Hot! Hot! Hot!

Wow! Someone get Al Gore on the phone and have him stop this global warming problem. It's mighty hot outside and it's only getting hotter around here. The past few days of work have been in the mid 90's and today the temperature is expected to reach 100. Friday and Saturday are even warmer at 105! It's hard to stay cool when it's getting that hot.

It's been a few weeks since I have sat down and blogged. Since we arrived back in Missoula we have been busy catching up with everything around the house, and we are still in the process of putting all the camping gear away. We camped above Gardiner, Montana - which is basically the North entrance to Yellowstone. You can see Mammoth Hot Springs in the background - it's the white spot in the background above my back.

After the tent was set up we went into Yellowstone and drove to Lamar Valley. We had hoped to spot a wolf or bear while we sat and ate supper, but we didn't see any. The bison were moving across the valley though, and that was neat to see them run. Most people tend to think the bison are slow, but they were really moving and when they run they kick up a lot of dust. We spent the evening in the Lamar Valley and then returned to our camp site in the dark. The sunset was quite nice and I snapped a few pictures of it as well. The larger version of the picture is a little more spectacular because you can see the stars and planets.

The next morning we spent in Yellowstone in Hayden Valley and then made our way to Cody, Wyoming for dinner. We spent the rest of the day driving to Kearney and made it at 3:00 a.m. on Sunday morning.

While we were back in Kearney I ran every morning at the high school with Nick and then sat around talking about the good ole days with he and Luke. I managed to lose 5 pounds rather quickly and now that I am back home I hope to keep them off, but it's tricky to travel for 2 days and not gain any weight when I sit in the car the entire time. We got a lot of things done in Kearney and even attended a wedding on Saturday. We had plans to leave on Sunday morning, and we basically stuck to the plan, but the wedding reception went until 1:00 a.m. and we didn't get out of Kearney until 11:00.

We went north through South Dakota and North Dakota on the way home, and that added 20 new counties to our map, plus we have been to North Dakota together as well. On our way back through Montana we drove Highway 12 the entire way across the state. Just outside of Miles City - which is in the Eastern part of the state, I was driving along as Laura slept when suddenly something caught my eye. I slammed on the brakes and startled Laura when I started yelling "ZEBRAS! ZEBRAS!" We had to stop and take a few pictures, Laura started observing the other horse around the zebras and realized that most of them were exotic horses, so it was neat to be able to see them up close.

We made it home around 8:00 p.m. on Monday evening and went to work at 7:30 Tuesday morning. Since then we have been busy getting back on track and my parents are going to be here next week to help keep our summer busy and interesting.

We are trying to make plans for a hike this weekend, but with temperatures over 100 I don't know that we will have much interest in any long hikes, however I suspect we will do it anyway and just try to do it early in the morning or late evening.

OH! One last thing to keep in mind. Friday the 13th is tomorrow! Until again

-=Nolan=-