Our Montana Life

New blog site!

2010-02-12T13:27:00.000-07:00

Hello to all our friends and family. We have moved to a new site infollowing with our current physical move. Please find us here (click word)

http://seattlepeters.blogspot.com/

A visit from Tonya's sister

2010-02-12T11:00:00.007-07:00

In October right before we moved to Seattle, my sister came to visit. We had a great time hanging out and exploring. Here's a few pictures of our time together.

Hiking Blodget Canyon overlook It was a little overcast and rainy that day but we had fun anyway! (I think my poor Texan sister was freezing though!!)Awwwwww.

We did have one good day of great weather so I took her to National Bison Range, hoping to see Bison but also knowing the views would be spectacular. Unfortunately this is all we saw of the bison!We had some fun! Opps, bad timing......There we go! (Toyota! they need a little pick me up right now)Did I mention the views we spectacular?We were silly.. "No, Tara, you don't eat meat!"Did I mention the views were spectacular?We also drove up to Flathead lake and walked around on some of the docks. Did I mention the views were spectacualr??When we got home that evening we hiked the M trail above UM. We let Erik go with us this time!Here's a shot of the M Trail as seen from down below. It was so fun to have her visit! I miss her already!

A bit of randomness!

2010-01-25T12:32:00.006-07:00

Today I'm just showing some ramdom pictures from our last couple months in Missoula. In Sept Erik took me fly fishing on the Blackfoot River. It was a wonderful day and fun fishing even though we didn't catch anything!Here's a gorgeous sunrise I saw one morning in early Oct. In Oct. we did the Carlton Ridge hike that I've done several times before. Here I am part way up looking out over Lolo Creek and Hwy 12.Here's Erik. Way in the background in actually Missoula but it doesn't show well in this picture at all. Pretty snow and trees!At Carlton Ridge. Lolo Peak in bckground. Remember I climbed that in 2008?Two of Erik's fishing buddies. This was on Nov 25th. the day before Thanksgiving and 5 days before we left Missoula.
Watch for my sister Tara's visit in Oct.

Our last day in the tetons

2010-01-24T16:12:00.005-07:00

Here are some of the pictures from our last morning in the Tetons. These first two shots were taken from Colter Bay, near our campsite. Wonderful morning! These next two were from Jackson Lake Dam. Which one do you like better?This one was taken from Willow Flats. One the way home we decided to drive though Yellowstone. We had never been in the southern part of Yellowstone. Each area of Yellowstone is so different. We had to stop at Old Faithful and have our lunch there. While we were waiting a huge buffalo decided to run through the parking lot! Boy, did that set the rangers to scrambling and yelling for people to get out of the way. The old boy was just passing through, no trouble at all!Do you see me?Then Old Failthful faithfully spouted off it's excitement.

Then we drove home! Thanks for stopping by!

Where have we been????

2010-01-20T10:39:00.009-07:00

Well, most of you probably know that this fall was pretty busy for us as we decided to move yet again. We are now located in Seattle WA and Erik got a good job working for King County there. Me? Well, I'm at home right now, getting us unpacked and settled in. I'll be looking for a job soon enough! We'd like to wrap up this blog since we really aren't the Montana Peters anymore and start a new blog. But I don't want to forget to share about our last few months in Missoula! I think Erik left off on our trip in the Grand Tetons in Wyoming. So, I'll continue there and hopefully over the next week or so bring this blog back into the present and get you all updated!

We left off with day 2 of our trip and the Cascade Canyon trail hike. Now we're onto Day 3 and the Garnet Canyon hike. You can check out a map if your interested here. Click on maps and look in the area near Jenny Lake.

This morning we got up early because our goal was to climb Middle Teton and we knew it would be a long day. So we were up and out of the campground by 6am. On the way we saw a ton of elk, our first sightings of elk in the wild. We even heard the males bugle it was pretty awesome. No picture because the camera happened to be out of batteries at the time! Here's Erik eating his breakfast at the trailhead.

So off we went into the wild blue yonder! I can't remember all the details like the miles or exact time hiked but I know we started around 6:30am and got back to the car around 4:30pm.

It took us about and hour or so to get here. The peak on the left is Nez Pierce and the peak in the center that's a little washed out is Middle Teton.Awwww, So cute and smiley!Tonya on the trail. Middle Teton continues to loom large!Tonya just about the enter the non-trail portion of the trail. We're headed into the south col and over our first small snow field. See the little snow field in this picutre. That's where I was standing in the last picture. It's hard to get perspective, just remember everything is WAY bigger than it appears on screen. Here's a view of the next part of our climb. Ahh, to climb the snowfield or climb the boulders??? Well the ranger recommended ice axes which we don't have, so we went without. Smart, not ro sure but at least we didn't die. Although I thought I was going to at one point during this portion of the climb! We took the left side of the snow field for a while but it was too icy so we "jumped" off (over scary boulder crevices!) and tried the boulders instead but ended up way off the unofficial trail in a loose boulder field. Even Erik got a little nervous, I think. So here I am thanking Jesus that I didn't die yet! Although heaven will be wonderful, I just wasn't ready to go there that day! This was our lunch spot and my get the feeling back in my legs spot. After this it was a steep climb but we found the "trail" again for it was easier going. Here is a picture that Erik took from the saddle of Middle Teton. I didn't make it, I was about 200 ft lower sitting on a rock shedding a few tears cux my legs were too woobly to go on and be safe on the descent. Erik also took this panoramic shot below from the saddle looking west. I'm not sure the name of the lake. Looking back down the way we came from my resting spot. See how far down the valley is?All smiles on the way down. It was getting warm again (it was cold up near the top). Se the people behind me on the snow field to the right? Goofing off!We did enjoy some pretty views!And pretty flowers!Almost down. I love this shot for some reason!Here's a shot of two lakes at the "mouth" of the Canyon. You can see where they were carved by glaciers long ago by the berms built up all round them. The darker line out int he distance is the Jackson river or the tree growing up around it. Down the valley to the right is where Jackson Hole is.

Thus ended our hike for the day. It was an amazing experience. Scary and testing of our courage and strength but I think we both passed! I probably could have made it to the saddle or even the top if we hadn't just put in a 14 miles hike the day before and maybe we'd started out earlier.

Watch soon for our last day in the tetons. Adios!

Grand Teton N.P. & Cascade Canyon hike

2009-09-19T15:42:00.011-07:00

Over Labor Day weekend we visited Grand Teton National Park. The Tetons are not a particularly large range, but they do jut up from the surrounding landscape and make for magnificent views. This was Tonya's first time visiting the Park. I have been through the Park a couple of time and did a backpacking trip into the Teton's with my sister many years ago.

The first full day we had there we decided to hike the Cascade Canyon trail from Jenny Lake to Lake Solitude. It's a little over 14 miles, but the trail is relatively gentle. We read the trail is also the most popular trail in the park. In the photo below, Cascade Canyon is the distant background.

We got a late start since it was Tonya's turn to be a slug getting out of bed (I usually take that role). We decided to take the boat shuttle across Jenny Lake to avoid adding 2 miles each way to our hike. However, the last shuttle of the day left at 6:00 and by the time we started hiking it was almost 11:00. We ended up talking all day whether we were going to be able to catch the return shuttle and how far up the canyon we were going to go, kicking ourselves for not getting an earlier start. The photo below is from the boat shuttle looking up Cascade Canyon.

The first part of the trail climbs ~600 feet relatively quickly past Hidden Falls and Inspiration Point. Then the canyon bottom flattens out as seen with the photo of Tonya.

Lake Solitude is a pretty lake below a ridge. The photo with Tonya at the lake is looking back down the canyon we hiked up. Grand Teton (highest mountain) is in the distance.

We didn't stay long to enjoy the view because we wanted to catch the boat shuttle and it became overcast. Just as we were leaving it started to rain and then it rained hard for about 10 minutes or so and then lightened up. When the rain stopped after 1/2 hour or so the view in the photo below opened up. The tallest mountain is again Grand Teton and the photo is taken looking down the trail.

As I mentioned earlier we were trying to catch the boat shuttle before they stopped running for the day to avoid an extra 2 mile hike. We made the shuttle with time to spare. Once we got to our car and started driving back to our campsite another storm front came through. The last photo shows the Teton Range and the dark clouds over the valley.

Holland Lakes

2009-09-19T14:43:00.014-07:00

Near the end of August we did a day hike up from Holland Lake to Upper Holland Lake and back via the old Holland (fire) Lookout in the Seeley/Swan valley. It is a hike we have talked about doing ever since we came here and now we've done it. It was a pretty hike and we enjoyed the day.

It was supposed to be about 12.5 miles of hiking. But we took a wrong turn near the end of our day and added another ~1.5 miles to our day. We were tired, walking on a path we were somewhat familiar with and our feet ended up taking the wrong fork in the trail.

From Holland Lake on can see the most spectacular portion of the Mission Mountains to the west.

The hike up the canyon began eventfully. We can upon a pack train wreck! Two horses had slipped off the trail on the other side of the canyon and had rolled several hundred feet down to Holland Creek (with their packs). When we came upon them, the horses where standing in the rocky creek with their handlers who where trying to figure out how to get the horses back up to a trail. We felt very bad for the horses and wondered how they had managed the fall without breaking a leg or worse. We don't know how the handlers managed to get the horses out (we assume they did!).

Further along the trail we came upon a small falls where I took a photo of Tonya. Along the hike we also came upon some pretty purple flowers.

Upper Holland Lake is a pleasant lake. Many fish were jumping at bugs along the shoreline so it seemed like it would be a good fishing lake.

We stopped to pick huckleberries along its shoreline and the northern slopes as we hiked up to . We came prepared with 2 Nalgene bottles to store the huckleberries. We spent about 3 hours picking huckleberries. Huckleberries are in the blueberry family. Bears like them and we do too. We came across the best berry patches at the end. We would have been quicker filling up our 2 bottles if we had come across those patches earlier. At the end our hands were stained purple from picking berries.

After filling our bottles we continued hiking and climbed up to a old fire lookout station (since abandoned). From the old lookout it is approximately 4000 ft down to Holland Lake and the trailhead we started from.

Friday Pass & Wind Lakes Hike

2009-08-28T16:23:00.006-07:00

On August 10th we drove into Idaho and camped overnight at HooDoo Lake and did a day hike into the Selway Bitterroot Wilderness. The hike we did was about a 12 mile loop. The first part of the hike crossed up and over Friday Ridge. The ridge from the approach is in background behind Tonya in the photo below.

From the ridge we could look down on the largest of the Wind Lakes chain (see photo below). To the right of the photo is Grave Peak. There is an forest fire lookout on top of the peak. It looked like a tough scramble to get to. The structure is listed on the National Historic Lookout Register and looks kind of cute from the web photos.

From Wind Lakes we headed south down Warm Springs Cr valley before turning east and crossing over Friday Ridge once again. The photo below is from on top the ridge.

The campground and Hoodoo Lake were pretty nice. The "lake" is pretty small, but there is a resident female moose that eats along the shoreline. At night she visited our campsite, we were also visited by mule deer. We took several photos of the moose, but she was really too far away for our camera to capture. The picture below is the best of the lot.

Rattlesnake Wilderness - cont.

2009-08-28T15:01:00.013-07:00

Picking up from the last blog... we spent the 1st night at Carter Lake. Many of the lakes up there were enlarged through earthen dams many years ago. They act to delay runoff and serve along with Rattlesnake Cr as a backup to Missoula's drinking water supply. At Carter Lake, the only flat spot we found to camp on was the top of the dam. I tried fishing at Carter Lake, but it only had very small cutthroat trout. Their mouths were just barely big enough to fit over the hook, but they tried.

The biting flies (specifically the no-see-ums) were out in force along with the mosquitoes. We really haven't had to deal with these bugs (no-see-ums) much in Montana. The extra summer moisture and a cooler year has resulted in a pretty wildflower display and more bugs. We got fairly bit up before we began paying attention to the flies. They leave a bleeding hole in you, but you don't really feel the bite. In addition, we didnt' bring much bug spray (saving on weight) so we had to economize on applying the spray. As a result, we didn't spend as much time outside of our tent once we got to camp as we would have liked. However, the bugs didn't ruin our trip by any means, just added to our story :)

The next two days we packed up and hiked to Twin Lakes and Glacier Lake respectively. They were easy days, with only 2.5 - 3 hours of hiking each day to reach our destinations. On the way to Twin Lake we took a small side trip and climbed to the top of Stuart Peak. From the peak one can see Missoula and the valley floor as you may be able to tell in the photo below.

Glacier Lake is a pretty lake and a large one as lakes go up in the Rattlesnake. Below is a photo looking down on Glacier Lake from our lunch spot on the trail. I thought for sure that the lake would hold fish, but there wasn't a single fish in the lake. An old timer has told me that there were fish in it at one time, so I don't know where they went to.

There were many good spots to camp on Glacier Lake. We chose to camp near the shore since there wasn't any else around (we saw only 3 other people during our 4 days). It was a good spot, except that night a thunder storm rolled through. When the lightening was crackling, we didn't know if our exposed spot was so good after all, but we weren't going to get out in the poring rain to more the tent.

That night, the rain must have loosened the rock on the cliffs/avalanche gullies on the east side of the lake. We heard rock falling during the night and in the morning saw some rock fall actually make it into the lake. A good place for mountain goats or bighorn sheep, but we didn't see any during our trip.

We packed out from Glacier Lake on our last (4th) day. It was an easy hike back to our bikes (approx. 4 miles as a crow flies) and then the 18 miles on our mountain bikes back to our house. What a difference going downhill makes, it took us less than 2 hours to bike home, about 1/2 the time it took to pedal in.

Rattlesnake Wilderness

2009-08-04T15:21:00.015-07:00

Ever since we moved to Missoula we have wanted to hike in the Rattlesnake Wilderness just up the valley from where we live. Well, last weekend we finally went and had good 4 days mountain biking and hiking up and down valleys, over ridge tops and mountains and camping along mountain lakes.

As you may know we live in the Rattlesnake Valley. About 2 miles further up the valley is the Rattlesnake National Rec. Area and even further up the valley is the wilderness area. I (Erik) have mountain biked in the recreation area quite a bit and wanted to access the wilderness area on our mountain bikes for three reasons. One, to pass quickly by lower and less scenic elevations; two, to get up to the high country easier than hiking up and three, just to do something new. I only had to convince Tonya of my infallible plan. :)

She agreed to the trip including the mountain biking pretty easily. Despite not having carried a full pack (25 - 30 lbs) on our backs while mountain biking before, I figured we could do it - assuming we put in some miles on our mountain bikes before hand. Tonya's not the biggest fan of mountain biking so I wanted to make sure she was ready for the effort. So we went on several mountain bike rides to build up our biking legs. As a fail safe (for me), she promised me that she wouldn't have a "melt down" on the biking portion after I expressed concern in early June that we weren't getting enough mountain biking miles in. Both were important, as our first day was a long day.

The picture below are of Tonya at the start of our ride and of me about 1/2 way into our ride up to the wilderness area.

