Still playing catch up…but wanted to share the beauty of the fall season in my neck of the woods. It is spectacular. Here’s the proof.

Still playing catch up with the photos. I will be for awhile, I think. In September, we went to the East side of Glacier National Park. There are more wildlife to see there and it is just different than the west side. We got to see a couple of moose at Fishercap Lake and what a thrill that was! We saw a lot of bear scat…but no bears. I got to play photographer and fiddle around with speed and light with some waterfalls. Here are some of the photos I took from that day.

Glacier National Park is spectacular…no matter what time of year it is. I went to Glacier one afternoon after a snow in mid-November to take a few photos. You can’t get but about 10 miles into the west side of the park after mid-October due to heavy snow in the higher elevations. When I say higher snow, I mean like 80 FEET of snow. It is crazy amounts of snow. Anyhow, here are some of the photos. It was a really beautiful clear day, which is rare here in the winter. We have a lot of inversion clouds during the winter, which makes us socked in a majority of the time. It is pretty in its own right, but this was a crystal-clear day and no winds…McDonald Lake was so very still, making for beautiful reflective photos.

Whelp….I have a local yocal event to share with you! Today, Rich and I, along with another couple who lives in our neighborhood, when to Martin City for the Cabin Fever Days. We specifically went to see the Barstool Ski Races. We did forego the snowshoe softball game (CAN YOU IMAGINE???) because the Barstool Ski Races had us tapped out for Montanan events for the day…..maybe even the whole weekend, perhaps the week! Martin City is one of the little cities (honestly it has city in the name but it is barely qualifies as a town or village anywhere else in the U.S.) that is in the Bad Rock Canyon on the way to Glacier National Park from our spot just east of Columbia Falls. As I mentioned with Hungry Horse, these town are where we do mutual aid fire calls….Hungry Horse, Martin City, Coram, West Glacier, etc. We all have different equipment so we can help each other out…we have vehicle extrication tools like spreaders (the jaws of life) that Hungry Horse may not have….so if they get an MVA (motor vehicle accident), we go on their calls to assist. Anyhow, this event was a fundraiser for those volunteer fire departments. A local tattoo artist came up with the art for this year and I love it! 

If you notice, it is the 45th annual Cabin Fever Days. The barstool ski races are the high light of the event, even though I mentioned the snowshoe softball games and there is also lots of food trucks and arts vendors on the trek up to Sugar Hill for the races, and there is also a mountain man competition and an arm wrestling contest. Later in the evening there is a doubles pool tournament, a dart tournament, and karaoke at several local area bars. We stopped on the way out at the food trucks and Rich and I had wild boar sausage on a bun with maple mustard (Rich skipped the mustard) and pineapple salsa. Interesting, right? It was messy but man, it was good!

So on to the main event of the day…barstool ski races. It is just like it sounds….you affix a barstool of your choice to some skis, sit on it and get shoved down a hill on main street. There are two racers per heat and usually the more dressed up you are, the better the crowd participation. You can always tell if someone falls as the entire crowd reacts audibly. When the two guys dressed up as ducks fell near us, the crowd cheered them on, yelling, “quack , quack, quack, quack!” The majority of the crowd is being kept warm by flannel shirts, Carhart pants and jackets, mucking boots, and the kind of liquid that warms you from the inside out….and I don’t mean hot chocolate or coffee. LOTS OF ALCOHOL. We arrived at noon and there were at least 1000 people there, all of them pretty toasty off their liquid courage. There was a lumberjack-looking woman standing near me who had her silicone collapsable cups in her backpack, along with her bottle of crown royal. Smart. She was not cold. Anyhow, back to the races…there are three categories: straight barstools on skis, a barstool-like contraption on skis that can be steered, and then the open event where people do whatever on skis to make it fun for the crowd. I took a few photos with my phone. Here they are….because I can’t make this up, folks!

