When NPR came on at 5:30 this morning, I learned that the rain that we had endured all Memorial Day weekend would continue today and that it was unlikely to be much over 40 out. We might even get some snow! I get up after the second weather report, which today let me know that the rest of Wyoming was also going to be pretty cold and that it might really snow in Yellowstone. By then, Lucy the dog was beginning to bounce off the walls as I wandered down the hall to shave, after which will she and Mojo will be let outside. The lab is knocking her tail onto the walls as she accompanies me to the bathroom and makes quite a racket although it doesn't disturb Teri's sleep. As I wandered out and down the stairs, our old Norwegian elk hound appeared out of the front bedroom containing my daughter and her husband who are temporarily living with us until they close on their new house which is not quite ready since it doesn't have its front steps poured yet because of the rain among other things. Elin just graduated from the U of Wyoming with music education and French horn performance degrees, and has a job with our school district to teach music in the elementary school next fall. We attended her graduation in Laramie two weeks ago and then hauled her furniture back up here. It snowed the day of graduation, but the next day was pretty much ok for the drive back, although the gas prices were particularly painful in our old Suburban pulling a trailer in the wind.
The dogs wandered outside and I ground beans for coffee as I surveyed the damp lilacs outside the kitchen window and listened to more news of the day on the radio. We had planned on spending the weekend on land we bought a few years ago about 9 miles east of Devils Tower, up in the Bear Lodge mountains, but the wet spring had ruled that out.
Our dirt access road in from the dirt county road is a challenge when its dry and May has seen 3 feet of snow and several inches of rain before the additional 3 inches that came down this weekend so we stayed home. Somehow nobody liked the idea of hanging out in a damp pop-up camper for several days. Teri and I did wander up on Sunday and did manage some time without rain, but we had to walk in from the county road since the access road was still too wet. Yesterday, I told Elin that Teri and I might go out this next weekend since it was supposed to be dry with highs in the 70s all week. She reminded me that if the builder can pour her concrete front steps and if the City issues a CO then we should stick around and help move her stuff into the new house. Her stuff is on our trailer parked in her brother's garage across the street from her new house. Our son Dave and his wife Meg and their 2 year old son Wade spent about a month with us last fall while they were waiting to move into their new house so our empty nest status has been more theoretical than real. Wade is a hoot with more energy than I've ever had.