The mountain bike ride was on an old forest road that is now closed to vehicles and involved approximately 18 miles of biking starting our from our house. It took us four hours for steady climbing up a gradual incline following the Rattlesnake Creek until we reached the wilderness boundary. Since you can't bring bikes into a wilderness area, we ditched our bikes in the woods and hiked about two hours to Carter Lake before calling it a day. It was a long and tiring day with about 3000 feet of elevation gain (2000 on the bikes).

Below left is Rattlesnake Creek at our lunch spot (about 1/2 way into our ride) and to the right is me (Erik) swiming in Carter Lake after dropping my pack and kicking off my shoes. The lake water was cool, but not cold, and very refreshing after a long day.

Below is a video of Tonya biking up a portion of the trail.

Ghost Towns

2009-08-01T19:08:00.007-07:00

After our big trip to Glacier we took a couple days a little more easy on my parents. We went to the Missoula Farmers Market, Lolo Pass (those gorgeous camas that bloom every spring were up in full show. see it here from a coupe years ago), Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, Missoula Alliance Church and Mom and I had a little gal time shopping! On Monday June28th I took them to Garnet Ghost town (see above link for the time I took Erik's parents.) and then we went to Phillipsburg (aka P-burg).

On our drive to Garnet we saw TONS of bear grass, a super showy flower

Here we are exploring the old town.

Finally we went and had lunch in P-burg, shopped at the Sweet Shoppe and checked out the Start Sapphire in the Sapphire Gallery.

After that lovely day my parents had to go back home! BooHoo! But, we all had a wonderful time together and have lots of good memories. Don't you want to come and visit? ;-)

More of the Carmean Visit

2009-08-01T18:50:00.004-07:00

Here are a few misc. pictures from Glacier:

Beautiful Vistas:Snow Chute on the Road:

View of part of the road:Dad by McDonald Creek:McDonald Lodge and the Refurbished Tour busses:

We had a great trip to Glacier. The only thing we didn't see was a bear!

TP's Mom and Dad visit!!!

2009-07-31T18:13:00.005-07:00

Yippee! What a fun week for me! Mom and Dad were here the end of June and I tried to show them as much fun and surrounding sights as possible. The first two days they were here we spent in Glacier NP. My parents hadn't been there for 20 yrs and when they were there 20 yrs ago they only were able to drive the Going to Sun Road. So we made the camp with us!!

Here we are ready to go in the am:

Mom and Dad hiking Avalanch Creek hike:

Avalanche Lake:

All of us:

The next day, June 26th, was the first day the Going to the Sun Road was open to Logan Pass due to snow and contruction. Here's some shots of us playing in the snow at the Pass!

A parting video of silly Erik:

.... a few more Glacier pics in the next post. It will be soon I promise!!

Hike up Mt Sentinel

2009-07-31T17:52:00.003-07:00

Hey folks! We're behind on blogging again. No matter how much I beg and plead Erik just "forgets" to do the posting ! So I'm back again. Here's pics from a hike we did in June. We hiked up past the "M" (the hike by the university campus that we've mentioned before) and went all the way to the top of Mt Sentinel (we did this earlier this year also) and then down the backside towards Hellgate Canyon. Here's some of the photos:

The Peters at the top.I-90 going west at the top, you can also see alittle bit of the Clark Fork River and of course downtown Missoula:The streets of Missoula from the top:This is Mt. Jumbo from the top. We live right over there. If you look close at Mt. Jumbo along the sides you'll notice what looks like water or beach lines. That's exactly what it is. A bunch of years ago in the glacier age there was a Lake Missoula that was huge. Read more about it here:.Until next posting!

skipping rocks

2009-06-18T18:57:00.001-07:00

More of our trip to Glacier.

2009-06-18T18:28:00.005-07:00

Do you all ever get sick of seeing pictures of our trips to Glacier?? I hope not because we love to share them. The Going to the Sun road wasn't open yet adn that really gets to the heart of the park. We camped at Hungry Horse Resevoir and Dam. It was FULL of mosquitos but when you grow up in MN they don't bother you all that much. Plus bug spray with 18% Deet helps! Here's some picks from our weekend outing with Ginger.

Look at the kids skipping rocks on Flathead Lake.

Picture of Hungry Horse Dam:

Ginger and Erik in front of dam:

Tonya and Ginger near Avalanche Creek in Glacier NP:

ERik in the evening by the reservoir:

A video of us near one of the falls on McDonald Creek in Glacier NP. The water was running fast and loud! A picture did not do it justice.

Thanks for stopping by today. A few more pics in next post.

A Visitor!

2009-06-05T17:48:00.006-07:00

We had a visitor last weekend! Ginger, Erik's aunt from Arizona, came up for a visit. We had a very good time giving her a tour of some of the best sites in the area.

Her first day we took her to the National Bison Range, which you may remember from here. We had a great day for travelling and sight seeing. Here's a few pics:

Ginger and Erik

Arrowleaf Balsamroot and Mountains

Ginger and Tonya

Buffalo

They just had calving season and this guy was the closest to the road

Yellow headed blackbird:

Pretty view of the mountains:

Stop by later for our trip to Glacier with Ginger!

Views of a cats world

2009-06-01T16:04:00.014-07:00

How are you all doing out there?? We've been doing well. It seems that now that we've been in Montana over 2 years we have less NEW stuff to post for you. We still REALLY love where we are living and we're getting outside all the time we just don't always take the camera anymore.
The cats wanted to say a quick hello and show off and few of the things they have been doing the past few months.

They used each other this winter to stay warm!

Rio helped me make Thank You notes after Christmas!

They both like to play in the yard. Ferocious Kitty!

Geez, can you stop taking pictures of me!

Erik also like to stay warm with the cats on front of the gas fireplace.

Don't worry we have some good photos coming up. Visitors, views of Flathead Lake, Glacier etc. Stop back again in a couple weeks.

Mid Winter update

2009-03-10T12:22:00.008-07:00

Boy, this winter is lingering on and on!! WE were starting to warm up here in Missoula. Spring was on the way and Old Man Winter shook his head and yelled, "No Way!" It's cold with snow flurries the last couple days. I don't think it would be that bad but for the fact that it had really warmed up here for a few days so it lures you into thinking it's going to stay that way! Uggggh! Well, at least we can continue skiing! ;-) We've been to visit to friends and ski with them in Feb. One is west in Sandpoint, ID and on is east in Bozeman, MT. We had great times of skiing and fellowship with our friends. Heres a few pics:

This is Picnic Point on the x-ctry ski trails at Schweitzer near Sandpoint, ID.

Here we are at Bohart Ranch x-ctry ski trails, Bridger Bowl downhill ski area is in the background. Gorgeous, huh? This is outside Bozeman, MT.

Laughing about something on the ski trails.

Erik pulled our friend' Jennifer's daughter, Eva in the sled. He did great, only dumped her once, HA! Jenifer is in the rear of the picture. We had turned Eva around so that she could talk to her mom.
Well, That's all for now! Until next time!

Recent photos, Christmas and more

2009-01-25T15:54:00.008-07:00

Hello all!
Well, we've been having a good winter so far. We were able to make it "home for the holidays" back to good ol' MN and we saw lotsof our friends and family while we were there. We have finally begun to x-ctry ski out here. We have yet to make it downhill skiing. Not that it's far away, cuz it's not. But it's soooooo much cheaper to x-ctry ski! Like free in many areas out here! Anyhoo we're still just waiting to hear that we've been picked for an adoption. God is good while we're waiting! Your prayers are welcome though! Here's a few pics from the last couple months:
Me, Mom and Tara:

Me and Erik:

Here we are digging out our car at the Spokane Airport: (It was a couple feet of snow!):

Now it's 2009 and here's me skiing:

Erik and me:

Well, Happy 2009! Drop us a line and tell us how you're doing!

Meowwy Christmas!

2008-12-24T17:42:00.007-07:00

Hi It's Rio and Sophie and we wanted to wish everyone a Meowwy Christmas and Happy New Year. Our humans will be with friends and family in MN from the 26th thru Jan 5th. They said to tell you that they will see a lot of you there. We can't wait to have the house to ourselves for 10 days! MEOWWWW!

Glacier N.P. Continued

2008-11-03T15:25:00.020-07:00

The Two Medicine area was a new area to visit for the both of us. We camped at Two Medicine Lake for two nights. While there we did a 17 mile day hike that included 2,500 ft of climbing the Continental Divide, around Flinsch Pk, Mt. Morgan and Rising Wolf Mtn before ending back at Two Medicine Lake. This was our epic hike for the weekend and to encourage ourselves to do the entire loop we told ourselves that is may be our last epic hike for awhile since we may have adopted a little baby by next summer.

The first photo is Erik stretching and reading the topo map before our hike. We started hiking at 9:00 AM. Then a photo of the start of our hike looking from the east end of Pray lake (more like a large pond) west to Medicine Lake and the Contential Divide in the distance. Dawson Pass (6.7 miles into our hike) is to the right of the furthest mountain and can't be seen.

The next two photos are on the hike up to Dawson Pass; Tonya with the western half of Two Medicine Lake in the background and then further up the trail pointing to Dawson Pass.

On the way up to Dawson Pass we stopped to wait for a mama moose to eat her way off the trail and passed by some big horn sheep (ewes) also eating. The moose was pretty docile. Other hikers told us there were some very large bulls in the area, but we didn't see them and wouldn't have gotten as close if we had.

We made it to Dawson Pass and the top of the Contential Divide in pretty good shape. We ate lunch at the pass with two other hikers we met on the trail, enjoying the view down into Nyack Creek valley on the other side of the Divide (photo below on lt). After our hike we walked north, along and below the Divide which was fairly steep and exposed (photo below on rt). We had perfect weather for the hike. This part of the hike wouldn't have been a good place to be during a storm of any kind.

About 8.5 miles into our hike we came to a point where we could see down into the valley (Dry Fork) we would eventually take to hike back down to our campsite. In the photo below we are standing on the Contential Divide, looking east, down to Oldman Lake and the Dry Fork Valley. We didn't desend here, but still needed to walk around Mt. Morgan (off the photo to the left) and then hike down the ridge you can see to the left above the lake, the ridge is actually a pass (Pitamakan Pass).

We were both still feeling good at this point, not to tired and we knew we were going to finish the day in good shape. The photo of Tonya was taken from the same viewpoint, but looking to our immediate right an Flinsch Peak.

Well when we finally made is around to Pitamakan Pass to drop down to Oldman Lake we had a good view of where we had been when we took the photos above (the saddle at the base of Flinsch Peak). The trail down was steep, but not as steep as the photos may appear to show it.

Once we got down to the bottom near Oldman Lake all we had left to do was hike the ~ 7 miles to our campsite. We didn't take the short detour to see the lake, although it looked pretty, because we were getting tired and didn't want to add any more distance to our hike that day. The hike out was pretty, particularly the upper part of the valley. The photo to the left is looking up the valley after a little less than 30 minues down the valley and the phot to the right is looking down the valley after maybe an hour down the valley.

Finally we made it back to our campsite. The last two miles seemed to take a lot longer to walk than the first two miles of our hike. It didn't feel like we were walking that much slower, but either we were slower of the mileage markers are off. The last photo is Tonya resting at our campsite.

Glacier National Park

2008-10-28T11:01:00.014-07:00

Glacier is our favorite national park to visit. The second week of September we spent a 3-day weekend up in Glacier getting in what is probably our last epic hikes in of the year. The first day we puttered on up and stopped for a short hike to Hidden Lake overlook at the top of Logan Pass. Both times that we have gone on this hike we have seen bighorn sheep rams relatively close and mountain goats up close and personal.

Here I am at the overlook to Hidden Lake with a couple of the fluffy goats behind me and then a picture of Hidden Lake from the overlook.

The next day we hiked to Iceberg Lake from Many Glacier campground (~ 10 miles round trip). On the hike up Tonya got to see her first grizzly and cub eating berries above us on a mountain slope. They were pretty close to us (~ 100 m) and mama griz knew were we were, but she wasn't concerned and we weren't either with the amount of people using the trail. There was a lot of bear poop on the trail. You wouldn't want to go hiking in the dark by yourself.

The picture of Tonya is near the beginning of the hike and the bears were feeding on the slope to the right. The bushes were turning their fall colors making the hike even more prettier.

Iceberg Lake is a pretty little lake and much to our surprise there were still blocks of ice floating on the lake in September. It's located in a cirque (bowl) and receives little direct sun. Consequently, the snow remnent is able to stick around and the water is coooold. All of the glaciers in the Park are small/tiny, more like snow fields, and shrinking rapidly.

Jasper National Park

2008-10-28T10:22:00.006-07:00

On another day in Jasper we hiked Bald Hills and saw Maligne Lake and the Elizabeth Range on the other side of Maligne Lake from Bald Hills. The Bald Hill hike was an easy hike (1,500 ft elev. gain, 12 km total distance), that provided an excellent view of Maligne Lake despite the cloud cover.

Here we are on top of Bald Hill and Tonya beginning our decent from Bald Hill. It was a bit windy and chilly on the windswept top. It never did rain on us, but we could rain showers falling elsewhere in the valley.

After our hike we decided to warm up at Miette Hot Springs. We (particularly me - Erik) aren't really hot spring soakers but it was a good use of our time that afternoon. On the way we was a large bull elk feeding right along the highway. The rack on the animal was huge. There were several cars stopped to take its picture. On mother had here little kids (all less than 5 years old) lined up within 10 feet of the elk taking a picture. If that elk had gotten spooked, the mom might have had a rack of munchkins - very unsafe. We don't have pictures of the elk as we didn't stop, but we do have a picture of female bighorn sheep in the parking lot of the hot springs looking for a handout.

Banff/Jasper continued!

2008-10-07T14:54:00.008-07:00

Sorry it's been a while again since I've posted. I've been working hard. Both at home and work. I have some top secret stuff that I'm working on at home, but the fun part I can share is that Erik and I closer and closer to being on the "ready and waiting" adoption list. We've recently gone through our homestudy and now will be awaiting some final paperwork items. While we've been waiting we've also been doing lots of good research on strollers and car seats! Fun stuff I'll tell you. I'm appreciative of the wide range of the internet for research purposes. It sure does get you to lots of info, almost too much!
So backing up to August and our Banff and Jasper trip. We had to make some changes to our very loose itinary due to weather. The third day we woke up and did an early hike on one of the most popular trails in the parks: Johnston Canyon. It's an easy short hike up a steep walled canyon with good views of some waterfalls. We went all the way up to some ink pots about 5 miles or so from the trailhead. Here's just a couple pics from the hike.
Here's me in front of Lower Falls:
Here's Upper Falls:

Here we are in the valley by the ink pots: (no pictures of the ink pots, they didn't turn out so good. )
Here's a view of the walkway clinging to the canyon wall. Not scary because it wasn't that high up. Then we headed up to Lake Louise area and it rained and rained. Luckily they have kitchen shelters at the campsites becuase we hung out there all evening with a family from Winnepeg and one from Germany. The next morning it was still raining. So I couldn't do the one thing I wanted to do besides hike, and that was canoe on Morraine Lake. Here I am enjoying the pouring rain!
So we asked at the visitors center about the weather and they said it was a good day to drive north and go on the Icefields Parkway. Check out the website for specific info and great pictures. Our pics are good BUT it was a partly sunny/partly cloudy day so it made for lots of lighting issues. Here's some of the better pictures from our drive up. We drove most of the day and stopped when we wanted to. All of these pictures are taken from the side of the road literally, you didn't have to go on a hike to see glaciers, lakes and huge peaks!
Tonya in frint of Waterfowl Lake, not sure the names of all the peaks in the background.

