Two of my very favorite people… of course Duke, and Jordynn, hoped in my car well after 10 o’clock and we headed north toward a little slice of heaven, Island Park. We sang way too much and for some reason it seems that my specialty for road trip this month are accents.

We rolled up to our cabin around 2 am and grabbed our bags out, found the keys, turned the water on, and then curled up for a few hours of sleep.

At 5 am the alarm sounded… Jordynn and I shivered our way back out to the car, while Duke excitedly hurried around us packing things.

We spent our entire Saturday exploring driving to beautiful spots and then exploring them. We stopped in the lower loop one time, Duke was down the road capturing a shot of a certain group of trees he had been searching for (spotted by me). Jordynn and I hoped out  and wandered down near a river- we were goofing around – when a ranger drove up and flipped his lights on. He motioned for us to come toward the car, we moved about four steps in his direction and he made a swirling motion with his hand yelling “thermal area” and then drove off. We looked at each other and began laughing uncontrollably.

By then end of that day we had so many inside jokes we were just reliving those moments on our way home.

Once we were back at the cabin we all hurled around a pace heater eating Sour Patch kids & playing cards.

Day two was just slightly different, I rolled out of bed around 8 am to a beautiful warm day and wandered around the cabin enjoy what was unfortunately my only weekend up there in 2016. The other two eventually woke up and made their way downstairs.

We decided to head to the river, but never made it. We left the cabin, and just as we did I heard the front door close behind us. My heart dropped, the keys – we were using the spare keys already- were still sitting on the fireplace. As soon as I turned around the other two realized what was running through my mind. We circled the cabin, looking for an open window, trying to push in the back door and so much more.

The three of us found one window that was open, it was on the second story so we started carrying the table and lawn chairs around to make a make shift ladder. However, even with the height we weren’t able to get the screen off. During one of Dukes turns on top I had one of the most memorable moments of this summer. I was looking for a stick in the bushes when some movement caught my eye. I looked up to see a wolf just several yards away. He was jogging across the back of the cabin, but looked in my direction for a moment. To understand just how amazing this moment was for me you must know that I had a wolf stuffed animal while growing up that I took everywhere I mean everywhere with me named “Woffie” and I would write stories about how I wanted to live with wolves. I have never been that close to one before (unless you count Bear World, which you just can’t).

We couldn’t get into the garage for a few hours (I refused to call my dad, hoping to solve the issue without anyone finding out) but eventually caved and he told us how to get into the garage.

Eventually, we go into the garage, got a ladder that had to have a colony of Spiders living in it, boosted me onto the roof and I narrowly made it into an attic window.

I walked out of the front door minutes later with a the keys in hand, just like a scene from The Breakfast Club.