We need more birds.
July 1, 2005 Friday
With all the almost unbearable rain we have been getting in June the mosquitoes have come out in full force. They are everywhere and hungry for blood. My blood! I’m scratching like a rabid dog with fleas. Even with bug repellant I think they stole a quart of blood and I have mosquito welts anywhere my skin was showing… Stupid me for wearing a small t-shirt and low-rise Capri’s. I should have worn one of those space suits that cover every inch of your body. It didn’t help that the parade route was by the river so it was like we were walking right into their nesting ground.
I swear I hope birds are going crazy doing the nasty so they start producing lots of lil’ birdies to eat all these freakn’ bugs. I hate mosquitoes. Now I’m all paranoid that I’m going to get West Nile. I’m such a hypochondriac, but seriously… you never know. I gotta watch out for signs. I better go take my temperature…
I slept in so we didn’t get up until 5:50am. We didn’t leave the house till 7:00am. Breakfast already started in Drumheller. Ryan assures me he can make it in an hour and 1/2 instead of 2 hours. We’ll make it to the free breakfast of oj, pancakes and ham. We jump into the truck and off we go. The kids slept most of the way and I, being stupid as always, decided to paint my toe nails in the truck on the way there… I have these cute red Old Navy flip flops with a diamond heart and red bow. I have nail polish to match perfectly. So instead of doing my nails yesterday, no! heaven forbid I procrastinate it until this very morning. Let’s just say the road out to Drumheller is not the smoothest or the straightest. I felt like I was blind, drunk Helen Keller painting my toes. *sigh*
Had breakfast. Delicious. Got ripped off. I had to pay a $1 for each of my kids to let them have balloon hats made by some clown… what a waste, cuz 2 minutes after getting his twisty balloon hat Josh says, “Hey! You wanna hear a balloon fart?” He pops his… “My balloon farted!” He laughs hysterically… and there went a dollar.
The parade was lots of fun. The kids got lots of candy, they had fun waving at the floats and being sprayed by water guns. After we went to Coop to get hot dogs, watermelon and a juice box. I was once again reminded that yep, I still do hate hot dogs. We went to the World’s Largest Dinosaur and the dinosaur water park was lots of fun. The kids ran around and sprayed each other with the water guns.
Ryan and Guy went to watch people bridge jumping. Guy dared this man that he met over there to jump off the bridge for $10. The man jumped in with jeans on. This water is just gross! It is all dirty and full of silt from the floods. It’s just a very muddy river. Ryan and Guy come back all proud of themselves and laughing at the sight of the guys facial expression when he hit the cold revolting water. I was annoyed that they didn’t tell me cuz I wanted to see that!
When Jayna found out he gave the man $10 to jump in the water she just stares at him pissed… It was so funny to see her expression. If looks could kill he’d be a dead man. She started ripping into him, “Why do you always have to spend every last cent that’s in your pocket??? blah, blah, blah…. I’m just laughing cuz Jayna is the most quiet thing and doesn’t say much, but now she’s so mad cuz he spent the money uselessly.
Guy looks at me for backup. “Wouldn’t you pay $10 to see some guy jump off a bridge?”
“No! I’m not stupid! What idiot would pay to watch that?…. oh ya.. you did.” I retort.
I had to back up Jayna at that moment….don’t want to make the woman mad at me for agreeing with him.
We stayed there for a couple of hours then headed off to the reptile museum. It was awesome! I got to hold Brittany the boa constrictor. Yikes… well, I didn’t hold it, I just let them wrap the snake around my neck and quickly had a picture taken. It took everything I had not to run around screaming… snakes are meant to be seen behind glass… thick glass. The snake that the chick on the web page is the holding is a smaller version of the snake I held… Brittany the boa must have been eating lots of small children, cuz this thing was huge. All my kids had the snake wrapped around their necks. The boys thought it was pretty cool. The girls.. not so much. Brandon kept freaking the care taker out cuz he kept trying to grab its flickering tongue. Yikes, I quickly put a stop to that.
Ryan tells me he wants to show me this road with a 100 bridges… so we go. It’s a windy road, with amazing hoodoo’s that surround it, but there were only 10.
“100… 10… it’s all relative.. it seems like 100 though, ” he says.
riiiiight.
Well, on our way back there’s this sign that says and I kid you not! “Village of Idiots 5 km.”
“Did you see that sign?” I ask Ryan, of course he hadn’t because he’s the most unobservant person I know. I thought maybe I was mistaken, but sure enough… 5 km later another sign:
“Village of Idiots (with an arrow pointing south)
Rosedale 8km.”
It was too funny. I wanted to take a picture of it, but Ryan of course wouldn’t stop. It was such a funny sign though, the highlight of my day. *sigh* so this must be where all the idiots originate from, no wonder there are so many close to where I live. They breed them in that town I guess. lol…. now I know where Ryan actually came from.