We did stop to hike, of course. WE hiked up Wilcox Ridge to have a birds eye view of Athabasca Glacier which is part of the Columbia Icefield. It's huge and amazing!!

Here's Erik on the ridge when we popped out of the trees. You can see the small glacier (forgetting the name) and then down in the valley that's the road we were traveling on!

Here's another view where you could see both glaciers and part of the visitor center in the lower right hand corner. Here we are with Athabasca Glacier over Erik's shoulder. Great view!After we hiked the ridge we hiked the trail right up to the edge of the glacier. But it was a COLD wind near the glacier!!So that's just a few of the pictures. Hope you enjoyed them! More later.......

BANFF!!!!

2008-09-16T16:52:00.011-07:00

Wow! If you've never been to Banff or Jasper National Parks in Canada you must put them on your list of places to see. They are friendly even for the car traveling people, you can see LOTS without leaving your car or the parking lot.

In August we were able to take a wonderful trip to these two great parks. We left on Sat the 23rd and came home on the 29th. Originally we had planned to stay until the 31st but the weather wasn't the greatest so we came home a couple days early and went to our friends cabin. It only took us about 7 hrs to drive to the park entrance. Not too far at all! Once there we camped the whole time, hiked and drove to see the sights.

We entered the parks through Kootenay NP. Here's one of the first views we saw. A shot of the Kootenay River and and the beautiful backdrop of mountains.

The first day we just set up camp, planned the following day and checked out downtown Banff. Nothing too exciting. The next day we hiked in a wondeful area called Sunshine Meadows. In the winter it's a ski area so we had to pay for a shuttle to bring us up there. Then we got to hike all over at about 7700 ft elevation. We were there most of the day. Here's me at the begining of the trip where the trail splits. We ended up taking both paths at some point in the day.

Erik on the hiking trail:

A view of Rock Isle Lake:

Rock Isle Lake up close and personal:

A panoramic of one of the stunning views we saw that day:

And those are just a few of the great pictures we got! That was a wonderful day. We saw lots of great peaks, valleys and lakes. And if you're wondering... "Doesn't it get old?" NO! it always looks amazing and new! That's why we take so many pictures.
Later we went to Banff Springs Hotel. No great pictures there. And then driving back to our campground we stopped at a bridge to check out an osprey nest on top. Fun to watch them est some fish, even though we couldn't see that well. Right after I took this shot and turned to walk back to the car this guy flew off the nest!

Here's a shot of Castle Mountain and Bow River right near our campsite. Gorgeous isn't it!

Awww, aren't they cute?
More later..... that's all I can write for now!

Visitor and Tonya climbs her first peak!

2008-09-15T17:17:00.007-07:00

Well, wonderful August continued as Erik's Aunt Ulla from Germany stopped by for a weekend visit Aug 8-11. We were able to do a few fun things with her. Erik took her to see a ghost town nearby while I worked on Sat. and on Monday we did a big driving tour to Philipsburg and Skalkaho Pass. We had a geat day. Here's a few of the pics from that day.

Erik and Ulla at one of the overlooks:

Tonya and Ulla by Skalkaho Falls:

Erik and Ulla by the falls:

Then the following weekend on August 16th we did a backpacking trip with our friends up to Carlton Lake. Then those of us so inclined climbed to the top of Lolo Peak. Unfortunately, Erik's knee was bothering him too much so he opted not to go. But I (Tonya) was able to make it all the way to the top! Yippee! My first peak! It's not like Colorado with all the 14ners and what not but it was a good gain in elevation and something difficult to accomplish. Here's a link to the stats: click here. Basically we gained 3300 ft on the hike, most of that happening in the last push to the top. It was great to do it with our friends and we had a great time camping with them, at least until the mosquites came out in droves!! (Worse than MN!!)

Here are some of the pics from that weekend:

Our crew starting out:

Here we are part way up. Carlton Lake is behind us, we camped there overnight:

Here I am at the top! The next day, there the peak is behind my head:

And in case you're wondering. I do wear the same clothes two days in a row. Less weight to carry on my back!

Stay Tuned. Coming up...Banff and Jasper NP plus Glacier NP!!

August, beautiful August

2008-08-15T11:53:00.013-07:00

So last year at this time we were cursing the heat and the fires out here. Remember this post? All we had was 100 degree heat and smoke from July into the end of Aug. We escaped to the mountains as much as we could but even that didn't always help. Well, this summer we have been enjoying 70's and 80's most of the summer. It's been getting down into the 50-60's at night so we sleep with all the windows wide open. It's been great. The beginning of August we went to Upper Northwest Montana near Troy and Libby and did some camping, hiking and fishing. It was gorgeous up there. Nice lush forests, big cedars, lots of lakes. Almost like MN!! One of our first stops was the Ross creek Cedar Grove where they have cedars over 500 years old. Here I am finally something is taller than me!

And here we are by one fallen down. It was a real gorgeous hike.

Here is Yaak Falls:

Here's Erik fishing by Kilbrennan Lake where we camped:

The next day we did a hike close to the Canada border and found this pretty waterfall:

Well we headed home on a Sunday. I worked Mon, Tues and Wed and then we headed out to the Mission Mountains. I'e mentioned them several times in this post, this post and this post. So I guess we like the Mission Mountains! This time we hiked one day up and one day back to Heart Lake near Condon, MT. It was a really nice hike. Here we are at the trailhead:

We stopped at Glacier Lake on the way up.

We got there way too early, there wasn't much to do but wait until the sun started to go down so we could fish. So we sat by the water and I took pics of Erik...

flowers...and my foot!Later we finally got to fish, no luck again!

Here's a view of the lake before we left in the morning:

On the way out we picked two nalgene bottles full of huckleberries, about $40 worth if you got them at the Farmer's Market in town. And boy are those huckleberry shakes good after a long hike! Up next: our international guest!

July was nice!

2008-08-15T09:42:00.010-07:00

So it's getting to be monthly updates. Sorry about that! It's just hard to sit down at the computer after a long day at work. I keep trying to get Erik to do the posting since he's home all day now, but I think I'd better just let him try to cook meals and keep the house picked up right now.
Well you all mostly know that Erik got let go from his job a couple months ago. So while we're job searching we've also been working hard to see as many things/places as we can in can we do have to move again. So every day I have off we are out and about in Montana somewhere. We've taken some pictures but sometimes we forget. Here's some of the adventures we've had recently.
Backing up to the last weekend in June. Erik's parents came for a visit. He picked them up on the Amtrak train in Whitefish (a reasonable option if you'd like to come and visit us, hint hint!) Then they decided to camp in Glacier for three nights before they had to get Karen back on the train to Seattle. Karl came to Missoula with Erik for a few days before he took the bus home. (I was working most of the time). Erik hardly took any pictures in Glacier but he did take some. Glacier had an excellenct snow year and the Going to the Sun Road was not fully open yet. Also there was snow on almost all the mountains. Erik took a bike ride on the Going to Sun Road and he got up pretty far. Here's a pic that Erik took at the top of his ride.

They also drove the car up as far as they could which was just past the Weeping Wall. Here is Bird Woman Falls: Mt Ober (l) and Cannon (r) with Bird Woman Falls in the middle:

The Weeping Wall:And a stitched together photo (sorry we dont have a high pixel camera and this is the biggest I could show this without it being blurry):

Here's a fun picture of us in fornt of our Pink Palace. We had to take this for our adoption file.

4th of July weekend we stayed at our friends cabin on a Placid Lake. We had a good time watching fireworks, playing with their 5 kids (yes, 5), relaxing and hiking. Here we are in the pontoon one night:

Here's sunset on the lake:This is Morrell Falls that we hiked to: (Remember when I hiked there last year?)

We didn't do much camping in July, just some day hikes and I must not have taken any picutres. We were in MN for a visit at the end of the month. We got to see lots of friends and our families. It was great but too short. On to August.......

Bass Creek Backpacking

2008-07-01T15:17:00.009-07:00

Hey there everyone,

We finally got to enjoy a bit of backpacking on a warm June day! W went to Bass Creek located in the Bitterroot Valley. It was a gorgeous hike in a forested valley. We climbed almost 2,000 feet total. We hiked in 9 miles or 5 hours to Bass Lake. See the pics.

Pretty flowers carpeting the ground. Ok, now there's snow and we start wondering if we'll be camping in snow.

We've made it! You can really tell but the wind was blowing so hard it was hard to stand up.

We found a tent site that was relativly sheltered.

After a little nap we climbed up a ridge and had these wonderful views:

Here's some shots the next morning before we headed back down. Did you notice the ice still on the lake?Breakfast in the morning:
A view back up in the morning. It took us about 3 1/2 hrs to hike back out. It was a great trip!

June Fun

2008-06-27T15:22:00.008-07:00

So we've been having a little outdoor fun in June and it about time to share some photos!

On Father's Day we decided to take a drive in the afternoon and ended up here:

We saw some of these:

And we enjoyed some panoramic views of the Mission Mountains:

The little town of St. Ignatious:We also did a day hike with my friend Jennifer on Kootenai Creek. Gorgeous hike along the creek most of the way.

I almost stepped on this snake! (luckily it's not poisonous)

Pretty wildflowers along the trail.

Our next hike was to the top of Mt. Jumbo in search of bitterroots. (click the word to go to dictionary) It is our state flower.

Here's me at the top of Mt Jumbo and Missoula is in background.

Here are some shots of the bitterroots, pretty, huh?

Well that's enough for one post. Stop by again soon, I'll be posting more including our first backpacking trip of the year.

By the way, if you've gotten the emails and know our situation, you should come and visit soon since we may not be heer that much longer! ;-)

MTN bike ride

2008-06-09T18:09:00.006-07:00

Hey all look what we did the other day. This is a short 20-30 min ride from our front doorstep! I'm still getting used to the mountain bike. Luckily there is a nice wide path that we can take way back into the wilderness area. Erik's idea is that one weekend this summer we will load our backpacks, ride the bikes up to the wilderness area and then set off on a 2-3 day backpacking trip. Sounds like fun!

We've also been hiking and running around town, no pics. It's still cold and rainy alot here so we haven't ventured out to do any camping yet, maybe this coming weekend.

What else are we up to?

2008-05-02T19:29:00.005-07:00

We went to Erik's works annual Retreat at Fairmont Hot Springs. See last year's post. It was ok this year. We left early but on the way home we did a scenic drive here: winter wonderland!

Isn't it pretty?:

Well at least it is for those of us who love the beauty of snow covered mountains! ;-)

What else do we do in our spare time you ask? Collect and work on bikes! At least Erik does. ;-) Here we are readying the bikes for another spring/summer/fall of commuting and hiting the longs and uphill rides. Erik bought himself parts for a new mountain bikes since he found out the one he's been riding was too small for him. SO I get that one and he gets a new one. Here we are putting a carrying rack on the back of my "new" bike. See now I can run errands anytime! ;-)

Mind you, I did do alot of the work I just had to ask for a "little" help from Erik, really! Then I snapped his pic! A great shot of the top of his head! LOL!The finished product! Let's go to the grocery store, after I find those bungee cords!Rio's got the bird's eye view. Opps now you can see our boxes piles to the ceiling in the garage! Can you tell our place in MT is less than half the square footage of the place in MN? I'm thinking of a garage sale this summer....One more pic, I'll probably regret putting on the web. I got new glasses and my sis in TX wanted a pic of them. So I snapped one. Now I hadn't showered or even gotten out the pj's yet. But here's a peek at the new glasses. Do you like them? Mom helped pick them out when she was here visiting.

Spring is here

2008-05-02T18:57:00.008-07:00

So late time I left you Mom was coming for a visit. We had a wonderful visit. I had the four days off that she was here and we got to spend lots of good quality time together. We had lunch, we "antiqued" and both found some cool stuff, we went on a scenic drive on a day that it wasn't quite clear enough to see the "scenic part"! (oh well) and we had dinner ever night with Erik. So I didn't take many pictures because Mom took lots. I had her send them to me but I'm having just a little trouble opening them (don't worry Mom I'll figure it out.) So I'll show you those pictures later.

Other things we've done this spring is we started hiking again! This post shows that start of our hikes last year. I love it, mostly because I love all the pretty flowers in the Spring. Our spring has been much like the Midwest and been unseasonably cool. Today is our first day of 60's in a row. We hit 60 and 70 before but it was always for one day then it's be back in the 40's. Anyway, back to hiking. There is still a lot of snowpack in the mountains so we stuck around town and hit some of the more popular places that have had good snow melt. "In town" we get much less snow than at elevation and it melts quicker and it's much drier.

We went to Blue Mountain a few weeks ago. You'll remember our hike there from this post

Here we are in the parking lot, very excited because it was a 70 degree day!

Here's one of the views on the hike: The pic just doesn't capture the mountains very well!

See we hiked through a little snow! Hey, what's that in Erik's hand?! No look at the hand in the back , the one he's trying to hide.....

Hey, here's that cute couple who keeps popping up on the blog all the time. And aren't they also wearing some of the same clothes they always wear. (Yep, you caught us again in our hiking clothes and my red MN Wild hat!) In the background is a little of Missoula and the surrounding mountains.

Then a week after that we went on a hike in the Rattlesnake. That's really close to where we live. It's a great place to hike and Erik LOVES to mountain bike there. It's a bit too challenging for me to bike.

Here I am. The area behind me used to be an old ranch. You could still see bits of the foundation in some areas. Now it houses a HUGE colony of prairie dogs, you could see them running and squeeking their allert signals. Sorry they were too quick for me to get a pic of.

Erik's always in front of me.....

It was an overcast day. It even sprinkled some snow on us. Here's the best "vista" shot I could get.Well that's one update. More too come!

1st visit

2008-03-31T14:26:00.001-07:00

My Mom's coming today! We're picking her up tonight in Whitefish at the train depot! I'm so excited. I'll have some pics and stories to share later this week!
Yippee!

One Year!? Really?

2008-03-19T16:15:00.003-07:00

Has it really been one year already? Yep, we've officially been out in Montana for one year. Sometimes it seems longer, sometimes it seems shorter. If you want a reminder check it out here.
Some things we like about living in Missoula, MT
1. Really close to the outdoors! If you have any questions baout that just click on any of the catergories labeled: skiing, hiking, camping etc and you'll understand. :-)
2. Small city , but big enough. Everything we need here: thai food, REI, library, University, etc. Only thing Erik missed is Menards but since we don't own our home yet he doesn't miss it too much.
3. Our church. We found a good one and we're getting to know some people there so it's good.
4. New friends. We've got a few. (see things we miss below)
5. Good public transportation. We are right on the bus line and both of us can bus to work almost every day (I can't on the weekends I work) We can also both bike to work when the weather is cooperating.

