Luke's Idaho Trip

Luke returned from his successful elk hunting trip to Idaho last night. For those of you that haven't heard the story of how this trip came about, here's some background: Luke has a cousin, Robbie, down near Eugene who makes a very good living doing construction, real estate investing, and other odd ventures. He's very big into hunting (as their whole family is), and he is good friends with some people that own a hunting lodge in Idaho (http://www.mountainviewelk.com/). He decided earlier this year that he was going to pay for Luke and his brother, Josh, to go on a guided elk hunt at the lodge. He also paid for their dad and one friend to go along and stay, but not hunt. For those of you that aren't hunters (like me), it's probably important to note that these trips can be very expensive, as much as $14,000+, depending on what size elk you choose to shoot. Of course, I confirmed at least 10 times that we would not be stuck with any of the bill at the end of the hunt, and was assured Luke would only have to contribute gas money for the drive.

So they left for their adventure on Friday morning, planning to get both elk on Saturday, then drvie home Sunday. Josh found his elk first and decided he was willing to pay $2000 to upgrade to a bigger elk than Robbie had paid for. I had already made it clear to Luke that if he decided to do that, he would be finding a 2nd job when he got home. A few hours later, they saw a huge bull that one of Robbie's friends had wounded a few weeks earlier, but it hadn't gone down at the time. It was still out with the herd, and the owner wanted it removed since it wasn't completely healthy. So Robbie covered the small additional cost to upgrade to that bull, and Luke took it. Luke's bull ended up scoring exactly the same as Josh's, which basically means they are the same size and have similar racks. Needless to say, Josh was a little miffed that he had to pay $2000 for his, while Luke didn't pay a dime.

Probably around the same time the baby comes, we'll also have a new addition hanging in the garage. The thing is way too big to fit in our living room!