I've been a bit hesitant on posting anything here since the website got hacked, but I think I should share with you some of my most recent experiences. I've been on my grandpa Lyle's childhood farm for the last 2 weeks. He lives near me, so we drove up here together. My grandpa's brother, Delton, lives here with his wife, Donnell. It's a decent farm; the neighbor plants and plows our fields for us, and another neighbor has some cows on our main 800 acre pasture, AKA the cricklands. Delton is a full-time trucker, and his wife is a full-time artist, so there's hardly any time for them to farm. While almost nothing typically happens on this farm, almost too much has happened since we got here. This will be a long bunch of stories, since well, this trip has been a long trip in not the best ways. But, my grandpa said that hell's a writer's paradise, and I ought to take back some stories. And boy, do I have stories! And before I continue further, keep in mind that I actually had some fun, and I'm glad I went on this trip.

I spent a good 2 months and over $300 on my dirtbike to get it in optimal condition for this specific trip. I got it registered with the government so I can ride legally on public trails and land. I replaced both tire tubes, several spark plugs, took off the expansion chamber pipe and shot fire through it to burn out any and all the excess oil (really, really bad idea in hindsight, but it worked), dumped 1.5 gallons of too-rich gas in the gas tank down my dad's warehouse's toilet (my dad's idea, not mine), replaced the muffler, tightened and replaced a few screws, and rode it through the toughest conditions to test it several times. So, you can probably imagine my reaction when grandpa and I were manhandling the dirtbike off the back hitch, only to hear the front tire pop and watch it go flat. To say I was pissed is an understatement. I didn't blatantly show it, but I just isolated myself in the bedroom I was given for the rest of the night because I didn't want to snap on anyone. 

The next day, while grandpa and Delton drove around all day in search of a new tire tube, I just sat in my bedroom and played video games and watched youtube. I checked the weather, and felt my heart go into my throat when I saw "TORNADO WATCH" in big, bold letters at the top of my screen. Turns out, we were in for a few nights of terrible weather, and I wasn't very happy about this, at all. I ended up moving my stuff from the nice, air-conditioned manufactured home Delton and his wife live in, into the not-so-cold, dusty little farmhouse with a basement, located several yards from the new house. The farmhouse is actually very nice and cozy, and it's been recently renovated while still keeping its 1960s look and feel. It just lacks a few decorations, but we're getting there.

My grandpa and Delton returned with a new inflated tire tube in the tire, just as the first few drops of rain were falling. I figured I'd go for a ride just to make sure my dirtbike was working as it should. I went to the small pasture out back, and rode up the second hill facing the west. The color drained from my face when I saw the storm front. It was just a massive purple-green shelf cloud hanging over a wall of near pitch-dark sky, and it was coming towards us at record speeds. I hit 4th gear pinned over the last hill, and hit the ground in a wheelie I was going so fast. Not very much scares me, but I know what a bad storm looks like when I see it. I parked my dirtbike in the old farmhouse's garage, and stayed there for the rest of the night. The worst of the storm missed us by about 5 miles, but we still got a little bit of wind, some quarter-sized hail, and a rotating wall cloud above our farm, which actually made me stand by the basement door and watch it from a nearby window. 

My grandpa woke me up the next morning, asking if I wanted to go fishing. I excitedly agreed, and jumped into his car with my breakfast still in my hand. We went to town to get our licenses and fishing bait, then headed to the mouth of the Missouri river to fish. We were hoping to fish off the tailrace dock at the Garrison dam, but to our surprise and amazement, the dam had the emergency floodgates open, which has never happened in its 80 year history, so the tailrace dock was closed and wet. Lake Sakakawea is extremely full because the snow didn't start melting off the Rockies in Montana until just now, and the snow-melt is so rapid that it's filling up the lake several feet per day, even with Garrison's emergency floodgates and main floodgates wide open. We instead went down to the mouth of the Knife river, where there were lots of catfish and northern pike. I didn't get a nibble, and neither did my grandpa. But, I was walking on wet rocks, and I ended up slipping on a rock and plunging into the freezing water below. I immediately got back to shore and started emptying my pockets. My phone, which had been playing music in my back pocket, was done for, I almost lost my favorite knife but thankfully found it on the rocks just below the water's surface, and my 10-day fishing license paper was nearly ruined. I just threw my stuff in the car and sat shivering and soaked in it until we left. My grandpa kinda just patted me on the back but said nothing. What can you say to someone who has had the worst luck in the last year or so? In all honesty, I wasn't very mad at that point. I was kind of expecting it, in a way, since my luck had been horrible lately. 

My plan to stay in the farmhouse with my phone for the nightly storms was kind of ruined, as was my plan to ride out to the cricklands on my own with my dirtbike (which is something I'd only do if I had instant access to my phone if something went wrong), but my grandpa came to the rescue, and let me use an old phone of his to tether my laptop on the wifi, but I wasn't about to take it with me on my adventures since it didn't have a protective case. When it came to the storms, my grandpa tried to tell me that the news just liked to sensationalize things, and chances were we'd be just fine and I could safely stay in the new house, but I refused. I just knew something big was coming. My grandpa shrugged his shoulders and went to bed, leaving me in the main room of the old farmhouse with the old phone and my laptop.