Some things we miss about Minnesota
1. Our Friends and Family!!!! 'nuf said.
2. Don't really miss the humidity but we do miss rain and lakes. There's not much of either of those out here. All the lakes you see in the blog are because we seek them out, sort of like those water finding sticks.
3. Friends.
4. The crazy commute to work every day.....NOT!!
5. Our old church, North Heights was a really good church and we miss some of the great resources it had.
6. Family.

Well that's about it. We did go skiing last weekend at Discovery Ski area. It was really fun. I tried the whole downhill thing again and did ok. We forgot the camera again, but I'm not sure we would have taken it out skiing with us anyway but we could have at least taken a shot by the lodge or something.
So until next time. Look for more pics and stories when hiking season starts up again in April.

More skiing but not much else!

2008-03-03T10:24:00.003-07:00

So, I'm sorry!!! I totally didn't realize that I haven't posted for soooo loooong. Oops! It's mostly because there's not much exciting going on around here. We did take another trip to Sandpoint Idaho. We were there last summer and met some really nice people, Mark and Lorrie. Check it out here. So we got in touch with them and were able to ski all day on Feb 16th with them. We had a really good time and even went out to dinner with them that night. It's so nice to meet such great people and new friends! Here's the only picture we took of us skiing. We're at an overlook that if it wasn't so cloudy you could have seen down to the lake (you can just see a tiny bit of it on the right side) and all the surrounding mountains. (see the pics from last summer and you'll get and idea)

Oh, here's a picture of Erik in the parking lot next to the wall of snow! They have gotten record amounts of snow this year. Over 95 inches in Sandpoint and over 120 inches in Coure de' Alane!And one last funny picture, this is Erik in his cool headband. He got it at the Birkebiener in like 1989 of something like that. He thinks it looks cool still, I say totally 80's! I must find it and get rid of it! I'll have to buy him a new one!This last weekend I hung out with some girlfriends and played Buncho for the first time. PRetty fun and easy game to play. I feel a little older now, I've always thought of Bunco as the game your parents play! Well, I'm not a parent but hopefully I'm on the way! Saturday we skiied in Seely Lake about 1 hour drive northeast of Missoula. It was pretty warm and the snow was really slow but it was pretty fun. I had one melt down, cuz I'm not very good and it's really frustrating sometimes to always be catching up and I can't balance and I'm just not good at anything...... Oh,, there I go again! Erik was really encouraging and reminded me that he's been skiing for 20 years (man, he's old! ;-)) and that he has really bad technique for about 10 years. He told me I just needed to be patient and work on it, that it would come eventually. So I went out again and felt a little better about how bad I ski! ;-)

We don't do much else but read books, watch movies, I knit and make crafty stuff and clean the house but you don't want to hear about that! So when hiking season hits I'm sure these posts will become more interesting again!

Oh, we do have some small news to share. I am taking a day position on my same unit, Medical/Oncology (cancer). It's four 8-hr days a week, every other weekend and they still cover my heath insurance 100%. I'm excited about it, a little nervous too but it will be much better for the home life. I'm just exhausted almost all the time and half the week Erik and I don't even get to see each other. The new postition starts in April.

If you have time to drop us a line of give us a call we'd appreciate it!

A ski, a bruise, but lots of fun!

2008-02-06T09:58:00.000-07:00

So I mentioned in the last post that we were going down hill skiing with Erik's work. I have only skiied once in my life in MN, on ice when it was -14 windchil with a 30 min. lesson. So needless to say, didn't much like it and didn't really get the hang of it at all. If we had stayed in MN I would have been very content to never downhill ski again, but since we moved out here I thought I could maybe give it a try again. Now at first I wasn't going to even with Erik encouraging me, but when I heard three other adults were going to take a lesson and I am friends with one of them, that changed my mind. I figured I could take the lesson and then sit in the lodge and knit the rest of the afternoon! The bummer of the whole day was I forgot the camera at home so I don't have any pictures to share with you!! Sorry! Here's a link to the website where we skiied: http://www.silvermt.com/
Erik had a really good time getting his ski legs back, he was out all day with only a short break for lunch. I'm glad he got to down hill again! My lesson was great! It was an hour and a half with the instructor helping us the whole time. I mostly got the hang of it, not that I can do it perfectly yet but I can at least do it. I only fell once, of course I was standing still and fell over, ugh, embarrassing! Oh, and I had a litle trouble with the chairlifts! I did fine the first couple times and then everything went downhill from there. One time I was waiting for the chair lift to push me away, like they said it would but silly me, I forgot to stand up! So all the sudden my skis are lifting back off the ground and I immediately fling my self off and got smacked by the chairlift in the rear! The poor lift operator stopped the lift immediately and was standing over me before I even lifted up my head with the big scared eyes. I just said, "I'm so sorry, I'm ok and it's my first day!" So I was a little shaken and had a HUGE bruise but OK and I went on to ski again. (I'd show a picture cuz, it's really cool and really black/blue/purple, but it's not in the prettiest place!)
Overall, it was an excellent day and I only knitted for about 30 minutes in the lodge. Can't wait to go again and keep working on the muscle memory. Hoping that I'll get it enough the when we have kids I can go and not just be the "lodge mother".
How are you all doing? We'd love to hear from you!

Sunny Wednesday

2008-01-30T16:44:00.000-07:00

It's sunny here after a week of weird weather. Most of it didn't hit Missoula but I-90 just west of us has been closed off and on the last five day due to huge amounts of snowfall. We didn't get but an inch!

This past weekend I was at work and Erik was sick so nothing to report on the outdoors today. I thought I'd just say a quick hello to let you know we're still here and I haven't forgotten about blogging.

Maybe this will give you a smile, if you like cats anyway. So most of you know we had a cat Lagos. He and Rio were good pals. But unfortunately Lagos died an untimely death by the wheel of a car. So Rio was alone for about a year and then we got Sophie. I know I told you about her already but I though I'd show some uncanny photos I have. We weren't going for another Lagos but it looks sort of like we got him back again (as a her).

Here is a picture of Lagos sleeping:

Here is a picture of Sophie sleeping:

This is a picture of Rio and Lagos sleeping on our couch:

And finally this is a pitcure of Rio and Sophie sleeping on the futon:

Yes, they are pretty similar in look and personality. But if you look closely Sohpie is actually what they call tortishell colored. She's got orange patches under the tabby. And look at her nose, half one color half another! How cute ! ;-) So similar but not exactly the same.

This comoing weekend we're going on a downhill skiing trip with Erik's work. I'm scared!! But I'm taking a lesson and I'm gonna try it! I'll let you know how it goes next week. Pray I don't break anything!

X-country skiing in West Yellowstone

2008-01-23T10:05:00.000-07:00

West Yellowstone is the town situated on the West entrance ot the park. Population 912 year round and 1500 during tourist season. Elevation 6670ft. (Missoula is 3200ft, St. Paul 702ft) Average snowfall 150 inches at year! It's real close to Big Sky, probably on of the most popular Montana ski resorts for out-of-staters. http://www.bigskyresort.com/ West Yellowstone also has some of the best cross country skiing trails in the west. http://www.rendezvousskitrails.com/ That is where we wanted to go this past weekend. So we went.

We were able to stop and visit a friend and her newly adopted daughter in Bozeman. They recently moved from MN so it was fun to see both of them. We look forward to seeing them more for hiking and skiing adventures. We made it to W. Yellowstone about 10pm on Friday.

Saturday morning we got ready to ski most the day. The trails had been groomed in the wee hours of the morning but it was snowing a little and the wind was whipping the snow around so there was an inch or so covering all the trails but they were still in good skiing condition. However, because of the altitude,(see above) we were literally sucking wind! We picked the Deja View loop 7.3km and read AFTER we finished that it had the two longest climbs of the whole trail system. UGH! But the down hils were FUN!! ;-) Then we came in and had some lunch in the warming hut. After lunch we went back out and went on the Rendezvous loop (6 km) but I turned at the Grizzly cutoff and Erik did the whole thing. I just knew I needed to save a little for skiing the next day!

Here we are in front of the warming hut:

Erik skiing up a hill, this is the second time while I was catching my breath:Here I am by a trail map/sign:My skis :-), I was waiting for Erik after taking that short cut:Sat nite into Sunday it snowed probably 8-10 inches! We did ski on Sunday also but there was even more snow on the trail and we got a really good workout! Then we drove home. The roads were ok, but we had to be careful in a few spots but we made it just fine.

Well, I have to work the rest of the week so I won't be back on here until sometime next week! You all take care!

Snowshoeing

2008-01-21T18:15:00.000-07:00

I forgot I wanted to share a couple pictures of my first snowshoeing experience. Erik had gone once before with some friends from church. We went again with the same friends on Jan 13th and had a blast! It was really fun and there is no learning curve you just walk. I suppose for a real novice to winter fun you'd need some coaching on what to wear. We just wore our snow pants and layers on the top. We don't have gaiters yet so we wore tall boots and my snowpants were long enough to keep out any snow.

I just have a couple pics of Erik because I was holding the camera (as usual) and the one pic of me has our friend in it and I want to ask before I post her pic. We don't have photo shop to be able to blur her face either. Ahh, one of these days.

So here's a couple of Erik:

Oops! nice fall!The trail, does it get any better than this!We saw tons of huge moose tracks in the snow and even some areas where they had bedded down! After coming back down I thought of a good picture, have me or Erik lay or sit in one of the BIG places where you could tell the moose had laid down and then take a pic. Wish I would have thought of that earlier! Duh!!

Baby it's cold outside!

2008-01-21T17:51:00.000-07:00

OK, so it hasn't been really cold this year at all. The coldest it's been so far in Missoula is about 10 above zero. It's -1 today!!! Yeah, yeah, I know those of you who live in the Midwest are enjoying a lovely COLD snap also! You beat us, but I had to whine a little bit!

One more post of catch ups and then... well, I'm all caught up! Check in tomorrow for pics from this past weekend, x-country skiing in W. Yellowstone.

Today though I will post some pics of the family when we were home for Christmas. I didn't get any pics of the friends or even Erik's family. Oops!

These were all taken on Christmas Day or the 26th when it was snowing! So pretty!

Me and my sister!

Me and Mom, oh and Erik too!

Three Beauties! (Like my Montana sweatshirt? Erik gave it to me for my birthday!)Two snow covered lovebirds:Our pretty barn
Dad snow blowing (can you see him?)Tunnel of winter white trees:Look at the inches!We had a great time at home visiting family, friends, our church and places we like to eat. We miss everyone one!

Fall 2007

2008-01-18T09:20:00.000-07:00

Thanks to all of you who replied to my email and said you missed hearing what was going on out here! It's nice to know that some of you are reading this blog and I'm not just posting for myself! Ha! ;-) Thought I do an update today with some pictures from our fall to "catch up" after my terrible lack of posting!

Here's a picture of me on Carlton ridge (approx 8,000 ft). I hiked up there on day with my friend Jennifer and her boys. It was cold and snowing and I have on all the clothes I had with me! (I think I look a little tubby, but then I have to remind myself that I have a puffy vest on under that fleece!) It was fun and the peak you see in the background is Lolo Peak. We have plans to hike to the top this coming year.

Erik's Sunt Ginger and sister Monika visited us that last week of October. We went to Garnet Ghost Town, Phillipsburg (a sapphire mining town), Lolo Pass and all over Missoula. Here's a few pics:

Monika and Ginger at Garnet Ghost town:

The three of us in the Sapphire Gallery trying to find sapphires in a pile of rocks. We actually found about 7-8 karats, most too small to do anything with but a couple that will be .5-1 karat once proccessed. These were for Ginger who's b-day is in September, the sapphire month!

And here's a good picture of the four of us.

Novemeber we mostly stuck around the house, I don't have any real "advernturous" pictures from that month. The week before Thanksgiving we got pounded with snow! About a foot fell and us skiers were really excited until it ALL melted in one day about two weeks later! Green grass showing and everything! Well, it has come back and melted several times since then! Thank goodness the mountains keep the snow so we've been able to ski. Here's just a couple pictures of that beautiful first snow.
The road to our house:
The trail near our house:
Rattlesnake creek:

So that was our fall in a small nutshell! This weekend we are headed to West Yellowstone to do some cross-country skiing. I guess it's the bset place in the west. We're excited. Hopefully we'll get to see some geyser's in the winter and maybe an animal ot two!

Untill next week.........

Our last two days in Germany.

2008-01-16T15:46:00.000-07:00

So we returned from Rome, happy and tired. We rested the first day back. Besides Erik was sick so he needed the rest! So far we had stayed at Ulla and Artur's house but we did stay at Ingrid and Zepp's house the last two nights. It was fun to do that even though we can not speck the same language. We managed just fine.

Here's is a pic of Artus, Ulla, Erik and I:

I visited Burghausen with Ingrid. It's a quaint German town with Europe's longest castle. This is a pretty pic of the door of a church in town, just had to throw it in!

Here's me:

This is a picture of the castle above the town. It's only a small part of the castle.
Here's a couple views down on the town from the castle. Don't you love the colors of the buildings!
Well, that ends the pictures and stories from our trip to Germany and Rome! So glad you stuck with us that long!! Now I'll get back to updating you on the fun and joys of living in MT!

Rome Day #5 visit to Pompeii!

2008-01-16T15:31:00.000-07:00

Well, on day 5 we hopped on a tour bus and went to Pompeii! It was an easy way to get there but the tour wasn't that great. We would have preferred to explore on our own. But we'll just chalk that up to experience and mental notes for next time!

Pompeii was very interesting. We took pictures but not all of them turned out the greatest so I'll just post a few here.

A main market place:

A temple or government building (I can't quite remember anymore!):

One of the casts of the people they found. Basically when they did the excavations they found cavities they determined were people and poured some type of plaster into the cavities to preserve the shapes.

Here's a ancient Pompeii bar! They served wine out of the pots in the counter.

Here's stone grinder for making flour and in the background the oven.

Here's a view of the roads. The block in the middle was for people to walk across when the roads were flooded with rain and the carts could still drive by with wheels on either side of the block. You could see huge indentations for years of wheels rolling over the stone!And here we are on the bus on the way back to our place in Rome! We had a wonderful meal that night and left for Germany again at 0415 in the am!

Up and Posting FINALLY!

2008-01-16T15:08:00.000-07:00

Well, after a much too long absence I'm (we're) back! With the holidays and the incredible amount of time it took to upload photos with dial up I stopped posting for Nov and Dec. I'm sorry it's been so long and that I haven't even finished the pics of Rome/Germany!

So we're still here, alive and well in Montana. We had great visit in MN for the holidays, of course we couldn't spend enough time with our friends or family but it was good what we time we had.

I hate laving things unfinished of I'm going to finish the Rome/Germany pics. I'll try to do it today and tomorrow so that I can catch up you all up on the rest of our life!

So I think we're on Day #4 of Rome.

We had a smaller agenda this day which worked out great because Erik started to get a cold and we were able to get some extra rest in before Pompeii on day 5.

