Don We Now Our New Apparel

Thanksgiving has come and gone in a hurry... and after eating leftover turkey for the past four days it's now officially over for me! Our snowfall from earlier in the week is still covering the ground - in fact it has only been above freezing once this week and that was for only a few hours in the afternoon. Starting tonight the forecast is saying we are due for more snow through Wednesday. How much we receive is yet to be determined, but I am hoping for at least another six inches.

Friday, I found myself standing in line, out in the cold, outside of Staples at 5:15 a.m.. Not bad considering last year I was up at 3:00 and in line by 3:30. Amazingly, my shopping trip to Staples took me less than 5 minutes to walk into the store and check out. By 6:06 I was out the door, and by 6:10 I had gone down the road 4 blocks and was standing in line at Radio Shack. As far as my shopping list goes, I got nearly everything I wanted - which wasn't too much - but I did pretty well for family members wanting things. As amazing as it is, I managed to max out my credit card for the first time ever - I don't know if that's something to be proud of, but I managed to do it! Unfortunately for the credit card company they won't be collecting any interest off of me, I pay the entire bill and I pay it on time. I'm the kind of customer they like to hate. Too bad.

I picked Laura up around 8:00 and we went shopping together. One thing on our list we really wanted to get were snow shoes - and we got them! They will be nice for hiking trails in the snow and getting out for some hikes this winter. In fact, yesterday that's just what we did.

We waited for the temperature to warm up to a warm 21° F in the early afternoon before we hit the trail. We ventured south into the Bitterroot Mountain and up Bear Creek drainage on our way to find a cache. We hiked the trail last spring and knew it was a nice easy trail, so we knew our first shoe shoeing excursion wouldn't be too bad.

The trail was actually really nice. There had been enough traffic on it over the past week to create a nice base and made for a nice smooth hike. The cache was only 1.5 miles in and we didn't hike must slower than we usually would in the summer. In fact, the trail was actually smoother with the snow in the winter than it is with the rocks in the summer.

I took my pack along to haul some things for Laura, along with a few cameras and a tripod for taking some pictures. Not to mention we had to take some swag along to trade at the cache too! The pack is actually a lot more comfortable to wear in the winter because my big winter coat adds a lot of padding and the pack sits a little tighter to my center of gravity. It was still bulky and heavy - actually heavier with all the winter gear on - but I think I will take it along on our next adventure as well.

Laura brought a shovel along to dig for the cache. We expected it to be buried under at least a foot of snow, but turns out a rock had actually sheltered it and the cache was easy to get to. We have looked for caches in the snow before, and it can really be a pain if you don't dig in the exact right spot. We didn't think we would actually find the cache but we really wanted to take our snowshoes out for a hike, so we decided to have some motivation for a hike as well. After we found the cache, we took a few pictures and headed back for the car. The sun had already set over the ridge of the mountains to the south by the time we got to the trailhead around 2:00 p.m. so we didn't have much sunlight to deal with to begin with - by 4:30 the sun is down!

One of the pictures we posed for turned out to be a real laugh. I sat up the camera on the tripod and set the timer. Having my snowshoes on was the downfall of the picture session though - literally! As I hustled back to Laura I had to turn around - and if you have ever tried to turn around with a pair of skis on you know that sometimes you stumble over your own feet and.. OPPS! Down you go...I tried to recover as best I could from the fall but Laura was really getting a kick outta my ballet moves and laughing up a storm. I thought I finished it off with a nice move...Laura and I had a great time in the mountains with our snowshoes. I think we will be headed out with them again this weekend if we can find time. Maybe we'll even find another geocache while we are out.

Until again

-=Nolan=-

Here's a short video of Laura strutting her stuff!

Until The Snow Flys.

