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Much to my mother's chagrin, we overslept (until 11!!). Oh, the pain of jetlag! After a late (!!) breakfast, we were properly introduced to the lovely city of Annecy. Ethel and her family took us around the city, over cobblestone streets and through clouds of smoke. I'm always amazed by how much people smoke here; hasn't anyone told them what cigarettes do to their lungs? We strolled around the lake, over the bridge of love, and then returned back to their house before driving to a neighboring town for lunch at "Auberge du Lac". It was a modern-looking restaurant inside, but the day was delightfully sunny and warm, so we took our drinks outside, next to the lake, before returning to the main area for lunch. And what a lunch! It was DELICIOUS. Mom and I both ordered fish, and they came beautifully plated (bien sûr! This IS France, non?). We ordered dessert after the main course: a deconstructed lemon tarte for me and a dark chocolate-and-fennel dish for Mom. Both were excellent. We sat with Ethel's family at that restaurant for hours, eating and talking leisurely. It was over two hours later before we departed from the restaurant and drove to a nearby castle (château de Menthon Saint-Bernard). Tragically, it was closed, but we hiked around it for a while before returning home to a late dinner of hors d'oeuvres, salad, and cheese.

After awakening lazily to my alarm at 8 am, having slept 12 hours and feeling much improved, I put on the bathrobe the landlady left and began to dig around in the basket of breakfast left outside our door. It was magnificent: fruit, cheese, eggs, meat, bread with jams and spreads, milk, juice, cereal, and a coffeemaker already in the room. I spread everything out on the rug and we ate on the floor, like a picnic. In the end, we couldn't finish it all, and so we each took a fruit for later and left the cereal alone. We left our packed suitcases in the landlady's garage and popped downtown via bus. The funniest little old lady boarded not long after we did. She was like a French version of my great-grandma Elaine: spunky, independent, and stubborn, but with the best sense of humor. She was always laughing; you could see it in the twinkle of her eyes. Her coat was incredibly perfect for her personality, too: a bright, mustard yellow, with a texture almost like fur, that button all the way up and fell past her knees. When she got off, white headed contrasting marvelously with the coat, I was rather sad to see her go. Mom and I wandered downtown to the Cathédrale Saint-Pierre. We meant to only stay for an hour or so, but, after climbing to the tip of both towers, I decided to sketch and paint the inside. Mom left to wander around the outside, but I settled down on a church pew. As I sketched, I noticed a group of boys who looked just a little older than me, gathering nearby and talking. I thought, every once in a while, they glanced over at me. (They were cute, though, so I didn't mind.) I tried to make out what they were saying, but they were speaking too quickly for me to really understand. (I later learned that they were Italian, which explains why it was difficult.) A girl joined then, and then several more, and after a few minutes, one came over to me. She asked me, in French, if I drew that, pointing at the image I was now painting. I said yes, once I understood what she meant, as I had forgotten the verb "to draw", and a couple more girls came over, and they learned that I was American and they were Italian, and we had a nice little chat. After they departed, I found Mom and checked out the Chapel of the Macabees, which was incredibly, ornately gorgeous, and then we left and went to see a little house-turned-museum called Maison Tavel. It had an entire floor of old doors. By that time, we were hungry, so we bought baguette and cheese and apricot jam and sat outside a Starbucks to eat. There were a few birds around (pigeons, and some smaller songbirds), but we thought nothing of them. Well. As soon as we produced baguette, they multiplied, and, slowly but surely, came closer and closer. These birds had no fear! Mom, however, did, and when one hopped too close, she jumped up with a little scream and informed me that I could finish eating outside and that she was going inside for a cup of coffee. I stayed with the food for a little while longer, but once she left, the birds realized that I was all alone -  an easy target - and just about swarmed me. Constantly shooing them got old, so I packed up and joined her in the Starbucks with my own cup of coffee. We regained our suitcases not long after that and took the bus down to CERN, where we met Ethel's father (Ethel was a French exchange student who stayed with us for three weeks last year), Stan, and headed home with him. After a delicious dinner of duck (!!) and mushrooms and potatoes, and cheese after, we went to bed, exhausted once more.

day one?

The last day of driving took us across my favorite state (though I'm not biased). We could see Mt. Hood a few hours into the drive, hazy, but visible, even from about 100 miles off. It was a sight for sore eyes. Something about FLAT land doesn't sit well with me, and there was plenty of that in the Midwest. Eastern Oregon, while not flat, is very dry, and I pulled out a Louis L'Amour (thanks Grandpa) and read for a few hours (without getting sick! A miracle!). Thus, I was pretty discombobulated when we parked next to a DARLING cafe in the Dalles. I thought we were still in Eastern Oregon, as it was still pretty dry.  My dad thought it was HILARIOUS that I hadn't realized we were in the Gorge, and teased me quite thoroughly. I had a delicious curry chicken salad wrap, however, so I was able to drown my sorrows in my sandwich. Sandwiches - good sandwiches - make everything better. We hit Portland at rush hour on a Friday afternoon, which holds some similarity to hell. It was hot, too. which did a nice job of adding to the image. Yet it was home, and familiar, and I, at least, was glad to be back in my own city.  I was even happier when I opened the door to my house and found my cat. She wasn't even too disgusted by our presence.