Here's a pic of us in front of St. Peter's. We just had to go back a second time and see it again. Unfortunately, it was so hot and we forgot they have a strict dress code so Erik couldn't go in because his shorts were too short! Ugh!! So I went in for a while.

We walked down Via Corridori to Castel Sant' Angelo. This is a view back down the street to the Vatican.

The Castle was built as a tomb for Emperor Hadrian in a.d.139, then used through the Middle Ages as a Castle, prison and place of last refuge for the popes under attack. This view of it is from the shore of the Tiber River where we were sitting.

Here's a close up of the Angel on the top:

Here's a view of the Vatican from the top. Do you see the wall in the lower right hand corner that is going back towards the Vatican? That was built in the 1200's for the popes to use as a protected way to get to the Castle when the city was under siege. The Vatican was outside City walls and unprotected.

And that's pretty much all we did that day except get a little more gellato!

Day #3 in Rome

2007-11-27T15:43:00.000-07:00

Well, we were tired from the LONG day of seeing so much stuff! So on 10/3 we went to the National Museum later in the day and then walked around doing some more general sightseeing. We saw more statues and mosaics. Here's on of the more famous statues we saw that day:

This is just one of the pretty mosaics that we saw. This was one the floor of an old Roman house. Pretty Cool! After the Museum we went to the Baths of Diocletian, where the Romans used to bath, exercise and hang out. There is now a beautiful church where the baths used to be, look at the floor!

Later I got this shot of the sun setting over Rome from the top of the Spanish Steps:

Here's a picture of the very crowded Spanish Steps: We walked around a lot that night and enjoyed the nightlife of Rome. Of course boring us we really didn't stay out too late! We did find a Ferrari store and just a simple couple of stuckers cost 12 euros or about $15! Well, One more day in Rome and then we're off to Pompeii!

Ancient Rome part 3

2007-11-21T14:39:00.000-07:00

So now we are headed to Paletine Hill, the place where the huge Imperial Palace was located. It is mostly gone wit only a few features for your to see. One is the Stadium. It is approx. 500 feet long and may have been used as a race track. It held gardens and walking paths also. This was a fountain:

That's really about it for the good pitcures on Palentine Hill. We also stopped by the small museum there and saw mosaic floors, statues and other artifacts excavated from the site. From there we walked to Trajan's Market which was closed by that time. Rome peaked under Trajan's rule in 98-117 AD, the empire stretched from SCotland to the Sahara and from Spain to the Fertile Cresent. He extended the Forum with this area which contained temples, law courts, squares lines with shops and a monumental column. The Market area held shopping space, warehouse and administrative offices. It was very popular.

He also erected this Column that used to have abronze statue of himself on top, now it is St. Peter. Hard to get a good picture of it:

Next we battled the late afternoon traffic of Rome to find the Pantheon. Here's a picture outside.
It was hard to get a good picture of the inside and the light was not the best but here's a picture of the inside of the dome looking straight up.

In this picture you can see all the people and the pretty marble floor.
After visiting the Pantheon we sat down for our daily dose of gellato! Then we walked the streets doing a little shopping and mostly just checking out the people. Tons of people out and about in the evening. We were slowly making our way to the metro stop. We stopped at Trevi Fountain:
There were so many people crowded around it it was hard to get a picture of it from the front. After seeing the fountain we finally went back to our campground, ate dinner, showered and fell into bed. It had been a LONG day. We saw almost all of Anciant Rome in one day!

Ancient Rome Part 2

2007-11-20T10:21:00.000-07:00

In this post we're continuing on the same day we went to the Colosseum. All the sights were in the same general area but it was still a lot of walking. It was also hot that day probably 90 degrees. So after we visited the Colosseum in the morning we headed up Via Sacra to the Roamn Forum. This is the same path where the conquering general would parade their bounty after returning back to Rome. One of the first sights you see is the Arch of Titus, which commemorates the victory over the province of Judaea in A.D. 70. The 50, 000 Jewish slaves they brought home built this arch and the Colosseum. Here's a picture of the Arch as we were walking up the Via Sacra:

Here's a little detail on the arch showing the Jews/Hebrews and a menorah.

I have to back up. This is a picture of me standing on the second floor of the Colosseum and in the background is the Arch of Constantine. Another one of the great arches along the triumphant road the Cesears walked when returning from battle.

Now back to the Roman Forum.... There is so much to show but I'll just try to give the highlights and the best photos. This is a picture of the Basilica of Maxentius. A basilica was a place of government in Ancient Rome. This is only one third of the original building and hopefully having some people in it gives you a sense of the size. A second set of the arches was on the other side of a central hall that was 130 ft high and the size of a football field!

This is one of the many temples built to honor leaders by turning them into gods the people could worship. This is the temple of Antoninus Pius and Faustina built sometime between 138-161AD. The columns are 50 feet tall. The dirt built up to the door before it was excavated in the 1800's.

This is another one of the arches, ever wonder what the Romans saw in all their arches? In the backgrounds of this picture is the Temple of Saturn. (They also had many temples for all their gods.)

This is a view of the Roman Forum from Palentine Hill. (Palace Hill - where all the Cesear had their palaces) You are looking down at the Basilica Maxentius
And here's a cool shot of Erik with The Arch of Titus and the Colosseum in the background.
Well that's it for now. More on Palentine Hill next......

First snow and a new cat!

2007-11-19T10:25:00.000-07:00

Well, it's been so LONG since I've written. I was busy working two weekends in a row and getting some things done around the house. Plus, in all honesty, I was discouraged about how slow our internet connection is and I didn't want to sit online for hours checking email and posting to the blog. We will hopefully have high speed internet after the new year! Yah!

But I have to finish telling you about our trip to Rome and about some fun things here in Missoula. I'll start with the new stuff in Missoula.

We are in the midst of getting our first snow of the year and it's not being very gentle on us! We've gotten about 2-3 inches so far and it's supposed to keep coming down for the next 24 hours! This is what it looked like last night when it first started:

And this is what it looks like this morning! Here's the backyard:

Here's my car half brushed off:

So we're having fun!! This next weekend Erik is headed to Canada with his sister to do some srious skiing. I have to work most of Thanksgiving Weekend so I tod him to go and have some fun.

Now for our really fun news. We adopted another cat. She just as sweet as can be. Here name is Sophie right now but we're not sure if we'll keep it, she doesn't even look when we call her so I think we could change it without too much problems. She and Rio seem to be at least tolerating each other at the moment. Last night both of them were crowding my lap, much to Erik's disappointment. But then I handed Sophie over to him and she currled right up, purring like and engine. So I kept Rio happy where he likes to be! She a tortiseshell colored domestic short hair. She's 1 1/2 years old. We got her at the Humane Society. Her previous owners didn't like that she was an escape artist and they lived on a very busy street so they didn't want her to get killed. They also had those flat handles you push down we have knobs. So hopefully she won't escape too much, but in a month or so we'll probably let her into the backyard. I tried and tried to get an awesome picture to show you cuz she's really pretty especially her eyes but no luck. It's like she knows I have the camera! Here's a couple I did get: (Well, I guess I did get her pretty eyes!)

Here's one that shows her colors:

We really like her and hopefully the two cats will get along!

Well, that's it for now. More on Rome later today or tomorrow!

The Colosseum

2007-11-01T12:08:00.000-07:00

On October 2nd we spend a wonderful day exploring Ancient Rome. It was so interesting, especially for the engineer in Erik. He was amazed at what the Romans built, structures that had nothing close to the technology and durablity duplicated for hundreds of years after Rome fell. We got up pretty early to catch a bus, then the Metro to arrive at the Colosseum right when it opened.

Construction began on the Colosseum in 72AD by Vespasian and was completed by 80 AD by his son Titus. It could hold up to 60,000 people. In about the Middle Ages the Colosseum was abandonded and thus started many years of plunder and destruction to the structure. It was built with many fine materials such as travertine rock and marble. There was an earthquake in 1349 in which a large portion of the walls and the supporting arches on the exterior collapsed. The travertine blocks and marble were used to fix other buildings damages and later to help built St. Peters' Cathedal. In the 18th Centrury, Pope Benedict XIV dedicated it to the Passion of the Christ and had a Cross erected that still stands today, thus saving it from further destruction. Here is what we saw when we got there:

Erik in front of the Colosseum about 8am:Our first look inside!

This picture show some of the spectators seats, the flat looking riser areas above the arches and what they think were latrines used by the senators. Theses are the tall squares in the brick, they found grooves in the bottom that ran into a gutter. This is me in front of the pit area. This was actually covered by a floor, you can see a reconstruction of the floor in the background. This is where they kept the wild animals and gladiators awaiting their turn in the ring. Here is a close up of some of the arches inside:This shows where some of the other "layers" of the Colosseum were peeled away by earthquakes and other desruction.Here's a good shot of the outside later in the afternoon: See part two of ancient Rome tomorrow with The Roman Forum, Palentine Hill, Pantheon and more.

The Vatican

2007-10-31T09:10:00.000-07:00

Our first day in Rome we spent in the Vatican City. We arrived about 9am and got in line to go into St. Peter's. Here's a picture of me in line:

We decided to got to the top of the cuppola or dome. You rode up to the roof on an elevator and the you had toclimb close winding stairs all the way to the top of the dome. Here's a picture of the inside of the dome (sorry it's a little blurry):

There were some 323 steps to the top. And from the top we got great views of Rome, a little hazy but still good views. This picture shows St. Peter's square and Via Della Conciliazione (the street right in front of you). Also you can see the Tiber River at the end of the street. And at the end of the street on the left Castel Santa Angelo. We'll tell you more about the Castle in a later post.

This is a picture of the stairs going back down!

Then we went inside the Cathedral. It was one of the most beautiful cathedrals I have ever been in. It's very hard to capture in photos but here's a couple to try to show you a small piece of it. This is inside looking at the main nave.

Here is the dome again from the bottom floor:

This is out front, a statue of St. Peter just by his elbow on the left side of the picture you can see the place where the Pope stands to make some of his addresses to the people, mostly on special holidays.

Next we went to the Vatican Museum and Sistine Chapel. We spent nearly 3 1/2 hrs all together in there. Erik likes all the details that the audioguides provide and I just go ahead and wait when my feet get too tired. we were not supposed to take pictures of the Sistine Chapel and although everyone else was we realized that the pictures just would not have turned out that well as the lighting was pretty poor. Here's a few pics fromt he museum/grounds:

This one is a Roman Statue of one of the Roman Centurians and I loed how deatiled it was. Amazing what they did with stone:

There were many, many more statues and pictures we took of them but we'll move on... Here's a picture of a mummy they had in the Egyptian section of the museum

I never found out exactly what this golden ball was but this is in the courtyard of the museum and you can see a little bit of St. Peter's in the background. I took the picture from the second floor of the Museum. Well that picture won't load so I'll try it again tomorrow.

That's pretty much it for our first day in Rome. Tomorrow we're on to the Colluseum and Old Rome!

More on our trip and pic from Rome

2007-10-30T17:09:00.000-07:00

Well, I can finally post again. Last week was crazy for me I worked 5 of 6 days Friday thru Wednesday and then Ginger, Erik's Aunt and his Sister Monika came for a visit. We had a wonderful weekend. I'll post some pics of it soon.

So, where did I leave off... oh yes Sept 29th Wetook a laid back day and hung out took naps, went for a walk with Ulla near a pretty lake in the area, and packed for Rome. No real pics of note from that day.

Rome: We arrived about 3:30pm on Sept 30th and got to our place about 5pm. We stayed ina campground that was huge and had bungalows and suites as well as set up tents for you to rent. When we booked our only choice was a tent so that's what we did. They were pretty nice with a hardwood floor and two cots. They even provided a lock so you could lock them up when you left. Here's a pic of our tent:

Here's the line of tents: (there were over 100)

We didn't sleep the best the first night due to the road and people traffic but we got ear plugs and slept like babies the other four nights we were there.

Stop by tomorrow for the Vatican!

Blog Problems

2007-10-17T08:24:00.000-07:00

Well, every time I try to upload a picture I get an error message saying that they know about the problem and are trying to fix it. Sorry!
I'll post again as soon as I can!

Sept 28 and Linderhoff

2007-10-17T07:55:00.000-07:00

The next day Sept 28th it was still rainy and cloudy but we set out in the afternoon to visit another castle. All of the castles we have visited in Germany have been the castles of King Ludwig II or his family. Click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_II_of_Bavaria for some info on the King and his castles. On our trip to Germany in 2005 we visited Neuschwanstien and Howenschwangau. This trip we visited Nymphenburg and Linderhoff as well as Starnberger Lake where they found his body when he died. Here's another good site I found: http://www.german-way.com/ludwig.html

Anyway, we had a great day and we knew that it was snowing in the mountains and we did get a few pictures of the snow. Icking, where Ulla and Arthur live and we spend most of our time, is close to the Alps, deep in Bavaria. So you drive a little bit and you have these gorgeous views!

So we went to visit Linderhoff Castle. It was more of a personal home to King Ludwig and a very small castle. But very ornate and beuatiful. Here's a picture of Ulla and I in front of the pool/fountain out in front of the castle:

Here's a close up of the front of the castle:

We walked the grounds and saw some of the other buildings (none of which I got a very good picture of). The grounds were beautiful and as the weather started clearing up you could see the pretty snow on the mountains. Here's a picture of the lovely scenery.

Here's one of the fountain during it's hourly show:
Check back for more picture and stories of our trip next week!

More on Oktoberfest and Germany UPDATED

2007-10-16T09:44:00.000-07:00

Here's a picture of the draft horses with Lady Bavaria in the background.:

Here's the inside of one of the beer houses we went into: (A little smoky, would you say?)

After Oktoberfest Sepp and Ingrid took us to Nymphenburg Castle in Munich. It has expansive gardens and is still a sanctuary for the swans that have been there for hundreds of years. Here's a picture of the castle and some of the castle grounds: (BTW: That castle is MUCH bigger than the little bit I was able to get in the picture.)

And one of the swans: Here is a picture from our coffee/tea stop at the "Palmen Haus":

Overall, we had a great day with Ingrid and Sepp (pronounced like: Zep) even though we can't speak much Germany and they can't speak much English. We get along pretty good! ;-)

More tomorrow....

We're back!

2007-10-15T13:15:00.000-07:00

So we made it back from our trip to Germany and Rome last week on Oct 10th at 1am Montana time! It was our 3rd anniversary that day and we slept most of the day!

We arrived in Munich, Germany on Sept 25th about 1:30pm Munich time. I had worked the night before we left and didn't get to sleep before going to the airport and then had about 3-4 hr of a "nap" on the plane from Minneapolis to Amsterdam! But I was doing well. We just rested and hung out with Arthur and Ulla the rest of that day. It was rainy and cold when we got to Germany. The next day we went out to see a few things in the area. We ended up at Bad Tolz and cute Bavarian town that is filled with people when it is warmed. We walked and did a little shopping. Here's a picture of Ulla and I in from of Market straBe(street).

The next day we went to Oktoberfest in Munich with Ingrid and Sepp. It was a huge festival. All the draft horses and their respective beer wagon were out in all their glory. Since Erik and I don't enjoy beer that much we didn't care to sit in the tents and pound downa few but we did have one beer and a pretzel.
Here we are in front of the gates:I must run now! Stop by again for more pics from Oktoberfest and Germany...

