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.
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…
You’d think the largest telecommunications company on earth would be able to build a web site that works.
But you’d be wrong.
Now that we’ve switched over to AT&T out of necessity (their coverage beats the competition in our area), I’m repeatedly frustrated by their web portal. Whenever I use it to see my bill, update my email preferences, or do pretty much anything, it fails. It doesn’t even work in browsers other than Chrome (which I avoid using). Just now it prompted me to agree to some new “disclosure of documents”, and when I clicked OK it popped up with an error message. When I attempt to validate my email address– which will send me an email– it fails. Really, AT&T? You can’t send an email message?
While I understand web portals like this can be complicated, I’m amazed at how horrible theirs is. As a web developer, I would’ve been embarrassed to release a product like this to a client.
As a fellow writer to this 7-year-old (can I call myself a “fellow writer”?), I have to congratulate him on a gripping introduction to his book. I, for one, want to know what happens next.
I feel like this would be a good exercise for one of those writers’ contests where everyone is given the same opening/topic/theme and has to write a short story using it. Imagine the results…
When people hear that I’m retired, they invariably ask what I do with my days. Many also ask if I have any new hobbies now that I have more free time. To date, I haven’t really picked up any new hobbies, although I’ve been fortunate to spend more time on some existing ones.
Until today.
Today I started the hobby of game design. I happen to like board and card games. A lot. I play them whenever I get a chance, which generally means whenever I can find someone willing to sit down with me for a few hours. It was a ton of fun to play with Kari’s kids last week in Missouri, and I’m working on gathering a gaming group here in the Bigfork area.
So I figured with all my game experience, I’d try my hand at designing one of my own. I thought about the concept, made up some cards and rules, and sat down to play.
As I’ve read a bit about game design, a common caution is that the first few times you play your own game, it’s going to suck. Yep. Mine did. There were several things that simply didn’t work. In addition, it didn’t feel very compelling… it was fairly deterministic, which would inevitably lead to optimal strategies which would win every time. So I need to introduce an element of chance, spice up the theme a bit, and so on.
I’m back to the proverbial drawing board, and I guess time will tell whether I’m any good at this hobby…
Our niece McKenna is leaving for a mission to Finland in a few weeks, and her “farewell” was in Utah on Sunday. We thought it would not only be a chance to wish her well and see some of Pepper’s family, but also to visit our kids at BYU. So after returning from Missouri, we packed up the car and headed south.
There was a lot of snow on the ground, and the sunny weather made it quite bright. Pepper doesn’t own a pair of sunglasses, so she borrowed mine and made a fashion statement by wearing them over her normal glasses.
As we hit the Salt Lake City area, it was rush hour. On a Friday. Of a holiday weekend. Yeah, fun. Although it’s hard to see in the photo below, the lines of cars and brake lights extends for miles.
It sure is nice to live in a small town, where rush hour means you might end up waiting a cycle of the one stoplight in town. Anyway, we made it to Provo and hung out with Alex, Kaitlyn, and Kyra for a few days. Dinner at the Olive Garden was wonderful, and Kaitlyn managed to score an amazingly cheesy mozzarella stick:
On Saturday, Pepper and Kyra went to the DI thrift store to shop for clothes. I was the lucky guy who wandered the store for nearly three hours waiting for them to try on a thousand things. In my journeys I found a photo that I considered buying and then hanging on a wall somewhere just to generate conversation (“Who are they?”).
There was an ancient contraption that’s either a medieval torture device or a sewing machine:
After walking the entire store, I sat on an old couch and literally read most of a (short) novel until the ladies were finished. Whee! Then it was off to Kaitlex’s apartment for a game of Aeon’s End:
Not surprisingly, they loved it– they play Dungeons and Dragons almost every weekend, so a D&D-themed game was right up their alley.
The mission farewell was great, we hung out with the fam for a few hours, and then drove back north. The scenery was really cool along the I-15 and I-90 corridors, including some pretty mountains in Utah:
The edge of a snowstorm in Idaho:
And a storm brewing in Montana:
All in all, it was a fun trip, and we plan to take more down to see the kids in the coming months.
In the pocket of my jeans, I always have three coins.
Two of them are gold dollars. I’ve been carrying them for around fifteen years, since reading The Richest Man in Babylon by George Clason. It had been recommended to me by a friend, and it was instrumental in helping me organize my finances and, eventually, retire. A quote from the book has always resonated with me:
“The man who wisheth to achieve must have coin that he may keep to jingle in his purse”
This was part of a lesson on saving money. Although two dollars isn’t much, and I never plan to actually spend these two coins, their jingling reminds me to be thoughtful in my spending and a wise steward of the blessings I have.
I added the third coin a few years ago. It’s a replica of the “mite” cast into the temple treasury by a poor widow, as told in Luke 21. It reminds me that despite the abundance in my life, I need to always remain humble and grateful.
