Month: March 2020

At lunch today, the restaurant had one of those cheesy little hometown newsletters. I saw this list of “things to be thankful for” and enjoyed it.

When I first bought my car, I think I washed it nearly weekly. It was always spotless, inside and out. But over time, as with all things, the luster faded and eventually I was washing it every few months. Then I’d only have it washed when I brought it in for an oil change (the Honda dealership washes cars).

I don’t think I’ve washed it in the past two years or so. It was so filthy that you couldn’t really even touch it. I’d rub up against it on accident, leaning into the trunk or something, and my jeans would have black smudges on them. Pepper and I would grab the inside of the trunk to close it, because touching the back of the car was so bad.

It was 45 degrees and sunny today, so I dragged out the hose and went to work. It took three washings to finally get through the dirt, but the end result was pretty nice. It’s good to see a little shine again.

A few days ago I read an article about companies who sell books “by the foot”. Apparently people sometimes want a bunch of books that just look cool in their homes, but they don’t really care what the books actually are. Since I just unboxed all of my books, I was thinking about books and thought I’d take a quick gander to find out about this crazy business. Sure enough, you can buy books by the linear foot, with various pricing depending on what you’re getting.

For example, you might want a bunch of books by color, so your bookshelf can look something like this:

Or this:

You can buy a whole bunch of books in a single color, like burgundy or black. For those people who have really fancy family rooms, perhaps a collection of “vintage” leather books would be best:

(I admit, these are actually pretty cool. They’re at least 60 years old, and up to 150 years old, according to the web site.)

Or, if you’re a less discriminate buyer, you can just order a box full of random titles.

What a strange business…

In our Colorado house, we had so many books. There were fourteen bookshelves, each about seven feet high, scattered throughout the house. And every one of them was completely filled, including double-stacking of paperbacks. Thousands upon thousands of books. It was glorious.

Before we moved to Montana, we agreed to get rid of a lot of the books. Frankly, we just weren’t going to read some of them again. And also frankly, both Pepper and I generally read e-books these days, so physical books aren’t as useful. We gathered boxes and boxes of books and donated them to the Longmont Public Library, Goodwill, and ARC. I think we probably gave away nearly two-thirds of our collection.

Still, we had a couple dozen boxes of books that we packaged, hauled to Montana, and stuffed into a closet. We kept telling ourselves “we’ll unpack them one of these days”.

Today was that day.

That single bookshelf in the conservatory has nearly all of my books. (You can’t tell in this photo, but it’s double-sided, so there are actually twice as many books.) It’s a little sad that I whittled down my collection to this. But these are the books that I might read again someday.

Pepper is busy unboxing her collection and putting them into several bookshelves elsewhere in the house. Despite telling me I needed to be more aggressive about giving away “my” books, I can’t help but notice she’s kept more than I did…

In any case, it’s nice to have books out again. Despite the convenience of e-books, there’s something special about a good old paperback.

One of the great things about being a grown-up is you can do pretty much all the things you wished you could do when you were a kid. Like buying a bag of Tootsie Pops that are only grape and cherry (the Two True Flavors).

Looks like I’m all set for another month or two…

Although our main purpose in going to Glacier over the weekend was to do some cross-country skiing, you can’t just go to Glacier to do some cross-country skiing. I took advantage of the opportunity for a few more photos of this breathtaking place.

Interestingly, it looked quite different from the last time I’d been there, a little over a month ago. There was much less snow. Here’s a shot from the same place I snapped a sunset photo in January:

Still, with lots of snow or a little snow or even no snow at all, Glacier is a magical place.

Here’s a shot of the master taking a few photos of his own:

Katie took one of me and him standing side by side taking our pictures. I’d bet good money his shot looks better than mine. I don’t know how he does it, but I aspire to be as good as him.

Julian uses an entirely different technique:

Another good day in “the park”. I love being so close to Glacier.

For the last few days, Thom and his family have been visiting. As always, it’s been a grand time. We were mostly outside (of course!) but had fun with some indoor sports. Julian was excited to shoot some pool:

After a few games, he went to YouTube to watch some videos about how to calculate angles and make bank shots… including a terribly confusing one featuring Donald Duck talking about geometry. Thom definitely looks the most professional:

Sefton, of course, was perfectly happy messing up the balls mid-game.

He also enjoyed foosball, making incredible shots from the middle five-man. (“Again!” he’d shout with glee after putting another one in the goal.)

The poor kid wasn’t quite sure what to call me… for the past few years I’ve been Uncle Uncle Uncle Jeff (yes, I’m an uncle cubed) and he slipped into that a few times, but managed to remember to call me Uncle Cosmo most of the time. Auntie La became Auntie Pepper.

Naturally we took to the slopes. We headed up to Blacktail Resort, which is due west from us, directly across Flathead Lake. Thursdays are only $25 for a lift ticket… a welcome change from the $200+ lift tickets in several Colorado resorts. I was amazed at the complete lack of lift lines, and the nearly empty runs. Combined with the one-hour drive with no traffic (versus three hours on the horror that is I-70 in Colorado), I’m sold on Montana skiing.

From one of the runs near the top of Blacktail, there’s a great view of the lake. It’s easy to pick out Bigfork and Woods Bay, and from there I can extrapolate where we live. Of course I had to make the joke “I can see my house from here!” (With a telescope, I very well could have.)

The next day we went to Whitefish Resort, which is north of Kalispell and definitely more like Colorado resorts, including lift lines:

At one point during the day, Thom rode the lift with a guy from Breckenridge who said he actually comes to Montana to ski– despite living in Breckenridge— because he’s tired of the expensive tickets and hour-long lift lines there. Indeed, I don’t think we waited in line longer than a few minutes even at the busiest lifts.

From the top of the mountain, I could again see my house!

The view to the northwest was spectacular: you can see the peaks of Glacier National Park. Plus, Katie.

The trees near the summit looked so cool!

The sky was a gorgeous deep azure, and the temperature was right at freezing at the summit. It was a beautiful day to be on the slopes.

My companions agreed.

On Day Three, we went cross-country skiing up in Glacier. Pepper and I had never been cross-country skiing before, but we soon got the hang of it. There’s definitely a technique of striding and gliding.

Julian, of course, is an outstanding skiier and zoomed past all of us.

I stumbled at times as I figured out how to use the right form. And I felt a lot better about my poor technique when Katie (an accomplished cross-country skiier) completely collapsed in a pile of poles and skis.

After three straight days of skiing in gorgeous weather, we felt pretty satisfied. We had some homemade pizza, played some Tetris, and sat around chatting. Good times all around.

Snow!

We finally got some of the white stuff around the house. Considering I can practically see the Canadian border from here, it’s been surprising how little snow we’ve had this winter. Everyone tells me things like “Don’t get used to it” and “This definitely isn’t normal”. Of course I don’t know because this is my first Montana winter. Apparently a year ago, there were some fantastic snowstorms and February was a very snowy month. This time around, it’s been pretty temperate. We haven’t even plowed our driveway!

So I took a few minutes to walk around the yard and snap some pictures of the fresh powder.

Here’s our little birdhouse, which sits atop a rock and– despite howling winds that took down entire trees a few months ago— quietly weathers everything that comes at it.

And our log pile, waiting patiently for a summer campfire.

The snow is beautiful, but I must admit I’m enjoying the warm, sunny weather…