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It’s been seven weeks since the accident. The body shop finally told me the repairs were finished, and I could come pick up our car. The catch: the body shop is in Helena, over 200 miles away. That’s the only place within 500 miles which does body work on Teslas, and it means driving over three hours each way just to get the car. Sigh.

I suppose I should be grateful it’s only been seven weeks, instead of the three months they originally quoted me. Pepper and I figured as long as we have to drive out to Helena and back, we might as well make a day of it and see a few things in town. Neither of us have been to Helena– other than a quick pass-through a few months ago– so we looked for some interesting places.

There’s the governor’s mansion, which looks like it could double as a haunted house on a dark moonlit night.

We stopped by the state capitol as well. This is what the hallways of power look like:

The legislature wasn’t in session– they only meet every other year, and even then it’s for the first few months. Our friend Mark is a state senator, and we even saw his office, but he was likely back home in Bigfork enjoying some time with his family.

Here’s the legislative chamber, where the formal work gets done:

It’s not quite as impressive as the U.S. Congress building, but of course our congress is much smaller. I suppose that’s good, at least as far as getting things done.

We also peeked into the Supreme Court chamber:

Continuing our tour of the capital city, we headed over to the aptly-named Cathedral of Saint Helena. It was stunning.

The photo doesn’t really capture how immense the building is. The spires are 230 feet high, with 12-foot crosses atop each. The back of the building looks reminiscent of Hogwarts Castle:

Inside it’s all towering marble and stained glass.

The altar area is massive; there’s probably enough room for a tennis match.

In the main chapel area of the cathedral, it seems like the pews would accommodate everyone who lives in the town of Bigfork.

It was most impressive.

Afterward we visited the still-under-construction Helena Temple, which is far smaller than the cathedral but still cool in its grey granite architecture.

The clouds were rolling in, and soon there was a cold steady rain. We cancelled our visit to the park, and although we went to the huge walking mall, it became a pretty brisk walk– without stops in the various shops– because the weather was growing steadily worse. We’d also planned to walk along a few trails up in the hills above the city, but in the end we decided to call it a day and head back home. Had the weather been better, I think we would’ve enjoyed our time in Helena more.

Kyra’s been hunting for an apartment so she can be closer to her new job, but she hasn’t been having much success. The housing market is tight, and affordability is a constant struggle. So I decided to surprise her with a little gift, which I ordered on Amazon and sent to her. She just sent me this:

It’s hard to tell from the selfie, but that’s a cute blue tardigrade. Tardigrades have become a bit of an inside joke in our family, so it seemed a fitting way to cheer her up. She’s named him Timmy the Tardigrade, but apparently he goes by Little Tim Tim. Or Timmy T. Or Lil’ T. Whatever, as long as she makes my girl happy.

Well, an era is coming to an end. For several years, all three of our kids have been living within a few miles of each other while attending college. Now Kyra and Alex both have new jobs which are going to take them farther north. We decided that since it’s the last time they’ll all be so close together, we should take advantage of the situation and make a visit to Utah. As an added bonus, Mom and Dad decided to join us. They haven’t seen their grandkids in a while, and here was an opportunity to be with the whole family.

We had a grand time together. We made dinners and went on walks and just hung out chatting.

I didn’t take many pictures, but Pepper filled her phone with shots of Ollie. Here are a few of our escapades, all featuring our just-turned-two grandson.

He likes throwing balls at dad to knock him over.

And reading books or playing with toys with his great (!) grandpa.

Big slides are always fun.

For some reason he enjoys pushing (not driving) this little plastic car around the neighborhood.

He learned to penny-board with Uncle Zack.

And to walk on a slackline at the gym. With a little help, of course.

He worked toward a possible career in a Vegas casino.

And laughed as he kicked his dad in the chin on the swings.

There were board games with oh-so-many pieces to play with.

And of course a bunch of selfies with Grandma.

This kid is sure a bunch of fun. He reminds me of my kids, some twenty years ago or more. They were pretty fun then too.

All in all, it was a wonderful trip and a real blessing to be able to spend that time together.

As a kid, I remember none of us really enjoyed a family photo session. It felt like we had to pose a thousand times, in a dozen combinations of people, wearing uncomfortable clothes, hoping everyone was smiling and no one was blinking. Ahh, the difficult life of a kid. Nowadays photo shoots are a little easier because you can immediately see the results on the camera (“Dang it, I had my eyes closed!”) and retake the shot.

In any case, we were visiting the kids in Utah, along with Mom and Dad, and felt like it was a good opportunity to take some family shots. The weather was beautiful– in fact, it might’ve been too sunny with some harsh shadows– and I feel like we had a pretty good time. Behold the various combinations…

Here’s the whole fam.

Here are the proud great-grandparents. It’s worth noting this is the only shot in perhaps a hundred I took where Ollie was actually smiling. I guess Gigi has the touch!

