Glacier National Park

Not much commentary needed, I'll just let the pictures do the talking. The first is the entrance into the park at Columbia Falls, the last is a look west from the eastern plains of Montana near St. Mary's.

Northwest Montana

Heading North from Missoula, MT one heads into the Flathead Valley, the crown jewel being Flathead Lake. Our day was spent positioning ourselves in Kalispell, MT to be at the entrance to Glacier National Park. Here are some highlights.....

My traveling companion, the Cruisemaster, Keith and our home away from home, the Touraeg

The inside of St. Ignatius Church, the site of the first missionary site in Montana. These murals were painted by the church cook.

I'm glad they use compact fluorescent light bulbs.

Huckleberries are all the rage during the summer in Montana.

All huckleberries all the time!

Flathead Lake

High Culture, Low Culture and A Chick Flick

My friend Carlos P. (a University of Montana alum and fellow lover of Missoula, MT) and I loved the show, Gilmore Girls. I have unilaterally made a pact that he and I would watch each and every movie Alexis Bledel and Lauren Graham ever made and will make. Because of that, I watched a matinee of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2. I am just going to come out and say it that I teared up at two points and the bigger declaration and that is I LOVE CHICK FLICKS, especially ones that are centered around high school.

The afternoon was spent at the Western Montana State Fair. Photos.....

This Democratic Party table was out of Obama stickers, perhaps a good sign?

Seriously this was a booth at the fair.

Our energy woes even hit at the fair.

I won once, but then got greedy and lost my winnings.

Soft on the cheek!

Time for the demolition derby. We sang the Star-Spangled Banner and stood to salute the flag and this tank.

Right after the derby, it was time for the Missoula Symphony Orchestra's summer concert in the park.

The Missoula Symphony Orchestra in Caras Park

It's a great country we live in that a immigrant from the former Yugoslavia can be the conductor of this Symphony in the mountains and select popular tunes from Raiders of the Lost Ark, Legends of the Fall, the William Tell Overture, Clair de Lune as well as a medley of jazz and the theme from a number of great Western Movies. A great day here in the mountains makes me think about moving to Missoula.....

The Gods Smile Upon Me (Mostly) Part III

During my stay here in Missoula, I have been camping at a USFS campground about 20 miles outside of town while my friend Keith stays in a motel here in town. On my third night, I drove to the campsite and when I got there, my tent was GONE, as well as everything I had in there, my sleeping bag and duffel bag of clothing. GONE. I slept in the car that night and in the morning when I spoke to the campground host, Earl, didn't have much to say but to console me to say that sometime it happens. Miffed, I drove into town, pissed but resolved to get back on the horse and buy new equipment and get camping again. So, finding out the ONLY REI store in Montana is here in Missoula, I got a new sleeping bag and bivy sac (not a tent) I was out at site #2 at the Lolo Creek Campsite last night and slept under the stars.

Where is the good news? This morning, Earl woke me up to say that he was glad I came back because he found my bag in a dumpster and pulled it out for me. I picked it up and found that everything was there. The only thing I lost was my tent. That's it. Everything else, although a bit wet, was THERE and I had it back. And now I have TWO half lime green and gray sleeping bags. Even thieves are on my side!

Smoke Jumpers

Missoula, MT houses one of the Forest Service's six smoke jumper centers. It is also a museum to the fire fighters that do such great work in our forests. And, I was trained as one back in the summer of 1991. And yes, I wore the Nomex.

The dorm the smoke jumpers stay in when not out on a fire.

The Modern Fire Fighter

Many of the smoke jumpers sew their own gear

The room in which they pack the parachutes

What's in the cargo box that gets dropped to the smoke jumpers

Missoula, MT, Part 1

Those of you who know me, know I speak glowingly of the state of Montana, and specifically the college town of Missoula. My friend Keith, also a Missoula fan, have decided to spend four days here in Missoula. The town of Missoula is surrounded by mountains, one of them Mt. Sentinel, hard against the University of Montana, has the distinguished M mounted on it's hillside.

The Missoula M

A half hour hike takes you to the M itself

The view from Mt. Sentinel

A man I met on my hike, and when I first met him he was only in his black bikini underwear. I love that freedom comes with age.

This evening, I attended a talk by political writer David Sirota at the local bookstore, Fact & Fiction. He spoke about the election of 2008, about how elections are simply one in a series in a movement that start locally. He also talked about how important it is for the voters of Montana, especially since their votes for senator carry so much more weight than most of the voters in the United States. And he spoke about how the voters of Montana need to take action and put pressure on their senior US Senator, Max Baucus, who is chairman of the Finance Committee in the US Senate. In addition, he spoke about the power "the uprising" that is happening throughout the United States, how it is about Us vs. Them and how the epicenter is right here in Montana. How is is that Montana, which gave a mere 38% of its vote to John Kerry in 2004 can be in play for the Democratic party. It's not Obama, but a sense that the voters of Montana are feeling no longer a part of the conservative movement, that it has left them behind. Lastly, he reiterated the fact that the progressive/Democratic movement can't rely on the fact that occasionally the conductor of the conservative movement (Bush) is faulty, but that if it continues to rely of incompetency, it is only a temporary derailment of the continued conservative, issues based movement. The progressive/Democratic needs to work on its own movement.

Phew!