Rio and Rome

2007-09-21T15:11:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone,

It's been a busy couple of weeks. This past weekend Erik went back to MN to see a couple good friends tie the knot and I left in the opposite direction to visit my Aunt Kay in Seattle. We both had wonderful weekends. Now we are getting ready for a trip to Germany to visit Erik's aunts and uncles on his father's side. We'l be there from Sept 24th thru Oct 9th. We are taking a 5+day side trip to Rome in the middle. We're very excited to be abel to take this trip. So needless to say I won't be posting for about three weeks. So come back and visit in middle October for some pictures from our trip!

I'll leave you all with a parting shot of our "U-shaped" kitty, Rio. He loves this spot so much on the couch that we have had to lay the cushion flat now so he wouldn't make it too flat!

Our little herd of deer

2007-09-07T09:48:00.000-07:00

I told you about our deer that come around all day long in this post: http://montanapeters.blogspot.com/2007/03/pictures-of-life-in-missoula.html

Well, I took some more pictures. not all of them turned out that great due to lighting and my poor picture taking skills. But here are some pics of the new fawns that are now coming around.

I've gotten even better pictures of the bucks. This one is from early spring, notice the grass is still green and the felt is thick on the tiny antlers.

Now, I have no idea if one of these deer are the same but I'm sure I have a picture of the above deer later this year I just don't know who he is. So anyway, here's a few more bucks later in the summer (notice the grass ;-( ) This one's right in our front yard and I'm taking the pictureout the spare bedroom window!:

This guy's in our neighbor's backyard headed for the salt lick. See the cute chickadees on the fence?And here's a doe that jumped our little fence and was waiting patiently at our back door for scraps (our neighbor feeds them all the time) So I just took her picture!

She went over to sniff Rio and I thought how cute. But right after this picture she started stomping so I chased her outt of the yard yelling: " Don't hurt my Rio!"
Enough on the deer. Some of you in MN will see Erik this weekend as he attends one of his good friend's weddings! Sorry I can't make it. I'll be back at Christmas!

Smoky Haze

2007-09-06T15:35:00.000-07:00

I've complained a lot about the smoke out here. I'm sorry! We thought we'd try to take a picture. On the night of this picture it looked like we were on Mars or something like that. Everything was red tinged and you could hardly breath outside becuase of the smoke. THe air quality was at it's worst at that time. We took this picture on August 12th at about 8:38pm (sun set about 9:30pm at that time) Crazy, huh?!

Visiting Idaho

2007-09-05T10:40:00.000-07:00

So I'm finally getting caught up with the blog! I sure hope I can keep it a little more updated.

The weekend on Aug 18th we had to flee town yet again because the smoke was so bad! We were getting right sick of it! So we decided to go to Coure de' Alane, ID for the night. We had a beautiful drive there, it's about 2 hours by I90 but we got off the highway prior to towna nd took some backroads that went around the lake for a more scenic drive. It's a great area and nice to be by a lake again. We got out of the car in the afternoon and did a hike that had some views of the lake here's a picture of us with the lake in the background:

We had a little trouble finding a campsite that night but we finally did and it ended up being really nice and quiet. We even slept with the rain fly off. On Sunday we checked out the town a little bit before we headed back to Missoula. It rained most of the morning but as we drove back home the skies went from cloudy to smoky! Ughh! However, that night the rain came ti Missoula and the smoke went away! It rained off and on for a couple days (you have to realise it only totally about 1/2 and inch that whole time!) but it felt great and with the little bit of water and the cooler temps it brought some of the fires in the area were able to be brought under a little bit more control.

Then this past weekend for the holiday weekend we went back to Idaho, Sandpoint and Lake Pend Oreille. It was GREAT! We did do a dumb thing that actually ended up being to our benefit. We forgot to bring our checkbook and neither of us carry much cash if any at all. WE also haven't memorized our pin numbers of our cards yet so we had NO way of paying for a campsite! DOH! We stopped at the Ranger Station in town to try to figure something out and we got lucky. They had two free campsite areas, they closer one was more of a party place (not for us) and the farther one was pretty far considering it was going on 4:30pm. But she told us we could do low impact camping on any National Forest Service Land! She showed us some good areas to try and we foudn a great spot only 10 min off the highway in the deep woods! It turned out perfect, if you can live without an bathroom for a couple days and we can! Since we brought all our food with us and the hiking was free we only had to pay for gas! Yippee! We also decided that it was a great area to live in if we ever see the need to move again. So Saturday we hiked a new trail that overlooked town and the lake. Here's some shots from the top:

Here's a cool tree/rock on the trail:

Then we went down to the city beach to swim off the grim and hangout since there wasn't much to do at our campsite! Here's some pictures of the sailboats that were practicing racing that day. They are headed around that orange ball you can see in one of the pics. (EJ, we thought of you the whole time and how much you'd like this lake!)

On Sunday I had to work (the holiday) So we got up early and did part of a hike on Scotchman's Peak. It was the steepest hike I've done since New Zealand where they don't believe in switchbacks! We both said we had to go back and do it again so we can make it to the top. Here's picture from our turn around spot. We met a really nice couple who invited us to call them when we're in the area.

Another great weekend hiking and enjoying nature!

Coming up: pics of the dear in our neighborhood from fawns to 6 point bucks! Also a smoky sun and our lovely Rio.

Backpacking in Glacier National Park

2007-08-27T09:01:00.000-07:00

The first weekend in August Erik and I finally made it to Glacier National Park to do a backpacking trip. We left on the evening of Aug 2nd and stayed over night part way to the park. It only takes about 3 hours to get there from our house but we got a late start after Erik got home from work so we camped on the way up. There was a really nice couple at the spot next to us that were biking the whole continential divide trail from Canada down to New Mexico! We enjoyed talking with them and before we left in the morning we had tea and chatted some more. We got to Glacier around 9am and headed to get our back country permit and watch the bear video. Those are always exciting. Basically they had a great campsite set up in Glacier to protect not only the people but the bears. There are tent sites that are separated from the food prep area and then there are latirines separate from all of that. Plus they have bear poles for you to hang your food from. Works well to keep all the smells away from the tent. The route we chose was in the northwest corner of the park and the start of the route went along a long skinny lake about 7 miles. We decided that t would be fun to canoe that part of the hike. It was smoky from the fires that day. Here's a picture of us at the start of the Bowman lake:

It only took us about 2 hours to paddle to the end of Bowman lake and we didn't have to carry anything. Here's a picture of our canoe on shore and Thunderbird Mountain. It's still a little smoky at this time.

We shared a campsite with two other couples and a group of high school kids and their two leaders who were doing trail work through SCA (Student Conservation Association). They were on their vacation before heading home. There was a lot of lively talk around the MSR campstoves that night. (fires were, of course, banned)

The next morning we struck out on the trail about 9am with the big group of SCA's. It was nice to hike with a bunch of people for a change. Ok, I'll admit it I was a little bear wary and with a big group of noisy people I felt a little better. However, we did meet up with a bear! (must have been deaf!) I was the last in the group but the first to spot it and had to holler to get everyone to stop! It was a huge black bear. He looked at us and then just ambled on into the forest. We took a break of about 15 minutes and then headed on our way. At the next break spot Erik and I separated from the big group because they were taking a much longer break. Here's a picture of Boulder Peak from our stopping spot:

From then on we hiked alone. Then next part of the trail we started to climb the 2, 000 ft we were to climb that day up to Brown Pass and our campsite. I didn't like this part of the trail that much as we were climbing through waist to chest high thimbleberry and other bushes. The Trail was there but fairly over grown and it was hard using my hiking poles. (I should have put them away but I'm still trying to get my knee strong enough that I don't have to worry about poles) Here's a clear spot where we stopped to have a bit of lunch:

About 1:30 we made it to our campsite at Brown's Pass. Here's a pic of the tent set up:

Then we unloaded whatever we could so we could hike farther to Hole in the Wall campsite which was supposed to be the best in the area. I guess you have to reserve it in the spring. That was the best part of the day because the sights were so beautiful! Here judge for your self:

Thunderbird Mountain and Glacier: In this shot you can see Bowman lake where we started!Here's Erik on the trail. Some very interesting terrain we were covering! Here's the mountains and some fireweed. It's our new computer wallpaper: Here's our tired, dirty but happy feet that night! All miles added up to about 9-10 miles that day.

Our last day: Sunday. We wanted an early start because that lake that we had to canoe back on gets a terrible wind blowing the wrong direction after lunch so we wanted to be on it in the morning. So we had 6 miles back to our first campsite and then 7 miles to canoe that day. But here's Erik at the end of the canoe! Ahh, what a way to live!

We're so blessed to be able to expore so much of God's country! It's a beautiful place to be. And we're so glad to be heathy enough to push our selves to these places that many people don't ever get to experience. If this isn't Heaven then I can't wait to get there!

Our second visitor!

2007-08-17T10:31:00.000-07:00

The weekend of July 21-23 we had the joy of having Erik's sister Monika come and visit with us! And what did we do? Of course, we went backpacking! Well, it was over 100 again that weekend and she's from Seattle so we had to get out of the heat a little bit. It sort of worked since where we hiked it was still pretty warm. But we got to pick huckleberries all the way down! I had just seen them at the Farmer's Market in town for $8/lb. and we picked them all for free! There are some pictures on Monika's camera of us enjoying the huckleberry milkshakes so as soon as she send's them I'll update this post.

She arrive early on a Sat morning and we packed up the car and headed out to the Mission Mountain. We travelled about 1 1/2hrs to our trailhead. There were a lot of horse trailers parked at the trailhead and we passed many horse trains on the way. Note: always try to get off the trail on the DOWN side and talk softly so the horses don't get spooked. We hiked in about 5-6 miles that day, mostly uphill and camped at Piper Lake. We were in Wilderness area so there are not any designated campsites so we picked a nice rocky outcropping and pitched our tents there.

Erik napping at the end of the hike:

It got a little smoky the night from some fires burning on the other side of the Missions, but it wasn't too bad. In the morning it was a little hazy. Here's a shot of the campsite (with stuff all over the place!) We swam a couple times right off the rocks there, it was very nice!
On Sunday morning before heading back to our car we hiked up a ridge we could see from our campsite. Here's some pics from the top: Sorry I can't get the pics of Monika and Erik and me and Erik to post. Oh well I'll try another time! Next up Glacier National Park!

More camping!

2007-08-17T08:57:00.000-07:00

Do you ever get sick of hearing about all the camping and hiking we do?? I hope not because it is the most interesting stuff we do right now out here! We have been stuck indoors most of the time now with all the fires in the area causing dangerous air quality. So hopefully this weekend we're going to norther Idaho where there is no smoke, we hope any way!

But now to back up just a bit, I am almost caught up with the past adventures. Going back to July 14 and 15 when I was working Erik went on an overnight backpacking trip by himself. Again the temps in Missoula were over 100 and since I work nights and would be sleeping during the day he just wanted to get somewhere cooler where he didn't have to be quiet. So he went back to the Anaconda-Pintler area and did a good loop but he was a little diappointed when he didn't pop out above tree line so he didn't reall get any "grand" views. Anywhere in the wilderness is a great view if you ask me! Oh, and I tried to get him to post but he thinks I do a better job at it! Here's some pics from his trip: (i'm glad he labeled them!)

This is Elephant Head flower. If you look closely you can see the flowers resemble tiny elephant heads:

Erik in front of Lower Carp Lake:

Pretty Beargrass along the trail:Upper Black Bear Meadow:

View from Warren Pass:Well, that's it for the pics. Erik said he had a good time but he would have rather been hiking with me! Awwww! The next post highlights one of our visitors! Check it out.

Storm Lake Pass

2007-08-14T13:26:00.000-07:00

Some of you that I have talked to know that July was extremely hot here in Missoula, way above average temps. (Sort of what Like MNis experiencing right now) For 5 weeks we did not go below 90 for the high temp. Over the week of the 4th when I was off in high country visiting with Kirstin and Chris poor Erik was at home with no AC in temps of 101-105! So I got back on Friday night and we left Sat morning for the high country again, some car camping and hiking to try to get away from some of the heat. It worked because we went up a couple thousand feet and the temp went down at least 10-15 degrees. We got to camp by a lake and hike up to Storm Pass in the Anaconda-Pintler Wilderness. The trail was nice and there was a lot of free camping in the area so we'll have to remember that. We'd also love to backpack in the area looks really nice. When we were hiking on the trail the weather was turning a little scetchy so I didn't take too many pics and the ones I did take aren't the greatest but here's a few for you to judge for yourself.
On the way up the trail. Notice the flowers beside the trail. Hard to get a good picture of the flowers but in real life they add so much color!

Sign post at the top:

Here's a picture of one of the peaks at the top. The trail you see goes on deeper into the wilderness. After that we heard thunder getting closer as you can tell by the clouds. It rained on our way down but luckily the lightning didn't get too close. Until the next post!

Friends and the 4th part 2

2007-08-10T10:19:00.000-07:00

Hi again, I know, I know I was going to post yesterday but didn't get the chance. Not sure how many of you check this everyday anyway..... But here's the next day of hiking I did with Kirstin and Chris. We only had about a 1/2 a day to hike so we did a shorter trip to Glacier Lakea dn some of the lakes around it. It was about two miles uphill. We had a good time and got to fish again. Check out the photos of that trip:
On the way up:

Here's a view of the valley we were hiking up. You can see a litttle bit of the trail on the left and way down at the bottom is where we started.
He's a little guy that came bounding right up to me at one point of the trail.
Friends:
Two Views of Glacier Lake. It was so great to do this trip and hang out with my friends! I am missing you Kirstin! Can't wait until Christmas!

Friends are a good thing!

2007-07-24T11:22:00.000-07:00

So, I've been trying to post over the last two weeks and it wouldn't upload the pictures I wanted it too! So today I kept trying picture until it let me load. Sorry for the delay. I'll be posting alot in the next week or so because I want to get CAUGHT up! Enjoy:

Over the 4th of July week my bestest friend Kirstin and her hubby Chris stopped in Red Lodge, MT and I got to visit them! Red Lodge is only about 4 1/2-5 hrs away. If you've never been there you must try to go, it's a wonderful place to visit at the north end of the Beartooth Pass. This is one of the most beautiful drives in the US and goes right into Yellowstone N.P. We camped just south of Red Lodge next to a creek, I think it was Rock Creek. I forgot my sleeping bag and realized it, luckily, before the stores closed so I got a nice flannel lined Coleman at the hardware store in town for $27! Reminded me of the sleeping bags we used as kids except this flannel was plaid and not covered with deer or ducks. (Remember, Dad?) We drove up to Hellroaring Plateau (at 10,000 ft) on this crazy road that tested the best of the nerves. I was not worried on the way up but the way down was a little more scary. It was hard to get pictures to show the steep grade. Then we hiked to some high alpine lakes climbing another 1000 ft. or so. Our day was mostly off trail, climbing over boulders, across alpine scrub grasses and tiny wildflower and across my first snow field! I tried not to step on too many little flowers with my big feet. The snowfield was unnerving for me but the snow was soft and sticky so you didn't slip, too much anyway! Chris did a lot of fly fishing and I tried it as well. Can't wait to get myself a pole now! It was such an amazing day, the sights are undescribable and the pictures only giv eyou a hint at the beauty! Here's the shots from the day:

Beautiful shot of the lupine and mountains from the trail:Friends on the trail: The trail UP! What can I say? (Sliderock Lake is below. now sure name of all the mountains) Kirstin on the snow field: It's a home run!: Fun with fish (in Hairpin Lake): This is a shot looking out the window as we drove down the "crazy" road. we were camped way down there in the trees somewhere. If you've ever heard of the Beartooth Highway that goes into Yellowstone from the NE corner the large cuts in the opposite mountain are the highway. Picture doesn't really tell the whole story of how high up we were and how steep the road was but you can get a little idea. Check back tomorrow for our hiking trip to Glacier Lake!

