Post #250

Can it be? I've rambled on for 250 entries? I find that hard to believe. Then again, it's been nearly two years since the start of my blog!

Fall is in full affect in Western Montana, the leaves have gone from green to orange and red in a matter of days! Not only are the leaves changing, but so it the weather - Laura and I experienced it first hand this weekend.

But wait, before I start in on our weekend of geocaching (yes, that's basically all we did - AGAIN) I should start out with our Friday evening. Our dance class started on Friday and Laura and I spent an hour, escaping the rain, dancing with a wide range of folks learning to 'Cha Cha.' Now before you start laughing, or perhaps when you finish laughing at that statement, I have to make a confession. It was actually a lot of fun. There, I said it! I can hear my brother laughing at me already. All I can say is Laura and I can really shake a leg now, and we are just getting started! We actually picked things up pretty quickly on Friday night and we will be ready for an advanced step by this Friday - a few folks were still having trouble by the end of the first class, but I think they will pick it up pretty quickly this week - after a week of practice.

Now onto our geocaching weekend...

We slept in on Saturday morning - 8:00 is sleeping in for us these days - before getting ready for our day at "The Grubstake" restaurant in Hamilton, MT. The local geocachers have an occasional 'party' and they are always a grand time, so we make our best efforts to attend. The event on Saturday started in the afternoon, so wouldn't you know it, we had plenty of time to geocache before getting there! It's true, we really can't make a trip over 25 miles without incorporating a geocache or ten into the mix...

So after our morning of geocaching we found ourselves at 5,500 feet of elevation enjoying the view from the side of a mountain overlooking the Bitterroot Valley. The forecast called for rain most of the day, but nothing of the like arrived. We experienced a few occasional snowflakes, but that's it. In fact, after I took the pictures the clouds actually broke up and cleared out of the valley, leaving us with a blue sky! Here's the majority of the crew from the party. Laura and I especially enjoy the fall party at The Grubstake because the food is excellent! This year we were treated with huckleberry ice cream to go with homemade buttermilk pie and to wash it down there was homemade root beer!


After the party we had just enough daylight left in the sky to do a quick 3 mile hike to a geocache we attempted to get in the spring but got the canoubaru stuck. I blogged that story. This time we didn't have any trouble and we enjoyed the view from the overlook at Blodgett Canyon.

Sunday morning we thought about going duck hunting and then thought about doing some geocaching. In the end, we decided to take our shotguns geocaching! We compromise quite well. Although we didn't find any ducks, we did find four geocaches - bringing us up to 13 caches for the weekend and 1,455 total. Our goal has been to hit 1,500 before December 4, 2007 - our 3 year geocaching anniversary. By the looks of it we are going to make it and then some.

We aren't really ready for the coats to come out with the hats and gloves, but it looks like winter is going to be here a little early this year. We have already had a frost and lost our pumpkins the other night. We still had a few geocaches in the mountains we wanted to get to before the snow buried them, but it appears we are too late now. Oh well, that's the beauty of weather, you never really know what's going to happen.

As far as work goes, we will be starting on a patio tomorrow. That is, as long the weather cooperates and we don't receive the half inch of rain we are forecasted to have. Tonight I am thinking of making an appearance at ultimate frisbee or at least getting out for a walk to take in some fresh air. Until again

-=Nolan=-