drinkin beer and wastin bullets

The week before I headed up north to nearly Canada to visit that hunk of a boyfriend of mine, he and his bestie went out to the national forest and went shooting & mudding. Typical Montana style guy fun. Since then, we'd been planning to go when I was there. So like the first day I was there we headed to DJs favorite store ever, Scheels, to buy him a brand new shotgun. He's like a kid in a candy store in there, I swear! I did find a pink 9mm that I might have to get eventually, but really I was just there for moral support. So we took his brand new scary looking gun home, got some hotdogs and the heavenly ingredients that make up s'mores and packed the truck to head out the next morning. 

We woke up EARLY (and by early I mean 7 am) and hopped in the truck. The truck we had just washed the day before- hint: it didnt stay clean for very long. The national forest is about an hour away, right past Monarch where we almost got stranded last time. 

When we got out there, it was COLD. Like really cold and windy. Luckily I had my trusty pink North Face to keep me a little warm. We hit some mud on the way there which was so fun. We started shooting at cans and bottles and I'm basically a pro. A pro at not hitting anything. I did destroy this Sprite can, though. 

Then we decided it was time for some hotdogs. We tried to light a fire but the wind kept putting it out before it was big enough. So we tried again. And again. And again. No luck. We ended up shooting off the rest of our rounds and taking some gangsta pictures before we headed to another spot. 

We hit some more mud and show and it was seriously so fun. Dj's whole truck was falling apart though- the dashboard is broken and pieces we're flying everywhere, the visor above my head kept falling and hitting me, my coffee kept spilling, but yolo it was so fun. We also got stuck a few times. 

At one of the spots we stopped to "play" in the muddy snow, Dj let me drive. We'd been doing donuts and going crazy in that spot for a good half hour, and I figured it couldn't be too hard. Well, I drove about ten feet and we were stuck. So that was fun. Once we got pulled out of that, we stopped at a few more places and kept trying to light fires, but the wind was so bad everywhere we went. So Dj and I made s'mores without the marshmallow- basically a chocolate and graham cracker sandwich. Oh and I polished off a whole bag of hot Cheetos. Typical. We had smores for breakfast Tuesday though, so it's okay.

In all, it was a good day. Even though we didn't get to roast hotdogs or marshmallows, I almost froze to death, and I had to pee outside, it was still fun. I'm so excited to head back out there this summer when it's not so cold and a little more green! :)

Do you like the outdoors? Or are you more of an indoorsy person?

travel talk with casey!

Hey pretties! Today one of my lovely sponsors is taking over! Casey has an amazing blog and literally every post makes me jealous because I'm stuck in AZ and I cant be somewhere cool like Rome or Paris. Show her some love!

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Hi Endlessly Beloved readers!  I’m Casey from True Colours, a travel blog that features my globe-trotting adventures while my husband takes gorgeous photos and I fill in the blanks with words.  I'm so excited to be guest posting here today!  

I do a lot of traveling, both for work and for pleasure, and in my travels, I've realized over the years that the world has a unique way of teaching us, feeding us lessons with each new place we see.  Over my years of traveling, I've been taught lesson after lesson with each new place I experience, but perhaps some of the most important lessons are those that you realize over time, after you've had months or years to relive a trip in your mind and really realize what you might have taken away from it.  So today, these are some of the best lessons I've learned from my travels over the years and ones that I try to hold with me for each new trip on the horizon!

When you travel, you give up control.  You give up control of the weather, of airplanes being on time, of hotels being what you thought they would be.  Traveling can be brutal sometimes and it's those times that you really do need to be prepared for anything, even if that means you're not prepared at all for what comes and you just have to take it in stride.  Often times, you're left sleeping on airport floors or rerouting a trip that didn't go according to plan, but in those times, you learn very well how to prepare yourself in the future and using that as a lesson in itself.

So many times while traveling, many people are trying to cram so many things into a specific place, trying to hit every museum, every new restaurant, every activity.  It can be so draining to travel that way and you don't really even get to enjoy the place.  For me, I travel the way I live, if I want to go into a museum, I'll go.  But if I don't, I don't worry about it.  For me, wandering through Central Park with my husband or hitting our favorite restaurant (even though there might be 5 million others to try) are more important to me than making sure I see everything.  

Sometimes it's the smaller things you see in a place, the way you feel just wandering around that makes more of an imprint on you than being a typical "tourist."

This is an important lesson to learn early on when traveling.  I'm the type of traveler that likes a nice hotel, that likes to sleep in, and that likes to have an itinerary for each day of where we're headed.  For me, that's what works best.  For others though, the complete opposite might be true.  Before you travel with other people or even listen to others' travel advice before a trip, realize that not everyone travels the same.  What might be important to you, might be worthless to someone else.  Figure out what works best for you and don't worry about what other people will think.

So often when traveling, it's the things you see in the most random places that end up being the most memorable.  Like when you're lost in Marrakech and wander upon a gorgeous spice market or end up using your French in Paris because you can't find your hotel without it.  It's those times when you really embrace the unexpected things that come up along the way that you will remember more than other moments.  Embrace what's around you, take it all in.

A really important lesson I've learned over the years, and perhaps one of the most important, is that you aren't going to love every place you see.  For me, I don't love Italy and while most people do, I often get strange comments or looks when I say that.  But that's just me.  I happen to love Paris, but many people do not.  Traveling is about finding those places you love and being ok with the ones you don't.  But on the same hand, the places you don't end up loving, often they are the ones that follow you and you think about often afterwards.  Each place you see and experience will stay with you, whether it ends up that you love it or not.

I hope you all enjoyed Casey's post! Be sure to check out her blog :)