Morrell Falls and Mission Mountains Hike

2007-07-20T10:31:00.000-07:00

So I know we talk about lots of hiking and camping and stuff like that. Hope you're not getting bored because we're not! Our day to day life would bore you to pieces so I've focused on the fun stuff we do! ;-) Just wanted to show a couple pictures from some hikes we sis the end of June. I went on the first hike with my friend Jennifer and her boys and Selma, the labradoodle. It was a pretty easy hike about 5 miles round trip. We hike to the falls then had lunch and played for a while then hiked back. A great way to spend a day off, wouldn't you say? Here's a picture of me infront of the falls. You can also see Jennifer way in the back catching some sun on a rock. The last weekend of June Erik and I set out to hike in the Mission Mountains Tribal Wilderness. It's controlled by the Salish Kootnai tribe. There are no signs and the roads to get the are rough. But this lends to a very nice hike well into the wilderness where you see very few people. We climbed about 1500 ft through the course of this hike. We crossed small streams and stopped by pretty lakes with lots of fish jumping. We hiked up to a pass and then off trail back down to the main trail. We also ran into SWARMS of mosquitoes. We stopped to put bug spray on and it didn't even help the critters we bitting us while we were spraying them. All in all and wonderful hike! Here's some photos:

The trail and the view:

This is Grey Wolf Peak through the trees:

This is where we had lunch. I am getting ready to hike again:

This is looking down on Buck Lake. We hiked right down this ridge off trail.
Close up of Buck Lake. Lots of fish jumping that day, wishing for a fly rod. The ridge in the background is the one we hiked down:This is Erik by a waterfall/creek that we crossed over. And finally some pretty daisies at the end of the trail. We also found tons of wild strawberries, nice dessert!On to hike another day! Don;t forget to come visit sometime if you can!

Happy Campers

2007-07-12T14:36:00.000-07:00

As the weather really starts to heat up out here, Erik and I are all about getting outside into the mountains. Since our place is not air conditioned and the forests and mountains are the choice is simple really. Going back to June 22-24th this was one of our first weekend long trips. Just so you know we only had to drive 1 1/2 hrs to get here! (check out the pictures) So we left after work on a Friday and got the the campground on Howard Lake well before dark and we weren't hungrey for dinner either so we set out in the canoe to explore the lake a little bit. Once we were out on the lake we could see back to all the gorgeous Mission Mts in their snowcapped splendor. We didn't have the camera that evening but there will be pictures from the next day. So in the morning we got up to go on a hike to Howard Falls and then Erik was going to go off on his own depending on how my knee was feeling (got a small knee injury and have been to PT but it's coming right along as you'll see in a few posts). We could have trekked down the road to the trailhead but we thought how great it would be to canoe put of the trail. So we hopped in the canoe again and took off for the trail. The views in the AM were gorgeous.
Here's one shot of the mountains: Here's the canoers ;-):

We pulled in near the trail and tied the canoe up and headed for the Howard Lake Waterfalls. It was a great hike and nice to do in the morning since there were less people out on the trail and it was cooler. Here is the happy couple in front of the falls.

This view is of the tral with the lake below and the Mission Mts in the background. Breathtaking.

Here's another one from the lake trail:

So after we finished that trail we hike another trail that went higher up into the hills above the water fall. Here's a view from above:

After we had lunch and headed back down Erik decided he wanted to go on his own and climb a couple thousand feet to a ridge/pass that overlooed the whole area and looked down into the Bob Marshall Wilderness. Here's some of his shots from the top:

Erik was at about 8,000 ft. It took him about 5 hours to to the climb. I paddled around in the lake and took a nap. You decide who had more fun! ;-)

7/16/07:As I write this we are in the longest heat wave Montana has ever seen. temp over 100 degrees for the last two weeks and the last five days ina row. Tomorrow it is the coolest day in the 7 day forecast of 94 degrees. We have no AC in our rental cuz, you usually don't need AC in the mountains of Montana. We also have no basement to retreat to. So I think I'll go the a movie tonight or something to get out of the heat. The only saving grace is that at night it does cool down into the 70's and that's just enough to make it confortable for about 1/2 the day. There are also forest fires burning out here, it's early in the season. Since Montana is less populated that the other areas of the US that are burning they usually let the forest fires burn unless they are encroachin on homes, etc. So our days are filled with haze. Don't let this trick you into thinking we don't like it out here. We love the mountains and the play areas....we just need to get through this heat wave! ;-)

Hiking Pals

2007-07-11T07:21:00.000-07:00

I have been so excited to have a friend that I can go hiking with during the week when Erik is at work and I am not sleeping (from working night shift, not being lazy!). This summer Jennifer and I have been able to hike with her two boys also. On June 19th we did a hike in the Gash Creek Area. They had a big fire there in 2006 that was started by an arsonist who was convicted in both state and federal crimes. He started at least 20 fires that year that he admitted to! Crazy, huh! Well, we did realize we would be hiking exactly where the fire was. But instead of totally ruining our hike it actually made it more interesting and the views were wonderful. The land will heal itself and become lush once again. The hike was 5 miles rounds trip and we gained only 700 ft.

Here's a pic of the hiking crew:

Here's the trail through the burned forest.

Here's a view we would not have had if the forest was full:

Here's Glen Lake, the lake we hiked to:

I will say it was one of the dirtiest hikes I've done, with all the dust and ash around! I needed a double scrub down that night before bed.

More tomorrow!

Spring flowers and Visitors Cont.

2007-07-08T15:40:00.000-07:00

Well, I back at it again. We've been camping or hiking during almost all of our free time. So I have a lot of updating to do. I'll try to catch up on some of it this week. Back to Erik's parents trip in June. One of the days I took them to Lolo Pass to see the beautiful Camas that bloom there in the spring. It looks like a lake from far off.

This is what the field looks like: (the picture doesn not do it justice)

Here's a close up:

Later the next weekend Erik and I went there so he could see the flowers since he was at work that day and we also got these shots of lupine:

Later in the day I also took Erik's parents to Garnet ghost town a fairly well preserved ghost town in the mountains near Missoula.

It was nice to have them visit us and see a little bit of Montana.

More adventures coming soon.....

Spring flowers and visitors

2007-07-01T15:33:00.000-07:00

Erik and I have been BUSY! Between work hiking, camping, entertaining our first guests and normal chores I haven't had much time to sit down and blog. I guess I'm not the regular blogger who enters a new message every day! Sorry, my computer doesn't need to see me every day nor I it! The outdoors is calling (so is work and the husband!). I'm actually off to work tonight in a couple hours so this will be short. When Erik's parents were here early June we had an opportunity to hike with them in Glacier on the Avalanche Creek trail, a 2.5 mile roling trail that anyone could do. It ended at a gorgeous lake surrounded by high cliffs and waterfalls. It had a lot of foot traffic on it since it was at the farthest open point in the Going to the Sun Road. (still clearing snow from the very top.) We got to check out some bear prints that some people were very concerned about. So we went to investigate and they were NOT grizzly prints but black bear and they were not very fresh. Anyway it was a great hike.

We also took them to Lolo Pass, (to see the blue "lake" of blooming camas) Garnet Ghost town and on some bike rides around town. Here's one picture from the hike. I'll post more soon as I can. Enjoy!

Whitewater Rafting: Lochsa River, ID

2007-06-18T09:07:00.000-07:00

On June 10th we went whitewater rafting with about 20+ people from Erik's work. There were three boats and some people from Erik's company did the guiding so it was free, except for the gear rental. We went on the Lochsa River in Idaho (only about 1 hour away). It is often a Class V river but as the spring runoff goes down it changes to about a Class VI with some Class III. In a week or so it won't be passable anymore due to the boulders and rock in the river. We had a blast! Our boat was the only boat of the three that did not tip/flip. Of course, I did not have my camera with me because I don't have a waterproof camera so I don't have any pictures but there are a lot of guided trips that run this river and there is a guy who is cashing in on that fact. He stands by Lochsa Falls and takes pictures of rafts as they go through and then posts them on his website for sale. Of course they are expensive, but if you really want one you can get it. The link is: www.lochsa.info Find "6-10-07 Privates" click on that. Then our boats are pictures 31-59 and 84-97. The boat Erik and I were in is the first boat in the pictures (a red boat) and it looks like it's having the easiest time! Our guide is wearing a green helmet. I am sitting in front of him, I have a redbill ball cap on under my helmet. Erik is right next to me on the other side. Enjoy the carnage of the other boats! BTW: everyone was just fine, most people were able to get right back in the boats, we only had three people who swam to shore on the first flip. What a blast, hope to do it again some day!

Some things in Montana are the same!

2007-06-18T08:30:00.000-07:00

So I've had people ask me about Missoula and if there's a Target and where do I shop and stuff like that. Here are some facts: Missoula is about 70, 000 people big with a major University in town, two decent size hospitals both recognized as trauma centers, the biggest shopping mall in western Montana (about the size of Maplewood Mall) and traffic! I know most of the pictures I've shown are of the great outdoors but who needs to see pictures of the places we shop? Well, maybe some do........ so here's a few of the things that remind me of Minnesota!

Target: They's doing construction to make it bigger:

Favorite Craft Store:Favorite Gear store: Favorite Bargain store, although it's always a ZOO! Don't go often but they do have cheap groceries. Our supermarkets have different names like Albertson's and Safeway instead of Cub and Rainbow but they're the same too. So we're well set to find anything we could possible need out here and much more! If you have any questions about living here in Missoula please feel free to ask and I'll try to answer!

More Beautiful sites around Yellowstone National Park. Part 5

2007-06-08T11:04:00.000-07:00

Well, it's finally here! The last installment of our memorable Memorial Day visit to Yellowstone National Park. We spent three days driving, hiking and exploring one of the great parks of the world. Maybe someday we can visit with you!
This is a shot from our first day in the park. It's from the side of the road over looking Yellostone Lake and Mt. Sheridan.

This is a picture from an overlook off the road that we stopped at after our day hike on Sunday. It's the Yellowstone River again.
The last evening and morning we were there we visited:
Here's what we saw. "Grand View"
In the morning we went to "Artist's Point" a very popular place to view the Lower Falls. You may recognize it as it's in many popular photographs and paintings.

A closer picture:

Well, I guess that's about it for our trip to Yellowstone. There are many more pictures I could have posted but you'll just have to come and see for yourself! Don't forget to let us know when you'll be here, we'd love to join you on your visit!

Yellowstone Day Hike, Part 4 UPDATED

2007-06-06T19:56:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to share with you our day hike that we did on our Memorial Weekend trip to Yellowstone. We went on the hike on Sunday. It was hot and sunny that day. WE hike in the area of Tower Falls about 8 miles. We started on the Stagecoach Road that is used in the cumer months to give people stagecoach rides to a BBQ spot. We had to skirt by some buffalo at the start of the hike and at the end. I got some pictures at the end so you'll see in a minute. Our hike started out in a meadow/sage brush covered land. We saw tons of gophers running to their holes when they heard us coming. Then we cut through a tight valley that followed a creek and it was more wooded with big boulders and rocky landscape. We also saw lots of flowers along the trail so of course I had to stop, much to Erik's dismay, at about every flower trying to get a good picture. I did slow us up a bit! Here's a few we saw in that valley:

A prairie rose:

A sticky geranium:

Here's a nice shot of the trail, Erik and Elk Creek.

We came to a spur trail about halfway through our hike that connected to another trail that lead to a suspension bridge over the Yellowstone River. From the bridge we saw the river far below and beautiful in it's power. After lunch I found a spot where I could see both the river and the bridge. Maybe it will give you a small sense of what it was like to be there. Some cushion phlox on the trail after lunch:

Goofing off while replenishing our water.

After lunch our trail followed the Yellowstone River up on a ridge. This spot offered amazing views:

We also saw the two big horn sheep on this part of the trail. (see post about animals for the picture). Here is another one of the variety of views we had on this hike.

And this is the very end of the trail. We had to pass by some buffalo. They do not look very close but when you see how BIG they are you really don't want to get too close to them.

Overall, a wonderful hike, not too hard and beautiful scenery! Hope you enjoyed trekking with us! Stay tuned for the final Yellowstone enstallment: More Beautiful sites around the park. Later.....

Geysers and Hot Springs and Mud Pits, Oh MY!

2007-06-05T08:42:00.000-07:00

What would Dorothy have thought if she had landed in Yellowstone instead of OZ? What did the early explorers think? Can you imagine seeing a geyser shooting up out of no where? Even in today's well educated and vastly diverse world they were a wonder to see! Our first day in the park we went to places like Fountain Paint Pots, Upper Geyser Basin and Old Faithful area. But even the following days we saw geothermal areas everywhere in the park. It was really interesting and stinky with sulfur at times! Here are some of the better pictures that we got of various geothermal activity.

I'm not sure the name of this one but it was one of the few pictures we got that wasn't obscured with steam. The air temp was low even thought it was sunny and about 70 the wind seemed cooler, thus lots of steam.

This one's interesting because of the vivid color but it was full of steam so the actual blue green large pool was masked in white.

Here's a nice shot of Old Faithful showing it's stuff:

Some places just had yummy green and yellow bacteria growing in those hot spots. Here's a closeup of one.

I love this shot of the wide view of the geyser area near Old Faithful.

Here's another wide view shot with more geysers in it. The river is called Firehole River.

The two of us in front of a geyser.

This was taken at an area called Mud Volcano. This is a buffalo awfully close to the "Churning Cauldron".

And last but not least is a picture of the view over the Mud Cauldron and Yellowstone River.

The geothermal sights of Yellowstone were a wonder to see. If you ever get a chance to see them it will be well worth it!

Hope you're enjoying these installments from our trip to Yellowstone. Check back tomorrow for other beautiful sites we saw. Catch you later!

Yellowstone N.P. Part 2: Animals Big and Small

2007-06-01T15:56:00.000-07:00

While in Yellowstone we saw LOTS of animals. Driving just about anywhere we saw bison, bison and more bison. In fact, in Montana it's big news about the bison that are getting outside the park because the risk spreading bruscelossis (a disease) to the cattle population. So they've been "hazing" the buffalo, flying helicopter and such to herd them back into the park. Here's some of the pics we got of the buffalo:

Oh NO! Trouble in Blogland...... pictures aren't loading right now. SO, I'm off to work this evening and next. Check back on Monday for the continuation of the Yellowstone story. Sorry!

