Life on the "Res": Day 1

Day 1 on the Reservation was pretty packed!!

Before I get into our day, I'll backtrack about the previous night. We arrived at Motel 6, and found ourselves presented with a "swapportunity". In our room (yes, we are sharing a room for the 5 week stent), there was one double bed and one twin bed. We were settled on who would get the big bed--I lost--but before we turned in for the night, our "neighbors"....the 2 people also living in motel 6.... mentioned that they both had rooms to themselves and that their rooms contained 2 double beds, one that was not being used in each room. They offered to switch us beds, but then we discovered the spare room was unlocked. We decided to swap the bed in the spare room with the twin bed in our room. We only took the box springs and mattress and left the frame in case we needed to move it back. We didn't hear of anyone else moving in, but you never know.
....But then you find out. Monday morning, probably about 30 minutes into our first day, our preceptor comes strolling in asking to take one of us back to motel 6 with him to move the beds back. Apparently, we caused some serious friction between the housing guy and our preceptor. No one thought it was a big deal besides the new "roommate"/"neighbor" and the housing guy, but they were not backing down. Everything was our fault and we were so out of line for touching that bed. To use their exact words, "It's like a hotel. You don't go stealing things from someone else's room!" Whoops. What a way to start off the week.
On to the rest of the morning....
We got to spend some time in the dialysis unit which was very interesting. We got to speak with a lot of the Natives and find out a lot about their culture. The healthcare team that was working decided to order some homemade "Indian tacos" for us for lunch! We didn't know what that entailed, so I took a picture to share - it is homemade "bread" on the bottom, with typical taco fixings on top. It was pretty good, but didn't necessarily agree with my stomach the rest of the day. :( Add that to the list of things that went wrong today.
That was really the only interesting part of the day, so I'll skip to after work.
Just to throw this out there, we are dead set on losing weight and getting fit out here. Mainly, because there's not much else to do. Really, there's nowhere to eat or drink anything safe, so we are living off tuna, granola bars, and bottled water. We brought our little friend Insanity to help us along the way. Today was Day 1, and between the out-of-shape bod and the churning stomach, it pretty much kicked my butt. But I did it. Well, most of it. We'll see how this goes. There's really no excuse to fall off the wagon out here, so that's a plus.
Another big goal for the trip was to go hiking a lot. Major problem with this plan- we had been warned numerous times about the not-so-friendly people, the rattle snakes, and the buffalo. I'm not sure how most people feel about that nice little trifecta, but it doesn't sit very well with me. I was definitely nervous.
We headed out and started our mission to find a hiking trail. We spotted a lake and slammed on the breaks. The weather could not have been more perfect. Here are a few pictures....

Looks like Heaven!

Ghost Hawk Lake

Our first adventure on the Res

Buffalo?

We decided to hike up the hill to get a good workout, but I think we walked too slow to burn any real calories. We were too afraid of snakes to look up from our feet most of the way up! We are so pathetic. It was pretty steep for the first 10 minutes, so we got a little workout in :) Both of us were huffing and puffing by the time we got to the top. But it was so rewarding! Beautiful views all around....

From the top!

Enjoying the weather and view from the top

My treasured items since I've arrived:

Life on the "Res": The Beginning

Okay everyone, here goes the shortened version of the most shocking trip of my life....
 I left for Rosebud, SD last Saturday.
It got interesting much faster than I thought it would.
Sidenote of the start to my day -I got major highlights in my hair right before we took off (this was a MAJOR change. I haven't had blonde in my hair in over 5 years. And no, I did not plan a hair appointment right before we left. We moved up our plans and left early..).
 Back to the story :) - Most of the drive was pretty boring, it was corn fields the majority of the time. I made it somewhat interesting for myself, however, because I was on book 2 of the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy, Fifty Shades Darker!! It was my favorite of the three (I am now done with all of them). Poor Katelyn drove most of the way jamming out by herself. I'm such a rotten passenger. I plan to make it up to her on the way to Texas in a couple weeks, but more on that later.
We stopped in Lincoln, Nebraska for the night to break up the long drive. It was dark out by the time we arrived, but we were starving. There was a few places near the hotel, so we decided to just risk it and pick one. Big. Mistake. We tested out the hotel bar, called something along the lines of "Sky Bar" or something. They not only had no one working, but they also had no food. The two creepers nice men at the bar turned around and gawked informed us that they had chilli dogs earlier in the night, but that we were too late. Needless to say, we left rather quickly and tried another place. The next joint looked pretty promising from afar, but as we got closer, we noticed a man walking along the street towards the front door....wearing a kilt and tall leather boots. The name of the place was called "Lucky's" something or other, so we thought, "Oh, it must have an Irish theme"........WRONG. I'm still not sure where that guy came from, but he stuck out like a sore thumb. We met another man on the way in the door, Harlan, which was...less than enjoyable. They were having karaoke and he offered to sing us a song. He even told us that we could choose from his hundreds of songs, but we hesitated, so he picked "a beautiful woman", which I still think he made up. We hurried to the bar and got a drink. And a lot of food. Best part of the day hands down. We had a couple of beers, learned about the game "Keno", and headed back to the hotel.
The next morning, we got up bright and early and took off. We quickly left civilization and were back to the open road. It was just as dull as the day before, so there's not much to say about that.
Anywho, out of nowhere, we start to see new landscape emerging..... The Sandhills!!! HOORAY! Out of Corn Nation!! By this point, we only see another car every 45 minutes or so, so a change of scenery was more than welcome.We were a bit worried about being able to find a gas station when we needed to, so when we came upon this little treasure, we were sure to stop and fill up.The gas pumps were too old to be digital... I had my doubts that they actually worked, but we went with it.
Little did we know, people DO still pump your gas and wash your windows for you! It was very unexpected, and to be honest, a bit awkward. We had to get out of the car for our potty breaks anyway, so we may as well have filled up the car ourselves. Oh well. We headed inside and it was quite the site. It had a couple of booths for people to sit and eat (although I didn't see any hot food, just a few gas station snacks), and this wood burning stove...I think that's what this is?!

There were also some nicknacks that I am 90% sure were locally hand made. One of the things I saw that caught my eye was an "egg separator". In case you aren't aware, you pour the egg gently into the device, and then tip it to the side. The egg white slips out a small hole, while the yolk stays in the bottom. Who would have thought? I was feeling awfully touristy, so I decided to take pictures of it all.... You're welcome. :)

Egg separator in the back right

The girl that pumped our gas turned out to be a big sweetheart and gave us a lot of helpful information! She told us a few places to stop on the way as a last resort before we were REALLY in the boonies. She also told us about a few fun county fairs in Nebraska. Unfortunately, they are too far, because she mentioned rodeos and a tractor demolition derby! I would have loved to have witnessed that, but on to Rosebud it was. Before we left, I spotted this nice little booklet full of traveler's information, so being in the touristy mood, we signed it. :)

ONWARD! We were finally in the home stretch.......

There wasn't anything very exciting from there to Rosebud, so I'll spare the details. We did find a Subway/Ice cream place, so we made our very last pit stop before the final destination.

Drumroll please......

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HOME SWEET HOME!!!!
This is our new house. For the next 5 weeks. They call it "Motel 6". More pictures to come....

"MOTEL 6"