me earlier but there'd been no way to sneak it into the restaurant. He's big on surprises. As I read my card, he put my gift on my lap so gently I didn't even notice. Haha, it was cute.

We got back, raced to get everything packed and in the car for teepees, and left only an hour late. Good effort. Hotel had the best shower in the world, and we cranked the heat to like 30 degrees. All good! And the next morning we set out for teepees.

Mum had sworn it was going to be 16 degrees all weekend, and fine. It was overcast and 6 degrees. I tried to not complain about how my balls were freezing off. It didn't help that we'd left our jackets in Ashcroft when we'd been there the weekend before. I tried to get in contact with the people at Xat'sull because they'd never given me an itinerary, but no luck. And I discovered Denny's. They have a bacon milkshake. WTF? Didn't try it, but was tempted.

Things were a little tense that morning, grandma seemed to be in a bit of a mood, but maybe I was just being oversensitive and hormonal. But we found the little back road to the reserve, and even saw a pheasant! So pretty. I kind of hate humans for hunting them so fiercely. We bounce on down the road and reach a look-out. Down below is the reserve, looking picturesc by the river. Beautiful. Even the horrible cold can't take away from this view. We see a lone man walking around, making a fire.

Down we go. There's a big sign at the office (which is hidden in the trees so as to not take away from the experience) saying guests must register at the office. Ok, cool. So Obi and I head in, CG minds the baby. There's no one in there, and the office is tiny, with an even smaller back room. Most of the building is given over to the toilets and showers. We discover they have hot water, so that's a lovely bonus.
Seeming there's no one here, we head down to the site, perhaps that lone ranger can help us?

Again Obi and I head out. The guy doesn't speak to us until we speak to him first, so I launch right in, telling him we booked online. He says that Miriam (the person I've been emailing) will be along "shortly". Ok, cool. There's an awkward silence. Obi's like, "where should we park?" The guy looks over to where the car is, axe held in one hand, and goes "There's fine" Ok then. Another awkward pause, like he's waiting for us to go away. I try one last time. I'm like "Thank you. Uhm, is there anything we should be doing while we wait for Miriam?" (You know, like settle into our teepee, meet other guests, or whatever... invite us to share your fire or something dude!) He looks around, like we're blind, and goes "There's really nothing to do here" Oooook then. Sounds like a great tourist attraction/ cultural experience. I say we'll just go back to the car, and we do.

And we're just sitting there waiting, while axe man walks around. Now, we noticed almost immediately that this place is pretty unkempt. The grass is quite high, made even higher by the million dandelions that have gone to seed. There are no paths of course, so my feet and pants are soaked. Determined to have fun, I don't mention this to anyone. So we wait for a good 20 minutes, then decide to go wait up by the office in case Miriam gets there and is waiting. No one is there. We wait for 40 more minutes. Axe man comes and stands by our car, until we figure out he wants to talk to us. He doesn't motion or anything, just stands there staring at us like he's never seen a white man before. Obi opens his car door. Axe man goes "I go get your lunch now" and he gets in his car and drives off. Where are you going dude? There's nothing out here, it's the middle of no where. We're half scared he's picking up lunch from the petrol station we passed on our way in, but it's supposed to be a pit cooking demonstration with fresh salmon. Is he going fishing?

By now we feel pretty unwelcome and uncertain. We wait a bit longer and then decide we'll go explore the site. The pit houses were cool. We'd done the whole tour in 15 minutes. I was interested but grandma asserted that there was "nothing to see" and wondered what we would be given a tour of exactly (it was $20pp for their tour, and I'd signed us up).

We decided to poke our heads into the teepees. The big teepee didn't have it's..er.. walls on. (Don't know the right words for this stuff) so we approached the first small teepee (which we were supposedly sleeping in that night) and lifted the flap....

The grass was just as high if not higher inside as it was outside, and just as wet. There's nothing in there but a wooden chest (I didn't expect there to be anything in there, I expected a dirt floor like the pit houses). Well, this teepee might not be in use right? That's why it hasn't been maintained. No. The other three were exactly the same.

Even if I could fathom bedding down on wet grass in less than 6 degree weather, with no phone and no car if we changed our minds (grandma was booked for a second night in the hotel, she doesn't sleep on the ground any more) could I expect the same of my six month old baby?

There's still no one here. Where was everyone? The website clearly stated that no workshops would run with less than ten people, and we'd booked into a workshop, so logic said there would be other tourists. Or workers. Or someone! No.

It was cold, I was wet, we felt unwelcome, there was this big awkward moment where each of us waited for the other to speak and then grandma goes "Well Miri, this is your adventure. What do you want to do?" I already knew what we were going to do. We were going home. I failed, badly.

Now, if we didn't have to go back via Ashcroft, we could have turned it into a new adventure and gone to Whistler instead, but we needed our stuff and wouldn't be able to make the long drive again in the few days we had left. So we called Obi's other grandparents and told them we'd be there a day early, and we got the hell out of there.

Of course we couldn't make a clean break for it, axe man met us on the (very narrow) road on the way out. He pulls off to one side, we pull off to the other. Grandma's like "What do I say?" Obi helpfully suggests "Tell him we changed our minds". With nothing better to go off, she winds down her window and says that. He doesn't reply. Not sure he heard her, she says it again. He just stares at us. We drive off.

Part of me wishes we stayed and made the most of it, and if CG and Isis weren't there, perhaps we would have. When we reached the highway it started bucketing down... as if to confirm we'd made the right choice. But I still feel terribly guilty over the whole thing.

And that was our <not so exciting> teepee adventure.