EDIT 6/4/07: Hopefully my computer will cooperate today....let's see where was I...oh the huge buffalo. Here's a shot of some buffalo by the Madison River.

some of the buffalo were huge. here's a picture of one of the biggest that we saw.

This one was right in our campground!

and the last buffalo picture is a big guy that knew right where to go:

But we didn't just see buffalo we also saw....

Marmots:

Big horn sheep (young ones):

Elk:

a black bear:

We also saw a grizzly bear, a couple pronghorn antelope, lots of gophers and birds galor. We just didn't get pictures of everything!

Hope you enjoyed the animals today. Tomorrow check out the Geysers and Hot Springs. Until then....

Yellowstone N.P. Part 1

2007-05-31T18:36:00.000-07:00

Well, we've been busy lately. I started my new job at St. Patrick's Hospital doing what I was meant to do all along but got a way from: taking care of people. I'm really enjoying the work and the hospital. I think it's going to be a good long term place to work.

Heading into the Memorial Weekend we asked our selves: Should we go to Yellowstone? adn we decided a resounding YES. The west entrance is only about 4 hours away. We left on Friday afternoon and stopped to camp for the night about 30-45 minutes outside of the park on Hwy 191 in the Gallatin River Valley. It is a narrow valley/canyon and it was cool/cold when we camped there. The little bit of water left in our supper dished has iced over by morning. It was a very nice campground right on the river. We stayed in a 3 person backpacking tent that Erik has had for some time but never let me in on the secret....it's like the Taj Mahal! (that is whenyou're used to a small 2 -person backpacking tent!) Here's some pics:

Our Tent Set up near the river

View of river from campsite:

Pumping water in the morning: The next day we headed into Yellowstone. We saw lots of animals and geysers and great sights. (pics and details will be in following parts). In Yellowstone we stayed in a very nice campground near Yellowstone Lake. We were right by a meadow and buffalo, deer and hawks would show up. Here's a picture of that campsite:

Well, That's it for today. Check in tomorrow for Part two: Yellowstone Animals big and small.

Cash prizes for Weeds? and other tidbits....

2007-05-17T09:48:00.000-07:00

Well we've had some wonderful weather here of late. Pretty warm, 70's and 80's and sunny. Although we could use some rain, not as bad as Northern MN need it though! Well, we're plugging along here. I started my new nursing job this past Monday, May 14th. No more work free weeks for me! It seems like a very good place to work. I'll be working my first night shift tonight. Hope I don't fall asleep! Actually it's pretty easy to stay awake when you have people to take care of. Tonight I'll probably be shadowing my preceptor and going over all the learning modules they have for us. I'm planning on taking a nap this afternoon.

I am enjoying watching all the different birds that we have in our backyard. I haven't gotten any pictures yet but I'm trying. We have robins, house finches, Red Shafted Northern Flickers (type of woodpecker), Black Thoated hummingbirds, chickidees and many more that I haven't figured out yet what they are. They sing all morning and all evening.

What about those gas prices!?? Well, I'm happy to say that there is a wonderful bus system and bike routes here in Missoula. We have not bought gas for our cars in almost two weeks! That's pretty awesome considereing we're hitting $3.20's gallon right now. (That's better than Seattle where Erik's sister reports $3.60!)

So you're wondering about the title of the blog. On May 5th I saw an advertisement to help with the Mount Jumbo weed pull. They would be prizes and fun for everyone. So since Mount Jumbo is one of the areas where we like to hike and it's in our new neighborhood I told Erik about it. We agreed that it would something to do to help out the community and meet some people. So we show up at 10am on Sat morning and we're the first volunteers there. So the organizers (there are lots of them) tell us we should put in for the cash prize portion (pay $5 each). So we did and then went up the Mount to the weed pulling spot and started on pulling lots of knapweed. After about an hour we hiked to the top to get the extra credit stamp. We enjoyed the gorgeous views. Then we went back to our spot and pulled some more. Finally it was over at 1pm and we had to bring down our own bags of weeds and have the weighed. Here is Erik with on of the bags. (missoula is in background) It was a slow hike down as we had to keep stopping and adjusting our hands on the bags. We got our bags weighed (seperately) and then listened to a great bluegrass band while we awaited the results. They announced the winners of all the categories and the got to the money catagory and named Erik as the big winner pulling about 40lbs of knapweed! And they gave him $300 for his efforts!!!! Not bad for 3 hrs of pulling weeds! He still hasn't given me my finders fee yet ;-) but we are buying a new backpacking tent so that's pretty cool! So if you need any weed pulled you know who to call! Here's one look at a native flower the shooting star. At least there are still some of these out there.

Dung Butterflies?

2007-05-02T09:32:00.000-07:00

The weekend of April 27-29 we went to Fairmont Hot Springs http://www.fairmontmontana.com/ near Butte, MT for Morrison and Maierle's Annual Stockholder/employee meeting. We hung out with some of Erik's new co-workers and Erik attended meetings. The Hot Springs consisted of two LARGE pools and hot tubs that are heated by the Hot Springs, they actually cool the water so people can swim in it. (that's where I tried the recipe mentioned in the previous post. ) On the way home we chose to take the Pintler loop http://travel.mt.gov/categories/moreinfo.asp?IDRRecordID=11543&siteid=1 It's a gorgeous drive. Along the way we decided to stop and hike a little bit. So we stopped on the road to Skalkaho Pass (which is still closed for the "winter") and tried to take a hike well back in the wilderness area. We were stymied by the snow and fallen trees they have not clear yet because the hikes are still closed due to the snow! (Sunburned and hot one day, snow the next! ) But we stopped the car and got out to hike along the road. It only had snow in patches so it was fine to hike along.

We got to the trailhead and realized there was too much snow to actually hike on the trails so we returned to the car. Along the way we saw many butterflies and new plants blooming. We also saw a winters worth of scat along the road. Then we noticed that the butterflies (or possibly moths) seemed especially interested in the scat! Ugh!!

After the hike we stopped in Phillipburg and quaint old mining town where you can buy gravel and search for sapphires in it or go to the best Sweet shop in the area. From there we took a little bit different scenic drive into the Lolo National Forest and some dirt roads. It was amazing!
Again, another great day in Montana! That's all for now.

Recipe for OUCH!

2007-05-02T09:23:00.000-07:00

Do NOT attempt this recipe unless you wish to endure pain!

1 white Minnesota naive woman

1 gloriously sunny day

4000-5000 ft altitude

Bake for one to one and a half hour in the sun WITHOUT sunscreen.

Result:

Moral: Even if the area around you seems flat you may still be at "high" altitude! Beware!

Deadman's Point

2007-04-30T14:45:00.000-07:00

On the 21st Erik and I took a hike to Deadman's Point in the Blue Mountain Recreational Area. It's only about 20 minutes from our house. It's great to have so many wonderful places to explore and hike in.

This hike was about 5 1/2 miles in length with about 600 foot elevation gain. Deadman's point itself is a part rocky part grassy knoll on the south edge of the Rec. area. It's at about 4,000 ft and has 360-degree panoramic views of the Missoula Valley, Bitterroot River and the Sapphire and Bitterroot Mountains. The guide book didn't explain why it was called Deadman's point, but we didn't see any skeletons along the way.

We did see alot of pretty flowers starting to open up. I don'd know all the names of the flowers but I did know a couple. Here is the Arrowleaf Balsamroot:

Here are a couple Shooting Stars:

And some that we don't know the name of: Once we got to the Point (about 1 hour hike) We ate lunch and enjoyed these views:

This is a pitcure of Missoula. You can see on the far hills there are two with white spots. The one on the right is the "M" that we hiked to our first weekend here (and a couple times since). And last but not least your smiling hikers!

More To Come........

Tonya's Week in MN

2007-04-30T13:58:00.000-07:00

Here is the promised post....finally!

From 4/5-4/14 I (Tonya) was in MN visiting family and friends. You may wonder why I went back so soon? Well, while I have missed everyone the main reason I went back was because my Dad turned 60 on 4/9. My sister, Tara, and her husband, Ryan also came back to MN from Texas where they live. So we had a long weekend of family fun. I was able to see the Passion Play for the first time with Mom and Dad on Good Friday. Saturday and Easter Sunday we did lots of family stuff, like celebrate my sister's birthday, eat, go bowling, eat and well, eat! ;-) Here's a couple pictures from bowling. The ladies:

And the dudes:

We had a good time together that weekend as a family.

I was also able to see some friends during the week but not everyone that I wanted to! Hopefully when we come back at Christmas we'll be able to see many of you! Or maybe some of you will visit us here! We're finding lots of great places to take you when you come! Check out the next posts for some pictures.

Quick Update

2007-04-20T14:58:00.000-07:00

Well, I havn't added a post for quite a while and this one's going to be short. I (Tonya) was back in MN from 4/5-4/14 to visit the family. My Dad turned 60 so my sister and brother in law came back into town. We had a great weekend together and following week. Erik managed to survive in Missoula without me around to pester him. ;-) Here's one fun picture of me and my Dad at the Twins game on his birthday. (the twins got beat by the yankees. boo)
In an upcoming post I'll tell more about the trip home.
Since I've been home there has not been much going on. We've had cool and wet weather which means snow in the mountains, up to a foot in some areas! I've done the mundane things such as laundry and cleaning but I'm also on the job hunt and just sent my application in for my Montana Nursing Liscence. Your prayers would be appreciated as I look for a new job. Today I rode my bike into downtown to run some errands. It was fabulous!! While I was downtonw it started sprinkling and then turned to some light snow showers! Ugh, is this April or February!! So I waited it out in the library and then rode home in the sunshine.

We'd love to hear from you by email or phone!

Hiking spots

2007-04-02T09:34:00.000-07:00

We've found a few hiking spots very close to our duplex. So last Thursday we went to check out one place that followed a ridgeline just across the little valley by our house. We hiked along the trail all the way to the top of Mount Jumbo. I'm not sure the elevation because I can't find the map that tells me that info. Here's a few pictures from that hike:

Start of the hike:

Looking out over the views:

Our little Rattlesnake Canyon:

At the top:

Watching the sunset in the parking lot:

It's a great hike and hopefully some of you will be able to visit us and try it with us!

Then yesterday, Sunday, we went for a hike with some new friends from Erik's work. They just moved here last July from Hudson, WI. We hiked in the Rattlesnake National Recreation Area which is only a 5 minutes drive from our place. They have great trails there for hiking, mountain biking, horseback riding and x-country skiing. We started out trying to find a cashe that was marked by GPS coordinates. We could see that it was across the creek but didn't see a good spot to cross until later. Maybe we will try again some other time. It was a good day for hiking. We all had a great time.

Here's a shot from the trail:

That's Selma, Tom, Elliot, Evan, Jennifer and Erik (I'm behind the camera).

It was a good day! That's all for now.

Until the next installment.........

Snow in the Mountains

2007-03-28T07:38:00.000-07:00

Well, as the Twin Cities have been enjoying some very warm weather lately the weather here in Missoula has been cooling off. The culmination of that happened yesterday when it rained here in the valley but snowed heavily above 5000ft and dusted in other places. Here's a shot of what the hills around our duplex looked like this morning with their powdered sugar on them!

We hear on the news that the passes got some good snow. So we'll look forward to another Saturday of skiing. Maybe it wil be as warm as last weekend! Last Saturday I got so warm out there skiing that I skied half the day in a tank top:

We've also been exploring the running routes from our duplex. We've found a great 3 1/2 mile circular route that runs along a creek in the woods for a while. It's faily flat compared to most of the routes around here. I only run to try to stay in shape, I would not say that I like it. Erik's a natural born runner so he usually runs a few more feet than I do because he's sometimes running back and forth while I'm plodding up a hill. (the mantra " I think I can" is actually pretty good to run up hill to). I'll try to add a couple pictures of our running trail in the woods as soon as the weather clears up a bit.

That's all for now from Missoula.

Pictures of life in Missoula

2007-03-23T12:14:00.000-07:00

Thought I would try to post some pictures of our first week here in Missoula.

1. Erik by our cars outside the Super 8 in Big Timber off I-90 on the way to Missoula. Our last day of driving.

2. Our new pink place! (at least for the time being)

3. Happy Day Cross Country Skiing at Lolo Pass! I skied in my baseball cap and light liner gloves. It was about 65 that day.

4. Our Sunday hike to the "M" . We are about 600-700 feet above Missoula. The river you see is the Clark Fork River. The stadium is the Grizzly Football Stadium. (U of Montana)

5. A slightly blurry shot of 5 of the 7 deer that frequent the salt lick in the yard next to ours. It's been fun watching them even if they are the all to common white tail deer.

6. One last picture: I have to brag so here goes... We had 16 feet of boxes and furniture in our truck. It came on Tuesday and Erik had to go to work. So what did I do? Of course, I unloaded everything that I could carry, lift or wheel out with a two-wheeler. I know just call me SuperWoman! This is a picture of the inside of the truck about halfway through the unloading.

So now you've seen a little bit of Missoula through our eyes. Check back for more later!

The First Week

2007-03-22T08:26:00.000-07:00

Here we are, our first week in Missoula, Montana. It's been a good one. We arrived last Thursday and got the keys to our rental home. We're situated in the Rattlesnake Canyon area. Close to town and close to wilderness. Just what we came here for. Since our truck wasn't coming until the following Tuesday we had to find some things to do in the meantime. We got our library cards right away so we could check out some books and have access to email. Also that first day we got our first parking ticket! The meter wasn't working correctly so we didn't have to pay the fine (only $2 anyway). On Friday we check out town a bit, checked email and went to Erik's work. They had a little happy hour after work so we got to meet alot of the people in his office and it was a nice way to break some of the ice before he started work on Monday. On Saturday we took off to Lolo Pass to go cross country skiing. They groom for skate and it was a beautiful day out in the 60's. I could have worn shorts and a t-shirt! They still had 5 ft of snow while in Missoula it has all melted. On Sunday we found a church to attend. It's called South Hills Evangelical Church or SHEC (pronounced like Shrek without the R). It reminded me of Woodland Hills. We'll keep checking out other churchs but I liked that one. Then we went to hike the "M". It's a trail right in the campus (University of Montana, Grizzlies) that leads up to a big concrete M on the side of the hill/mountain. It's a good steep hike. Then we drove around town a bit and went to a movie. Monday morning Erik went to work. Work is good. He's doing all that stuff that you do when you first start at a new job. He'll start working on some projects soon. On Tuesday our truck with all our stuff in it arrived at 5:30AM!!! Ugh! When Erik left for work I went to the rental place to get a two-wheeler and started schlepping boxes! By 11am I was half way done. Then by 1 pm I was done with everything I could do by myself! Yes, just call my Superwoman! Erik came home early and we got the rest out of the truck. So now we're really here! Felt a little more permanent after all the stuff arrived. Now I'm trying to tackle the mountain of boxes. I'll post some pictures soon! Check back often for updates. Hope you enjoyed my very first post!