I really like this four-generation shot. It’s pretty cool that the four of us span eighty years.

I wanted a shot with my boys.

It was inevitable that we fell into old habits and took a few goofy shots. Zack loves his mom!

I’m proud that Kaitlyn joined the family and hasn’t missed a beat doing silly poses with us.

Surely one of these will end up on this year’s Christmas card. Yay for photo shoots!

We have two more college graduates in the family! Alex and Kaitlyn finished their journey at BYU. They chose not to attend the official ceremony– after all, no one really enjoys those things– but we took the opportunity to snap some photos by the university sign.

Despite a cool “Y” sweatshirt, Ollie didn’t seem very excited about all the hoopla.

He also didn’t understand the mortarboard. But then again, who does? It’s all about tradition, I suppose…

Kyra graduated a few months ago, last December, but also chose not to “walk”. Although we had a little graduation party for her (and something like three graduation dinners), we neglected to take any pictures. So she donned the cap and gown and posed with Grandma and Grandpa.

It was great that Mom and Dad could come out to celebrate the graduation. I’m so proud of all three of these kids and their accomplishments. Well done, and enjoy the rest of your life without homework and quizzes!

Flathead Lake was amazingly calm this evening. And when the sun set, well…

Yesterday Dad asked if it was a “shorts day”. It wasn’t. But today it was 70 degrees!

The rest of the week is supposed to be in the 40’s with rain and snow, which seems more par for the course. But we enjoyed a nice warm day today!

Alex and Kaitlyn have a long-running tradition of hosting a sock party every January. Apparently it’s a smashing success, and it’s a good way to wind down the college semester after finals. Taking a page from their playbook, we decided to do the same. April seemed like a good month for it, since the holidays are over but it’s still kind of cold and grey and wintry outside, and people are looking for something to do.

A couple weeks ago we handed out invitations with some instructions:

As with all our parties, we had no idea how many people would show up. We don’t ask for RSVPs and plans change anyway. In the end I counted at least thirty people. Imagine a bunch of full-grown adults sitting around laughing as we watched our friends unwrap the worst socks.

The wrapping was half the fun. True to the rules, people did some very clever things wrapping their socks. A set of sushi socks was enclosed in an old Chinese takeout box, complete with a fortune cookie! There were old tuna cans, a used bag from Subway, socks stuffed into a two-liter bottle, and even a pair of gaming-themed socks inside an ancient copy of Mille Bourne. It was hilarious.

At the end of the night we took some foot photos, but I was only able to get about half the crowd in this shot.

Honestly, we were really just looking for a reason to throw a party and get together with friends, and it turned out to be a bigger success than we’d expected. Maybe it’ll become a new annual tradition for us too…

If there’s one thing photographing the ocean teaches you, it’s how difficult it is to hold a camera perfectly level. I took nearly 1,200 pictures on our Hawai’i trip, and nearly every one featuring the ocean on the horizon had to be corrected for rotation. Here’s an example:

(At first glance this appears to be an incredibly boring photo, but I was catching the whales in the center of the shot.) Like most of my ocean shots, the horizon is off by 1.2 degrees, slanting downward to the right. Of course it’s not noticeable when taking the picture– it’s only when I pull it up on my enormous monitor that I can see the slant.

I guess it’s good to know that I’m consistent, always around 1.2 degrees off. And it’s also good that straightening the horizon takes just a few seconds…

For over three years, we’ve had a huge pile of tree debris and brush sitting beside our driveway. It was placed there by a forest management guy named Herb who was handling the fallen trees from the legendary windstorm of 2019. Technically it’s our neighbors’ property, so they paid Herb for the work, but Herb ended up deciding not to finish the job, and left a number of massive piles scattered across their land. They’ve been eyesores to us, so we finally talked to our neighbors about it and got permission to burn them.

Here’s what the main pile looked like this morning:

It’s hard to tell from the photo, but the pile is probably six feet high and at least twenty feet in diameter. It’s pretty massive. And I was standing on the driveway when I took the picture– that’s why we get to see it every day when we leave or return.

Our trusty friend Allen came over today with his propane torch, and showed us the proper way to burn debris. (“I’m kind of a pyro”, he kept mentioning.) When he first lit it, the flames were impressive and probably shot ten feet into the air.

He continued around the pile, lighting it at different points. The heat was intense.

Once the main pile had settled a bit, he torched another nearby pile. It’s not as big, and a little farther from the driveway, but still something that should’ve been taken care of years ago by Herb.

Now Pepper and I are glancing out the window now and then to make sure nothing gets out of control. Already the pile has been reduced to a lot of ash, and is generally just smouldering. In the end, I’m not sure if we’re going to actually gain anything with this project; it might just end up looking like a big ugly pile of burned debris. But hey, I learned how to do one more manly outdoorsey Montana thing!