I don't even need to say anything. Just look at this.The winter quickly arrived in Western Montana on Sunday afternoon. Starting in the form of rain in the early afternoon, by 6:00 p.m. we had about an inch of snow on the ground. By the time Laura left to go babysit at 9:00 I was scooping about 3-4 inches of snow off the driveway and back deck. The snow didn't stop then though, it was still snowing when Laura came home around midnight and it was still going strong when we went to bed at 1:00 a.m. By Monday morning at 7:30 we had 11 inches of snow! I didn't mention the temperature was around 34 most of the night, so a lot of the snow was melting too! The snow finally stopped shortly after noon on Monday but came back for a second helping in the evening, but only adding an inch or two on top of things. By my meteorological investigations I estimate we received between 13 and 15 inches at the house!

As usual, the snow just fell slowly and stayed wherever it landed. Unlike the Nebraska and Wyoming snowfalls where the wind whips the snow into a series of drifts, the snow stays put here. Take a look at the chain-link fence! That's a regular metal pole on the top of the fence, and look at the snow piled up on top of it! I have to admit, that's one thing I enjoy around here, the snowfalls are beautiful.

Laura doesn't enjoy the snowfall as much when she has to walk to the bus stop to catch the bus too the college though. The half mile walk through a foot of snow wasn't too pleasant yesterday, as I experienced first hand. The lack of scooped sidewalks is more than ridiculous - understandable for elderly - but at 5:15 when I walked down to meet Laura at the bus stop it was easier to walk in the road than try to fight through the snow on the sidewalks.

On that note, I have a sidewalk of my own to scoop clear. Until again

-Nolan-

The Return Of Nolan (a.k.a Swirly Beard)

Goodness, it's been awhile since I blogged. Thankfully, Laura had a few things to say in my stead and blogged a few weeks ago. I've been so busy lately that I have only had my computer on a handful of times in the past few weeks.

For starters, we picked up a last minute landscape job and we have been trying to get as much done as possible before the weather ends our season. So, up until today we had been working sun up to sun down - about 9 hours a day. When the sun doesn't show up until 7:30 and it's gone around 5:00 it makes the day short and the nights long. Due to the fact that I have no daylight time to do stuff around the house, I have been getting home around 5:30, grabbing a bite to eat, and then checking off chores from the long list of "To Do." What was there to do? PACK our bags!

We made a trip to Nebraska, and took our first load of things back with us. We bought a trailer to move our things - we won't be taking everything in one trip this time. For some reason, we seem to be accumulating things as the years go by - imagine that! The trailer was a great investment, and I suspect it will get a lot of miles put on it. For starters, we put 2500 miles on it last week, and we will do it again next month. 5,000 miles right off the bat is a good start!

As for the trip, we left after my stained glass class on Wednesday night - around 11:00 p.m.. Switching gears for a moment, the window is coming along nicely. We finished our last class this previous Wednesday - I still have some work to be done on the window, but I have the knowledge of what will need to be done now. The picture I snapped of the window really doesn't look very good, but you can at least see how it looks for now.

Back to the trip - we drove into the night Wednesday and into Thursday morning, only stopping in Columbus, MT, Sheridan, WY, and Casper for gas. We reached Cheyenne at noon on Thursday and grabbed some McDonald's before hitting the road again around 1:00. We made a stop in Brule, NE to pick up some stuff for my brother and then another quick stop in North Platte to pick up Gram's computer for a much needed overhaul. We arrived in Kearney a few minutes before 8:00 p.m. on Thursday evening - 20 hours after leaving and 1,150 miles down the road. It wasn't too bad though - I worked sun up to sun down on Wednesday, had an hour between work and glass class, then made it home a few minutes before 10:00 p.m. to put the final things into the truck and tie down the tarps. I slept combined total of 20 minutes on the drive back to Nebraska, but I didn't require any extra sleep on Thursday night - I just woke up early as usual and started the day...

Friday was spent with family and getting my semi-annual haircut. Followed by wedding rehearsal. OH! I forgot to mention, that was reason number two for venturing back to Nebraska. My good friend who ran with me in high school and college got married, and I was part of the festive group celebrating the occasion... So after the rehearsal dinner we spent a few more hours with family before getting some sleep before the long day on Saturday.

