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It’s been a little over 18 months since I retired, so clearly it was time to start another business. I officially incorporated a new company, and I’m in the process of setting up bank accounts and legal structures and all that fun administrative stuff.

The company? Turret Games LLC, named (by Pepper) for the turret on the back of our house. I’ll use the company for my latest hobby, board game design. The first one will be Hexteria, which is in the early stages of play-testing. I’d say it’s at a “beta” level now– it’s a solid game which could use some minor tweaks. I’ve hired a designer to help with the graphics and overall look, and in the coming weeks I hope to create the first real “print run”. It’ll be a (very) limited edition of the game: just a handful that I can send to friends and play-testers to get feedback.

After that? Well, many new games are born on Kickstarter, where their creators get support and funding to get them to a wider audience. Right now I’m thinking of targeting a launch with 100 games (meaning 100 customers willing to actually hand over some money). That means marketing materials, branding, a web site, and learning a lot more about the process. It’s slowly coming together.

Will Turret Games be successful? Will Hexteria be a hit? Stay tuned.

We enjoyed the first few miles of Glacier’s Highline Trail last week, so we decided to hike the full length today. The fall weather around here continues to be amazing, so we need to take advantage of it! After teaching seminary, we drove up to Glacier. As we climbed ever higher on the road to Logan Pass, we could see fog down in the valley. The sun was just peeking over the mountains to the east, making for an incredible scene:

The clouds had settled into the valley, nestled amongst the huge mountains.

It was cool to watch the fog drift slowly across the trees, causing the green pines and firs and the yellow aspen and larch to slowly appear from the mist.

As we started at the trailhead, the weather was a bit challenging. A 30mph wind was blowing and the temperature was in the high 30’s– not a good combination. We were in shorts and long-sleeved shirts, so it was chilly. But they say “always start hiking cold, and you’ll warm up”. We did, although it helped when the wind died and the sun warmed up everything a bit. It proved to be a gorgeous day for hiking: sunny with temperatures in the 50’s.

The Highline Trail winds along mountainsides, occasionally dropping down in a gradual slope, and at other times rising through switchbacks up a slope. The views along the trail are unparalleled.

Pepper has grown fond of wearing brightly-colored shirts while hiking (witness the bright pink one from last week). Not to be outdone, I chose a neon orange shirt.

The fall colors were even more pronounced than last week– it’s surprising what only a few days can do as the trees continue to turn. Here’s a cool aspen alongside the trail:

We stopped for lunch at Granite Peak Chalet, an old (historic landmark) building near Swiftcurrent Mountain. The chalet overlooks much of Glacier National Park, so despite the wind at the summit, it was awesome to eat while watching the sun and clouds moving across the distant peaks.

Twelve miles and five hours later, we found ourselves at the far end of the trail. What a hike! I can see why it’s considered one of the top ten hikes in North America. Some have compared it with the Kalalau Trail along the Na Pali Coast of Kauai– I haven’t done the latter, but hope to in the next year or so. I’ll report back.

I snapped a few pictures of a little creek near the trailhead.

Today marks our tenth visit to Glacier this year– quite a pace! Every time we go, there’s something different and magical we find. We’ll be back.

We had a chance to talk with Zaque, aka Elder Schroeder, today via a video chat. It was fun to catch up with him and hear some stories about his missionary experiences.

During the call, he pulled out his ukelele and proceeded to show us how well he plays.

He’s entirely self-taught and admitted that he simply learned a handful of chords, and then figured out a few ways to strum. It actually sounds pretty good. Chalk up one more talent for a man of many talents!

Here’s a shot of me hiking, courtesy of Julian:

I can only hope I don’t normally look like that…

It’s been two whole weeks since we were last in Glacier, and as fall comes on, we felt like we should go back to see the trees changing color. Boy, did we make the right call– the aspen was spectacular, and we couldn’t have asked for a prettier day: sunny and in the 60’s. We headed up to Logan Pass, at the summit of Going-to-the-Sun Road, where Mount Logan towers over everything:

At the pass, we loaded our packs and headed out on the Highline Trail. This is a twelve-mile trail that winds along the mountainsides, with a couple of branches that lead to Haystack Peak and Glacier Peak Chalet. We were under a bit of a time crunch today, so we couldn’t do the full trail, but we put in about five miles.

It starts out along a sheer rock wall, with a drop of several hundred feet to the highway below. Here’s Pepper as we headed out:

And coming back, where it’s a little more clear how the trail drops straight down to the road. Way cool.

Here’s another view, further down the trail, looking down to the winding highway and, below that, the valley.

So yeah, it’s not for the faint of heart, but the views are incredible. Here’s the valley:

And a view of lines of mountains, ending in Heaven’s Peak (the snow-capped one in the distance):

The colors were breathtaking. I love aspen and larch in the fall.

