So, there I was, wandering around the dairy section of the grocery store (exciting life, I know,) when I spotted eggnog. Ah, the non-alcoholic beverage of the Gods! The sight of this rich and creamy drink clued me in–it must be Christmas, Hanukkah, Festivus For the Rest of Us, dance around a bonfire at night,…
Category: Life in Montana
Wild Adventures Despite Rain!
Last week I went on my last planned backpacking trip of the year, with the University of Montana’s Wilderness Institute. I was super-excited about this trip, because we were hiking the Anaconda Pintler Wilderness, including a stretch on the Continental Divide Trail (CDT.) The AP Wilderness is absolutely gorgeous, gigantic, and normally empty of people….
Clearing Blodgett Canyon Trail with the Selway-Bitterroot Frank Church Foundation
Whew! What a fabulous but exhausting trip. Blodgett Canyon is probably the iconic trail of the Bitterroot Mountains. Stunning canyon walls, two waterfalls, and a long, gradual ascent to a beautiful lake at the end, twelve miles away. Working with the Selway-Bitterroot Frank Church Foundation is always a pleasure, too. It’s great to see the…
2020 According to The Amazing Sleeping Man
As some of you know, The Amazing Sleeping Man writes our annual Christmas letter. Here it is, in its dubious glory! Yo! Find your favorite piece of cardboard, break dancing is going to be in the Olympics. I cannot wait to see the Nordic countries break dancing to Abba’s “Dancing Queen.” AM said she will…
Insomnia and Cooking
(Post edited 24 Feb 2022 to remove nation-state aggressor names to avoid getting hacked.) Sometimes, I just can’t sleep. That doesn’t happen as much these days–when I was still in the USAF, I used to keep a notebook by my bed and write down what was worrying me so I could go back to sleep….
2019 according to The Amazing Sleeping Man
Wow, what a year! I can not believe we were able to cram two-months of activities into twelve months. Yep, pretty slow year here, not sure where it went but I know it was not adrenaline-filled. Snowboarding/skiing got off to a slow start, then some big storms rolled in and it was powder nirvana. We…
Operation Warrior Sanctuary
Earlier this year, a wonderful thing happened. A generous soul, who wishes to remain anonymous, donated a Montana land lease with a campground and many buildings called Camp Ponderosa, to the Northwest Montana Veteran’s Food Pantry and Standdown organization. It’s located in the beautiful Swan Valley, between Seeley Lake and Condon, and near Flathead Lake…
Guest Post
One of the other wonderful authors in The Expanding Universe 5 anthology, Lawrence Schoen, has an amazing blog called Eating Authors. He asks each author a deceptively easy question: “What’s your most memorable meal?” Check out my answer here. (Notice the new pic with Zoe!) Then go read the rest–he’s interviewed a lot of fabulous and…
A wild trek for the last wild shots
Last Saturday, Seb and I hiked up to the Fisher research site we’ve been caring for to dismantle it and bring back all the equipment. It was pleasantly warm–the mid-50s F–but rainy, so we were in rain pants and jackets most of the way. There was still quite a bit of snow on the…