Here is a video:

I have been so busy doing so much learning for our new travel advisory business (you would think being an avid traveler would be enough…but alas, there is so much to learn!) and then taking this emergency medical responder course….it takes up a lot of time….I have yet to pick up my nice camera in 2024 and I miss it. I realized that I had over 1000 photos to go through in lightroom. After taking a block test and taking notes on a new chapter, I opened up my surface to start going through some photos. I am in my happy place! I am pretty far behind…many photos were from the fall. 

Here are some photos from the Hungry Horse Dam. Hungry Horse is the small town between where we live and Glacier National Park. We answer mutual calls with Hungry Horse volunteer fire department. They are a great group of folks. They came to our fire hall when I helped teach Stop the Bleed class. They drove over in their bright shiny new fire truck. Truck envy…it’s a thing between rural volunteer fire departments. These were taken in October.

These next photos were taken in Whitefish, Montana, about 20 minutes from our house. This was in September, the last summer runs up Big Mountain on the ski lifts before they closed until ski season. The views were spectacular.

At the end of September, I drove 5 hours to Anaconda, Montana, near Butte. I went to a program for women of western Montana with cancer, called Mending in the Mountains. It was a free weekend getaway….we just had to get there. There were 60 of us women and it was wonderful to meet people going through some of the same things I am. Think of Shrek and Donkey talking about the onion….I didn’t have to worry about peeling away so many layers, because we all had a lot of the same layers. It is nice to not have to explain things…side effects from meds, fears of treatments or death. For me it was like being with my military friends, they know the lifestyle and the sacrifices made…they just get it. Here were some of the photos on the way there and back.

The next group of photos were taken in Glacier National Park on November 1st. My mom was visiting at the time and there was some snow, but still some pretty colors as well. This is why GNP is called the Crown Jewel of the Continent (and why we named our Cruise Planners business Crown Jewel Cruise Planners….as a nod to our beautiful national park right here in our back yard.

I have so many photos to still work on….lots from our time in San Diego….they have a pretty awesome zoo and safari park there. I also have more Glacier National Park photos from both the East and West side…including some moose photos that I can’t believe I haven’t processed yet. Those are forthcoming.

February 4th is World Cancer Day. I just got done watching the Stanford women’s basketball team win over UCLA decisively whilst wearing their pink uniforms to honor cancer patients. Pink tends to be identified as bringing awareness to breast cancer. Today, however, is for ALL cancers….whether your ribbon is pink, green, turquoise, orange, navy, white, black, or purple, like mine. Today honors all the fighters out there, slogging through each day as best we can. It honors those who have gone before us and fallen in the fight, to remember their valiant efforts to help others coming behind them by talking to researchers, agreeing to clinical trials, and recording their struggles and triumphs. No one with cancer dies in vain. I have lost a lot of friends since the last year. I am an active part in a cancer zoom group out of Nebraska of chronic cancer patients. These folks saved me when I was diagnosed almost 4.5 years ago. They became my cancer tribe….the people I could talk about anything to and they would laugh and not be horrified. Four of those wonderful ladies have died in that core group of about 7 or 8 of us. I miss them. I miss seeing their smiles and their laughs…even in the midst of some really serious stuff going on in their lives. I have a very close friend who is struggling with cancer reoccurrence right now. It isn’t good, but man, she is a fighter and I know she will be giving it her all. I almost feel guilty. I was given a death sentence in Oct 2019. Here I am living life to its fullest everyday and doing pretty good. I don’t want you to think it is a cake walk. It isn’t. I am on so many pills everyday….and shots once a month…and IV infusions every 3 months. But I have embraced my “normal” and have run with it. What were my options, really? Cancer can be a very isolating disease. I think about that every time I am in a CT scanner….in that huge whirring donut tube where a recording tells me to hold my breath as I am mechanically rolled in and out of the tube and then IV contrast is pushed into my system that makes me feel like I am being boiled from the inside out for about 60-90 seconds, where they repeat the scans again. My life is so much easier than so many I know with my disease of leiomyosarcoma. I am thankful for that and after losing Joe, I know not to waste a single minute of it.

