Whoa, I've left Xanga alone for to long. July 12th seems so long ago; it's crazy how fast time can go sometimes. I guess I'll just try and sum up all that's happened in the nearly six months that I haven't posted anything.

August: Hmm, nothing much. Worked at the Marriott's, hung out with friends; the usual. Oh yeah, and I joined the highschool's soccer team, something I've never played as an organized sport before, and made the varsity team as their keeper.

September: Work was basically over at that point, and school had begun. I did have to pull some jet skis out of the water at work... that was chilly to say the least.

October: Extremely boring. Ethan went to college this year and Randy was in Europe, so I was stuck in NH without much male companionship.

November: Shayne and I broke up. I turned 17.

December: School, as usual, and Ethan and Randy came back on Christmas vacation, so we've been partying it up... sorta. I went snowboarding the other day for the first time this year; although the mountain wasn't the best one I've ever been to, it was nevertheless extremely fun. Plus I got an awesome snowboard jacket for Christmas.

That's the past six months extremely abbreviated. Oh yes, and I also acquired a Myspace, which I'm basically never on, because, for various reasons, I got a Facebook which is superior to Myspace. That may also explain why I haven't been on Xanga much...

Does anyone feel like they don't have a life outside of their computer?   

So it's been basically forever and a day since I last posted, although I do believe I've seen basically all of you multiple times since my last post and thence had little to post about, but that aside, I, Travis James, am about to write a post. It goes something like this:

Hello all! Yesterday evening, at approximately 11:00pm eastern time, I got back with my older brother, younger sister, and mother from a twelve day trip first to Washington state and then to South Dakota. The purpose of going to Washington was to visit relatives (namely my awesome cousin Ashley, and her parents Lorena and Bob i.e. my aunt and uncle, as well as mom's parents i.e. my grandparents). I had an absolute blast during the five or six days we spent out there, and that was only half of the trip. We then drove for three days across country with mom's brother in his ginormous van (nicknamed the "corndog") to meet relatives to numerous to count, all on my mother's side, for a big ol' family reunion. Among those relatives were Ashley, Aunt Lorena, and Uncle Bob, who also drove across country. In fact, they started a day behind us and beat us to South Dakota! They drove the approximate 1200 miles in about two days. Before I go much further, however, I'll have to give some background information as to why we were having a family reunion in Custer, South Dakota.
Approximately fifty years ago an Indian chief requested that a monument be built to honor Crazy Horse, an Indian hero. The man who accepted the task was one of the people who helped build Mt. Rushmore, and so he traveled to South Dakota to find a location for the monument. Unlike Mt. Rushmore, which is merely the faces of four presidents carved into a mountain, the Crazy Horse monument is an entire mountain carved into a single statue of the Indian hero atop his horse, pointing to the west. Mr. Korczac Ziolkowski started this project knowing that he wouldn't live to see it finished; in fact the face of Crazy Horse was only finished in 1998, when work began on the horse's head.
Guys, you've gotta see this thing to believe it. when you hike to the top of Crazy Horse you end up standing on his outstretched arm, on which, I might point out to give a tiny bit of perspective, all four heads of Mt. Rushmore would fit on. And that's just the arm. Behind you is an incredibly detailed carving of the head, which is 87 1/2 feet high.
Anyway, for years it's been a tradition of Grandaddy's to hike to the top of Crazy Horse, which you are only allowed to do during the first weekend in June. Grandaddy turns ninety this August, so we figured we should get a bunch of the family together and hike it with him. And do you wanna know something? my two-months-away-from-being-ninety grandad walked the six miles to the top of Crazy Horse. He had to stop and rest now and then, but he made it the whole way. When we got back to the motel we were staying at he commented that his legs were a little sore, but that he was ready to do it again next year.

It would be impossible to express in words just how much fun I've had with my relatives over the past two weeks, or explain all the great times I had with Randy and Ashley shopping at the mall and staying up waay to late sitting on the kitchen floor laughing, so I won't even try. In a year or two I'll probably be back out in Washington with the folks, having a blast. Next year is Grandaddy's and Grandmother's 65th wedding anniversary, so maybe we'll have to have another reunion for that. But for right now anyway I'll be stickin' around in NH.


~Travis