About a week ago Natalia (AKA the pregnant Moldovan girl) asked if she could go into Yellowstone with me some time. She's worked here all summer and had yet to experience the park. I agreed and promised that I would take her with me some time when I go.
I feel really bad for her because she is 1 1/2 weeks shy of being six months pregnant and she's stranded in the U.S. She no longer has the energy to clean daily here at the KOA and her husband back in Moldova wants her to come home. She was originally scheduled to leave here in September, but wants to get her tickets changed to some time here in August. Unfortunately, she has been unable to do so. She's been trying for weeks to get them moved up, but no luck.
Natalia is no longer working because as a rapidly expanding pregnant woman, she is in no condition to be doing so. She actually passed out the other night while at the patio BBQ...she kept insisting that she was fine, but I don't think she's eating right or drinking enough fluids. Whatever the case, it's bad news. So she just sits in her cabin all day doing practically nothing. Fortunately, Luda has a laptop with internet so that helps her pass the time.
The second reason I feel bad for her is that this past Tuesday Nate and I went into the park and I didn't invite her. It wasn't that we didn't want her to go with it's just that we were going to be gone ALL day and wanted to do some hiking and we figured it would be too strenuous for her. We actually spent the entire day in the park and did both loops...so it would have been too much for her. Well, she found out that we went into the park (thanks to Jacob) so I felt really bad. I explained that we knew it was going to be a full day and that's why we didn't ask her to go with. She gave me a hard time, but said she understood.
Anyways, yesterday I finally took Natalia into the park for the afternoon. It turned out being a really fun afternoon. She was so excited to see everything. It was like I was a dad going into the park with his kid, she was so excited to see all the sites. Before we left I stopped and bought snacks and drinks and then I took her photo in front of the entrance sign to commemorate her first trip. I felt like a dad taking his kids to a ball game for the first time, it was a special day for her.
This summer I have found out that if there is one thing foreign girls know how to do, it's how to strike a pose for a picture. Natalia was a picture-taking maniac. She didn't necessarily take a lot of photos of the landscape, but rather had me take a ton of pictures of her posing in front of the landscapes. I felt like a photographer taking senior portraits. One awesome side note for all you movie fans: Natalia wore a shirt that is almost identical to one Juno wears in the movie "Juno" (the movie about the pregnant teen). So I felt like I was traveling with Juno all afternoon!
We ended up mostly driving through the geyser basins. We went down Firehole Drive, saw Old Faithful, the paint pots, and several other hot springs. She seemed to have a great time, but I could tell by the end that she was getting tired so it was a good thing she didn't got with us on Tuesday.
We also had to head back because a storm was moving in. I was personally a little nervous because the night before I had a dream that I was struck by lightning. In my dream I was walking across a parking lot when I saw a bright flash, a ripping noise, and then the next thing I knew I was laying on the pavement, unable to move. It was like a movie camera that had been dropped...that's how I remember it. So you can understand why I was a little skittish when Natalia and I made a dash for my car when the storm came in. It was like deja vu: I was walking across a parking lot, just like in my dream and I saw lightning flash out of the corner of my eye just like in my dream. I thought, "Oh crap, I'm going to die here in a parking lot with a pregnant girl who can barely speak English....great."
Fortunately, I made it back to the car safely, Natalia didn't pass out AND she didn't go into labor under my watch....whew.
:) You are a good guy Carson.
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