Little catch up on us….we had our fire department awards night last night. It was fun to see all the guys gussied up. I am used to seeing them in dirty Carhart pants and mucking boots and hoodies. On calls, we are all in our bunker gear. So to see folks in dress shirts and pants and even several ties…it made me smile. They announced our new lieutenants and the firefighter of the year (which is my new lieutenant). There were blooper awards which launched into embellished stories of people’s screw ups. It was a fun evening.

Today we went to Mass and the celebrant was our bishop! Our parish is called a part of a deanery, and we are a part of the diocese of Helena, Montana. (3.5 hours drive from us) It was nice to meet him and to hear his homily. I have befriended a little guy named Vinnie who sits in front of us during Mass. He is maybe 8 years old. I am not good at guessing anymore. He has 3 sisters. He is the 2nd oldest. He noticed my Maltese cross I wear everyday with Joe’s OFD badge number on it. He noticed there was writing on the back as well. I told him it was in both English and in Italian. He told me he was a quarter Italian. (He was very proud of that!) We had a really great talk after Mass before he got distracted by something. (He is an 8 year old boy, after all). We stopped by the firehall on the way home and did some chores there. We got home and it was snowing pretty steadily. I put on my Carhart pants and mucking boots and Rich and I took Tallinn for a walk. He loves the snow. He chases snowballs and gets so disappointed when they disappear. I took this photo of him intent on watching Rich making a snow ball to toss for him. Total concentration. He wore himself out bounding in the dense 8 inch snow we have right now in our neighborhood. He has been tuckered out in his dog bed all afternoon. He is loving life in Montana. I think the only thing he misses about Nebraska is the mailman. We have to walk about 1/3 of a mile to the neighborhood post office box. He doesn’t see mail trucks anymore, which he recognizes and knows they contain the mail man…who brings treats for him….at least in Nebraska. We have so few cars in our area that he rarely has anything to look at. He does give the UPS man a bark every now and then. He is not as happy with them – never even liked their trucks going by in Nebraska either. Tallinn enjoys watching the deer….and playing in a big yard. I think he likes his bed being in my office where he can just hang with me all day. I was studying at the kitchen table the other day and he plopped himself down by my side in the dining room on the floor with a sigh. He is still my little side kick. I fell off a step ladder on Friday….I am fine….it was just a clumsy move on my part…but I fell pretty hard. He was right there trying to hug my neck with his and licking my face (which is not something he normally does). He was pretty concerned, poor guy. I am so lucky to have this little guy in my life!

We had some time to take some family photos for our Christmas cards while we were in San Diego. These are some photos that DIDN’T make the cut, but I still thought they were good.

We flew back to Montana early on Wednesday morning. It was a 50 degree temperature drop from San Diego, where we were sporting our winter tans. We hit the ground running. We had doctors appointments and zoom meetings and dentist appointments and fire department training. No cavities…praise God! I have been spoiled to have gone to the same dentist in Bellevue, Nebraska for 12 years. For an Army brat and Air Force spouse, that is a rarity. I continued driving 30 minutes to see her when we moved to Omaha because I just didn’t want someone new. This new office was great. Everyone was friendly. My hygienist (a guy) was a Marine for 10 years. The dentist was in the Air Force for many years and is still in the reserves. I had a big appointment at the hospital in Kalispell for labs, an appointment with the oncology nurse practitioner (who is a former Army nurse – I hadn’t met her before this), a lupron shot (big, big needle) and a zometa infusion (done every 3 months to seal my bones from more tumor growth). It ended up being a 3 hour affair. It began snowing during my time at the hospital on Thursday and just kinda continued on. It is snowing now. I think the valley has gotten maybe 2-3 inches but the mountains are getting feet of snow…which is good as the ski season starts Thursday up here.

We had training outside popping doors off of a junked car and using the extrication tools (jaws of life – type stuff) for our fire hall training on Thursday night. I was plenty toasty in my bunker gear in the snow. I was the person taking care of the dummy in the car (or under the car) depending on the scenario. I told the training officer that I knew I was not strong enough to handle and carry those machines. I would do cribbing or take care of Rescue Randy. It was a lot of fun for 3 hours out in the dark and the snow. The next night we came to the hall early and decorated the trucks with lights and then drove through the Night of Lights parade. I had no idea what a big deal this parade was! It was snowing like crazy and cold…and all 5000 people from Columbia Falls were out in full force for the parade.