After we’d covered about 2.5 miles, we had a snack and turned around. We agreed to do it again– this time the full trail— next week.

But you can’t just leave Glacier after only five miles of hiking! So we spent some time along McDonald Creek, which (not surprisingly) has only a fraction of the water it did in the summer. It’s like an entirely different place! Here’s a view upstream to a small waterfall:

We decided to test the glacial meltwater, so we took off our shoes and dipped our feet into the stream. Wow. I think the water was probably 40 degrees.

I just love the crystal-clear glacier water, and the gorgeous green tint. I also love my gorgeous wife.

Looking downstream:

A bit further along is Sacred Dancing Cascade, which was incredible at low water.

Naturally we had to stop near the southern end of Lake McDonald and skip some stones (now becoming a little tradition of ours every time we visit). Like two weeks ago, the water was incredibly still. Unlike two weeks ago, we could actually see things in the distance now that the smoke has cleared.

Yep, another incredible day at one of my favorite places on earth. On the drive home, there was a beautiful sunset over Flathead Lake.

Life is good.

Yesterday we were driving along the east lake shore and I noticed some really cool “God rays” shining over Wild Horse Island.

Today marks our one-year anniversary of moving to Montana. It’s been an adventure, to be sure. We love our new home, we love the area, and we love the people we’ve met. Here’s to many more years to come!

My first attempt at designing a board game was pretty underwhelming. In my head the idea wasn’t bad, but when I made the cards for the game and attempted to play it, things just didn’t work out very well.

On my recent trip to Washington, I had six hours in the car each way when I could either listen to really loud music (which I did) or drive in quiet contemplation (which I also did). During those quieter times, I came up with the spark of an idea for a different board game. It had a few of the elements of my first aborted attempt, and as I continued to think about it, I felt like there was a hint of promise there.

Upon returning home, I wrote down the rules I’d invented. I needed some playing pieces to actually test the game, and despite my closet full of board games, I wouldn’t have enough for this. So I ordered a bunch of little “tracking cubes” and “meeples” from a board-game manufacturing company, and waited. They arrived a few days ago, which also happened to be when Julian stopped in for a visit.

I asked if he’d be willing to be a game tester for this game’s maiden voyage, and he agreed. We sat down, I explained the rules, and we started playing. We adjusted the rules a bit as we found what worked and what didn’t, and he had some good suggestions for minor changes. Here he is, contemplating his next move:

It probably took us two hours to play that very first game. The board got pretty busy after a while, with lots of little wooden pieces everywhere.

After it ended, we both agreed: it wasn’t terrible. Sure, there were some mechanics that weren’t quite right, and we couldn’t come up with a great way to tally up the victory points at the end. But considering it was basically something I made up during a road trip, I was pretty pleased.

We immediately started another game, this time using some significant changes Julian suggested. That game proved to be a lot of fun too– especially now that we sort of understood some strategy– but the endgame didn’t work out. Ah, well, we learned a few more things and can take them back to the drawing board.

So, I’m going to continue refining it. Maybe it will end up being a not-so-terrible game that I can introduce to my friends.

Oh, and I named it Hexteria. We’ll see if it sticks.

Julian is visiting, and he wanted to do a bunch of “Montana stuff”. Sadly, there’s smoke drifting from the western wildfires, and everything’s been hazy for a few days now. We can’t even see Flathead Lake from our window!

But, he’s only here for a few days, so we decided to go out anyway. We headed up to Glacier. The day was amazingly calm, which made Lake McDonald as smooth as glass. Combined with the smoky haze, it made for a cool photo:

That one is facing south; here’s the view to the north:

Wow, the water was so clear! You can see the rocks right through it. I took a picture of them and adjusted the color a bit (for artistic effect), but you can’t even tell these are underwater:

Someone tested their cairn skills.

Because the water was so incredibly still, we couldn’t resist skipping some stones.

We continued onward, hiking up to Avalanche Lake. Here’s part of Avalanche Creek, which has some terribly cool carved red rocks:

A little further along the trail, I took a few more photos of the creek.

The view at the lake was a little disappointing with all the haze. The sheer mountainside in the distance just looked faded.

Julian enjoyed climbing around on rocks to get some good photos:

Here’s my amazing wife:

After hiking for a while, we made a few more stops along the river, and decided to finish with our traditional stop near the southern end of Lake McDonald. By now the sun was lower in the sky, and the smoke made for some incredible views over the glass-still lake.

A few ducks decided to cross the lake.

And of course we had to skip some more stones.

It was a great day to visit Glacier– I continue to be amazed at how different the park is each time we go!

The coordinators for the seminary program asked all of the teachers to take photos of our students. In keeping with tradition, I brought a bunch of goofy hats and wigs to class, and handed them out. The results were awesome, of course. Here’s my class:

Let’s not forget my lovely team teacher:

Yep, it’s gonna be a good year.