We left the Steeg's home after a wonderful visit; as my mother said, they could open a lovely bed and breakfast. We quickly passed into Idaho, and spent most of the day driving through the state. My siblings and I were getting bored, so we decided to take turns writing a story (each of us got one sentence). I won't relate the story here, but I will tell you that it began 'once upon a time there was a cat named Michelangelo' and quickly spiraled into something awful and gory. I wrote the opening sentence, and I ended the story before Chloe and Wesley turned it into something truly horrific. Wesley never should have been introduced to the Hunger Games.  We passed into Oregon in the early evening, but the hotel we were going to stay in didn't have an open pool. This was unacceptable, so we found another hotel, this one with an outdoor pool. We swam and tanned for about an hour before getting dinner and settling down to watch the Olympics. It was a pretty uneventful day, but we didn't mind. Besides, I got my own bed, and that was good enough for me.

We ate breakfast, said our goodbyes to Grandma and Grandpa, and headed to Jackson, Wyoming, on the other side of the state. Wesley was deejay as we drove across the state, and, sadly for us, he listens almost exclusively to about 9 songs, all 80's rock. He also doesn't listen to an entire song. He called it 'surfing' but I called it 'you're driving me batty, just choose a song already or I may become violent'.  We stopped in a tiny town in the middle of Wyoming. Yelp had recommended a restaurant called Mimi's Diner, but it was boarded up when we arrived. Well. We went to a gas station/convenience store/restaurant for lunch which was, according to the locals, the only place to eat in the entire town. But it had a sandwich bar, so we were okay.  We continued driving, passing through Teton on the way into Jackson. It wasn't our first time seeing the mountains (we hiked around them a few summers ago), but I have had forgotten how beautiful they are, and how much I adore those mountains. They're beautiful, granite and scathing, before melting into a gentler, hillier country. We wandered around Jackson for a while before driving to the Steeg's house, where we were being hosted for the night.  Molly and I played frisbee in the backyard before dinner, but we did more laughing than catching and throwing. We never could get past four catches in a row. I blame Molly, and she blames me, so the world may never now who's truly to blame for our lack of abilities. It's probably genetic, so we can blame Mom and Dad, I suppose.

None of us slept well the night before; there's nothing comfortable about the floor of a minivan. It doesn't help when you're squished between your sisters and the back of the driver's seat. We survived, though, and were out of the campsite before 8 am. Driving out of the park, we found a large herd of buffalo, grazing near the road. A gnarly bull was practically posing on the side of the road. So Dad followed his orders and snapped a few pictures. Then we headed onto Mount Rushmore.  I don't have much to say about South Dakota. It's high prairie and widely treeless. I'm not much in love with it - with one notable exception: the sunflower farms. Entire fields are covered with my favorite flower, yellow and gorgeous, sharply contrasting with the sky. I just about cried when I saw the first field. If college doesn't work out, you'll be able to find me farming sunflowers in South Dakota.  Between Rapid City and Rushmore, we set Wesley counting motorcycles. Apparently, we were sharing the area with the Sturgis motorcycle rally, which was drawing something like 500,000 motorcycles. Wesley counted 395 between Rapid City and Rushmore, and I'm sure he missed quite a few. Really, the area was swarming. Chloe was also counting tourist trap billboards between Rapid City and Rushmore. The area is known for its tourist traps, though I've no clue why people would stop and pay a small fortune to see reptiles in cages in the middle of South Dakota. Yet the parking lot was full. People are strange, and Chloe counted something like 70 billboards.  Rushmore was the biggest tourist trap of all, though it had merit. There is something rather impressive about massive heads carved into a mountain. I convinced my siblings to pose as the presidents pictured, which, in my opinion, created a masterpiece to rival the mountain. We spent little time at Rushmore, though, and carried on. The motorcyclists had taken up most of the hotels and campsites in the area, but we drove into Wyoming and, after stopping at a truck stop with edible food, we continued on and ended up at a campsite next to Glendo Reservoir.  My mother's parents were driving though Wyoming from Montana, and they decided to stay with us for the night. They had their fifth wheel, and we ended up being very grateful for that. We spend a lazy afternoon lounging on the beach of the reservoir, but, as time went on, we noticed threatening clouds rolling in again. Sure enough, thunder rolled, but by that time, we were in the trailer eating dinner. My siblings and I slept on the floor of the trailer (much more comfortable than the van) while Mom and Dad pitched another tent. We slept hard.