We had a good time. We spent the weekend decorating our house. Here are a couple of photos of our new house decorated for Christmas.

Last year we tried to have a traditional Thanksgiving. It was very hard. When Tim decided to pursue working with collegiate basketball teams, we knew we would lose him to whatever tournament his current team was playing in during the Thanksgiving break. Rich and I decided at that point that we would make our future Thanksgiving holidays about basketball and go to wherever Tim and his team were. They had already made a big trip to Italy in the late summer, so they stayed home for Thanksgiving. We were fine with that as Lily and Rich had not been to San Diego yet. Rich and I flew into Burbank/Hollywood direct from Kalispell on a new (no frills) airline called Avelo. We actually were quite impressed. There is no drink service…no snacks….no frills. You get on and they get you there and back. It was between 2 and 2.5 hours to get there and then it is another 2 hour drive to get to San Diego. (At least it should have been. It took us 4 hours to get there the Wednesday before Thanksgiving.) We rented a car and because Rich guessed the salesman was from Turkey (and he was), he got a free upgrade to a 2023 red Ford Mustang convertible. It is a fun, little sporty car, but the key is little. Not quite a four-adult car…but we made it work and we had great weather for convertible time.

We managed to squeeze a lot in during our time there. Lily flew in from KC on Wednesday night. The three of us stayed on Miramar (hello Top Gun!). Lily was able to stay from Wednesday night until Sunday night. Rich and I stayed a full week, from Wednesday to Wednesday. Thanksgiving day was the only day that Tim had off all day. We spent the day at the San Diego Zoo and then ate dinner at Denny’s. It was actually really nice. The next day while Tim was working, the rest of us went to the Zoo Safari about an hour north of San Diego. That was AMAZING. Can’t wait to get the photos back from that day as they had 4 month old Siberian tiger cubs romping around. Met several photographers waiting for them to come out and play. I have some Christmas stuff to get done, but will have those up soon, I hope, as well as the rest of our trip. We managed to get some time on the beach….Coronado and La Jolla Cove. We got to see harbor seals and seagulls. I have to admit that San Diego has the best sunsets…hands down. They were spectacular every single day. We also spent the day at Sea World, which was fun. Rich and I took a hop on, hop off trolley tour of San Diego which was pretty interesting. They have one of the biggest Little Italy’s in the country. We had lunch there and walked around. We spent time on Coronado and really enjoyed walking around there. We also took a tour of the U.S.S. Midway, which was amazing. Basically, we saw a lot of the major things in San Diego and now we know what we want to spend more time at when we go back again. We were able to get a tour of the weight room at UCSD and he showed us all the sports science side of his job (which is a lot – it is crazy what he does! ) We were all super impressed. We got to see the women’s team play a couple of times while we were there. It was great to see Tim in action. I have included some photos below. That was not his home gym, but a cross-town rival, SDSU. It reminded me of The Pit at the University of New Mexico, where Rich and I went to college….it looks like a one story building on the outside and then just goes straight down. That was A LOT OF STEPS!

One of the best things we got to do was on our last full day there. Rich and I met a friend of mine, MeiLing, for lunch on Coronado. I met MeiLing when we were both bridesmaids at a wedding at Annapolis. She knew the groom, as they were midshipmen together, and I knew the bride. We were both getting ready to go into the military….MeiLing into the Navy, and me, into the Air Force. This was 31.5 years ago. Annapolis has strict guidelines about the weddings at their chapels and the shortest bridesmaids had to be at the end. That was MeiLing and me. We chatted throughout the rehearsal…then at the reception. We became good friends and have always stayed in touch over the decades that passed. I had not seen her since that first time I met her back at Annapolis. That bear hug for her was a long time coming. I also got to introduce her to Rich. It was like the years melted away. It was wonderful!

Although we missed having Joe around with us, it was nice to talk about him with people who knew him his whole life. I felt like he was with us, enjoying San Diego. I felt his presence everywhere.