Our Latest Vacation

We traveled to West Yellowstone last weekend to spend some time at my family cabin. We got there late Saturday night and left Sunday afternoon, so we weren't there very long, but it was fun to be able to go. I even got to enjoy the things we always did when I was a kid, like a pancake breakfast (courtesy of Uncle Ron), and rice and raisins for breakfast before church on Sunday!

My extended family has been using these cabins since my grandparents decided to lease them with 3 other families from the forest service probably sometime in the 1950s (any relative please correct me if I'm wrong), and the attic of one has not been cleaned out in probably that long.

No, the attic is not full of old furniture, or junk of any kind. Up until a few weeks ago, it was full of BATS. There had been some electrical problems, but before an electrician dared enter the attic, he demanded it be cleaned out first, and rightfully so considering there were 300-400 bats that were living up there. So in came "the bat man" to clean up all the nastiness and install a one-way door so the bats couldn't get back in.

Sounds like my kind of profession. Not.

Well, apparently this one-way door was successful in 2 things: keeping the bats from getting back in and infuriating them. I'm not sure how smart bats are (remind me to research that later), but they were smart enough to figure out that if they can't get into the attic the way they used to, they should try getting into the cabin instead.

Pretty much everyone had gone to bed shortly after we got there on Friday night, but Megan, Matt, my cousin Lisa, and I were still up when we noticed a bat start flying around the living room. We all ran out of the room, and then Matt came to the rescue!


I didn't get any actual action shots, so I made him pose for this one. He had opened the wood door and was using the broom to swat the bat outside. You might also notice one of his flip flops is missing. That's because he used it to prop the screen door open.

Later that night after we had all gone to bed, my cousin Catherine was sitting in the living room trying to get her month old baby back to sleep when another bat came in. This time her husband saved the day! Or night...

And just because I'm sure you're really enjoying this bat story, I'll update you further. According to Facebook my aunts, uncle, and cousins that are still up there encountered about 30 more bats last night. The "bat man" came back to fill in some more holes...causing more bats to find refuge inside. Boy, am I glad we came back on Sunday.

This is the part of the cabin that I love...

It is beautiful up there. The bats, moose, bears, mosquitoes, and various other wilderness-y things--not so much.