The wedding was a great time, and a lot of high school friends were there. Few live around Kearney these days (including us) so it's rare to see them, and even more rare to see everyone together.

Sunday we rolled out of Kearney in the late morning and made our way back to Cheyenne to spend Monday with Laura's parents. After a quick stay in Cheyenne it was back to Missoula on Tuesday to get back to work on Wednesday and pay off the $500 we spent on gas for the trip! Can you believe that! We were a little disgusted by the price of gas, but decided that money is just money and family and friends are hard to put price on. Either way, the trip was great and we will do it again next month.

Work is still going strong. We are planning to work until the snow starts flying, and then we will put our work gloves away for the season. Hopefully I can get a few pictures of the project before the snow gets here, I really want to show off the work. As far as this weekend, we don't have much planned. A day at home getting caught up on our lists, and then maybe a day of hunting on Sunday. Either way, it's a short week with Thanksgiving on Thursday and I am planning on doing some hunting on Thanksgiving morning as well.

Until again

-Nolan-

The Mysterious Swirl

Well Nolan has not had time to blog this weekend so I (Laura) am filling in. I will begin with a very disturbing image. This is Nolan's beard and for some odd reason it always grows with a unique swirl. He has now earned the nickname "Captain Swirlybeard" as he has begun wearing a beard quite frequently to prevent his face from freezing in the mornings at work. The origin of the swirl is still an unsolved mystery but has made for some interesting conversation starters. Now on to our week of adventures. We began the week by carving pumpkins on Sunday afternoon with some friends from the Chemistry department. Nolan decided to go freehand while I chose to go with a pattern in hopes that my pumpkin might not look like it had been carved by a third grader this year. We were both pleased with the outcome (mine is the ghost and Nolan's is the zombie face) and proudly displayed them in our kitchen away from any prying eyes for Halloween. Our apartment is in the basement of a house and we enter in from the backyard. Last year the upstairs neighbor let us hand out candy on Halloween with her but this year we were not so lucky so our pumpkins were not enjoyed by any of the neighborhood kids. Monday was my birthday so Nolan took me out for a nice Italian dinner and then we watched "The Last King of Scotland." The movie is loosely based on the story of Idi Amin's brutal reign as president in Uganda during the 1970's. It was a good film but definitely not one for the faint of heart. Wednesday night was Halloween but we did not have any parties to attend this year so Nolan went to his stained glass class and made a lot of progress. The window is really starting to come together, I think my parents will be very excited to see it at Christmas. Saturday Nolan played some ultimate frisbee in a hat tournament which required wearing (and playing in) a Halloween costume as an entrance fee. Nolan went as a convict (orange jump suit) and by the end of the day after all of that diving for discs he looked like an escaped convict to boot. I had to work most of the day but managed to get over to the fields to snap a few photos of the game action. At the end of the tournament there was a race to see who was the fastest ultimate player in Missoula. It turned out to be roughly 60 meters and there was a hat drop to start the race. However, as most of the participants had been drinking some beers throughout the tournament, the exact rules of the race were a little blurred. So Nolan ended up starting at the drop of the hat rather than at the end of the countdown but still managed to place second. He was a little bummed that he did not win the "fastest Missoula ultimate player" t-shirt but still enjoyed the day. Today he woke up with a lot of aching muscles but still managed to help me pack up some books and camping gear to take back to Nebraska with us this week when we head to Kearney for a wedding. We finished up the day with an afternoon hunting excursion. After setting up and waiting for about half an hour, we had a flourish of activity. Nolan was gunning for a pintail in full plumage but it just wouldn't come in quite close enough for him to hit it but I managed to land a drake mallard from the group. Unfortunately that was the only activity we saw all afternoon until we jumped a couple of ducks in a small stream on the way home. Nolan got a mallard on the creek and we headed home to clean ducks and rest up for another week.