Lusk - Part 1

When Jettie came to Boulder in October, we made preliminary plans to meet somewhere between Boulder and Medora sometime before summertime.  When Jettie plans something, it happens.  She's not one of those people who says, "Oh, hey, we should go to Las Vegas for a weekend once!" and then forgets about it.  If she says it, she likely means it's going to happen.  It therefore follows that her plan to meet somewhere between Boulder and Medora happened.
 

The meeting place turned out to be Lusk, WY, population somewhere around 1300.  We picked it because it's small (we like small town, trashy bars), approximately halfway between Boulder and Medora, and we thought it would have cowboys (that was much more important when both she and I were single).  I had been warned by a co-worker who had taken a similar trip once that the townfolk would either love us or hate us.  We were hoping they would love us, but expected they would hate us.
 

The drive took around four and a half hours, and I arrived about an hour before Jettie and Shauna.  I had a drink while I was waiting, and as soon as they arrived, we commenced drinking.  Keep in mind here that none of us had eaten supper yet.  After finishing our drinks, we left our motel and headed downtown, toward the Silver Dollar Bar, which turned out to be populated by an older crowd, in their 40's (?), 50's (?), and 60's (?), and they were happy to see us.  They were asking our names, why we were in Lusk, what we do, etc., etc., etc., while we had a drink and a shot.  When it was our turn to ask questions, we asked where we could get supper, and everyone's reply was "Fresh Start."  Fresh Start is the 24-hour convenience store.  Classy.
 

As we left to head to Fresh Start, already a little tipsy, a man came out of the bar after us and said, "Hey!  Where you ladies going?"  To which we replied, "We'll be back!"  At Fresh start, we had a wonderful "supper" of cold sandwiches, gas station nachos, and a jumbo cookie, all of which we ate while sitting on the curb outside of the place, watching at least 4 cops drive by 3 times each.  Literally.
 

Having eaten, we went to what the locals had called the bar for the young crowd, The Pub. We were not nearly as welcomed at The Pub.  People were staring, glaring, and the bartender was not nearly as friendly as the other two had been at the Silver Dollar.  We had our two drinks and high-tailed it out of there, back to the Silver Dollar, where our new-found friends were.
 

Much like what happened on my birthday, which is the last time that I drank with Shauna and Jettie, I don't remember much of the rest of the time at the bar.  I know that I sang a lot of karaoke, there was much dancing, much drinking, and lots of older men.  (And no cowboys.  Boo.)  I fell on my face on the dance floor when I tripped over the microphone cord.  But they loved us.  Even the bartenders thought we were a riot, and kept our drinks full for us.
 

At some point, the younger men that we had seen at The Pub came over, and now that both us and they were drunk, they decided they could talk to us.  I was pretty angry about the fact that they had been too good for us earlier, but suddenly wanted to be our friends.  They seemed nice enough, but not as nice as our older friends and dance partners.
 

They bought us drinks, Shauna got one of their numbers, and we inquired about an after-party.  This part of the night is very blurry in my memory.  Jettie tells me we were going to walk to these boys' house to play beer pong, when they drove by and decided to pick us up.  We shoved ourselves into their car, making a total of 7 of us in it.  I don't remember much, except that I couldn't close the door.  Even though the door was open, they kept driving.  I was freaking out.  Freaking out.  Why?  Well, my line of reasoning went something like this:
 

"Oh my gooooodneeeesss!!!  The car door is going to slam closed on my foot!  I'm going to lose my toes!  If I lose my toes, then I can't walk!  If I can't walk, I can't be a famous opera singer!  Stop the caaaaaar!"
 

They didn't stop the car, despite my screaming and bawling.  Yes, bawling.  Full-out crying.  When we arrived at the dude's place, Jettie and I stood outside so that she could console me.  Once she finally calmed me down, we went inside.
 

I was done.  I just wanted to sleep.  I couldn't sleep because I had the spins.  Bad.  I spent some time in the bathroom, wishing that I had a gag reflex so that I could get rid of the alcohol in my system, but alas, that strategy doesn't work for me.  After about an hour of mostly failed attempts, I laid on the couch and fell asleep, until Jettie woke me at nearly 4:00 am.
 

I apparently missed a lot of exciting stuff while I was sleeping.  Curtis, one of the boys, punched the wall.  Shane?  Shawn?  was mad because Shauna wasn't paying attention to him.  Some random girls were so angry that we were at the party that they said to the boys, "Don't you want real women?  Not some girls from North Dakota?"  (One was from SD, so I doubt that she was any better than the three of us.)  I slept through it all.
 

We had to walk back to our motel.  Jettie kept us going by continually telling us, "It's just a few more blocks."  Yeah, it was a bit farther than a few more blocks, but we eventually made it.  And we passed out until noon the next day...