The Kelso Lake Run

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In our family, if one is upset, we drive. Usually on some curvy mountain road or through the backwoods. As this week has been a week of spectacular upsetting events, it came as no surprise to me when my brother showed up at my house during a snowstorm yesterday and asked if I wanted to go for a drive.

Sometimes you have weeks in your life where multiple pails of existential bovine fecal matter gets tossed your way. And since my bro was obviously feeling down, I wasted no time grabbing my coat and throwing on my boots.

Winter wear representin' yo

We proceeded to tool along at a blistering twenty mph through the winter wonderland scene. The snow was coming down thick and blowing about, and the road itself was a packed miasma of vehicle launching snow and ice.

We ended up following a school bus, and the kids disembarking the bus proceeded to make us laugh at every stop. Children of all ages would bail out of the bus and proceed to pelting each other with snowballs. It helped to start the process of lightening our vibe.

Then, we peeled off onto an even more rural trail of a road and got behind another school bus. The feels of melancholy crept back in as we became aware of just how many souls have moved to our backwoods part of the world and started reminiscing about when there wasn't a new driveway every five acres.

But the good vibes returned to stay as we turned up the reggae and started singing some island tinged tunes. There's nothing quite like singing about the tropics whilst in the midst of a blustery snowstorm.

Before you could say windshield wiper fluid, we had arrived at Kelso Lake. Bro whipped into the recreation area to use the pit toilet bathroom and I took a moment to ponder the frozen expanse of the little lake.

It was nice.

Our night though, was about to get nicer.

Now, I don't frequent bars very often. My brother though, he's very well acquainted with bar life. We looked at each other after belting out a very enthusiastic rendition of a not very radio friendly song Real Drugs and he said,

"Let's go get a drink,"

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So we did.

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My little tiny town has a main street, aptly named Maine Street. Ha ha. Anyway, on one side of the street there are three bars, all in a row, Jo's Hole, The Whitehorse (The oldest bar in Idaho), and The Linger Longer Lounge.

Bro and I cruised down to the end of the street and parked his big black pickup truck. He told me to pick which place we should go. I picked the Linger Longer because it's the only one I hadn't ever been too.

Upon entering the wood paneled and dimly lit establishment, my face broke into a contented smile. There were very few people present, they had a sign that said trivia night on Tuesday (Swoon), and everyone (except one guy who we made a mission to get him to laugh) who was there turned and smiled at us.

Part of the reason I have never visited the Linger Longer, aside from the fact that I don't tend to go to bars, is that one of the locals who frequented the establishment spread a pretty fantastical rumor many years ago that my husband was a murderer. Honestly the rumor worked well in our favor because the entire town left the hubs and I alone. Yes, it was out of false fear, but dang those were good times.

After almost a decade working at our library, that myth was dispelled so I thought it might be safe to darken the Linger Longer's doors. Plus, I heard that they had good pizza.

Anyway, Bro and I ordered a couple of drinks from the super sweet bartender and proceeded to mock the Awesome Human channel that was playing on one of the bar's tvs. There's just something about unicyclists I tells you.

A few Gin and Tonics and MacNaughton's and Cokes later, and the bro and I had drawn a crowd. He knows everyone by at least one degree of separation and I might be a little bit of a people magnet. Before too long we had a lady bringing in her Australian Shepherds for us to pet, my brother got at least two jobs, and we were told that we absolutely had to come for the murder mystery event at the bar in a couple weeks.

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So yep, we made friends.

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We also both slept really good that night and our bad vibes were far from our carcasses.

Mainly it was nice to get out and enjoy some spontaneous bits of life amidst the always waiting realities of living. Both things are awesome in their own way, it's just sometimes you need to take a random drive through a snowstorm.

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And as most of the time, all of the images in this post were taken on the amazingly still not been lost in a snow drift or bank iPhone.

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