When Tim, Rich, and I went to visit Crater Lake National Park in March, we couldn’t really see anything. There was 130% of the annual snowfall on the ground at the time…over 13 feet of snow. We went snowshoeing and had a blast, but didn’t get anywhere near the rim or the lake. While I was driving home to Montana from San Diego, I decided to take a brief break and do a 2 hour trolley tour around the rim and see what we missed in the early spring. Even though there was a lot of smoke in the air from wild fires in western Oregon, I thought it was absolutely mesmerizingly beautiful.

I took some notes when I was on the trolley to share with you. The rim and lake is actually a caldera (where a volcano’s center has collapsed upon itself). The lake is 1943 feet deep. If you place the Eiffel Tower, stack the Washington Monument on top of it, then the Statue of Liberty on top of those two, you would still have about 60 feet of water above the torch until you reach the surface. It is not the deepest lake in the world, but it is one of them. The water is incredibly clear. There is no sediment or anything foreign that goes into the water. The water is from rain and snowmelt only. Nothing runs into the lake due to the rim. Every summer, the rangers and scientists lower an 8 inch radius disc attached to a rope into the lake. You can see the disc 130 feet down easily. It is one of the clearest lakes in the world. It is pretty cold. Once you are more than 10 feet below the surface, the temperature drops to 38 degrees. In the warmest part of the year in August, the surface temp is about 55 degrees. Why is it so blue? It is the sun reflecting back from the sun. Is there fish? They introduced several kinds of fish in the lake in 1890 to promote more visitors. Only two kind survived; rainbow trout and kokanee salmon. The trout grow to about 20 inches long and the salmon around 18 inches. There is also crayfish (they were introduced to the lake on purpose but sadly, they have almost destroyed the only indigenous species in the lake, the Manzana Newt.) The only indigenous mammal around is the pika. The island in the lake is called Wizard Island. There is also this Hemlock log/tree that floats in the lake that is called The Old Man of the Lake. It is over 100 years old and floats vertically about 7 feet above the water. I was actually able to see it while we were on the tour. The guide said that one summer the Old Man of the Lake moved over 60 miles just from the lake currents. They also joke about the fact that the log actually controls the weather around the lake.

The scenery was amazing. I hardly did anything to these photos. I almost wanted to turn down the blue hues…but I wanted you to see what it looked like to the naked eye. It was crazy blue. If you get a chance to go…..you should! I have one odd ball photo in here…because this tree….fighting to survive the elements on the road up to Crater Lake National Park, just spoke to me.

I have mentioned that I helped our son, Tim, move to San Diego at the end of June. I was only there for about 48 hours and most of that was helping him get settled into his new place. We did take a break on the second afternoon to head to the San Diego Zoo. It is FABULOUS! I loved it. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a good telephoto zoom lens with me. It was pretty warm (for San Diego). They had mister sprays blowing on many of the animals….some of the people as well. The San Diego Zoo is a lot of up and down hills. It is a place I would like to spend all day with my good camera and my big lens. There were A LOT of people there. I look forward to visiting Tim again soon and spending another day there rather than just a few hours. We had a good time though! The zoo is only about 20 minutes from his new place!

By the way….Tim is doing great! He is the sports performance coach for the women’s basketball team at the University of California San Diego. He also gives a hand on the men’s basketball side as well. He has a great house that he is living in where he has 3 male roommates who he actually knows their names and what they look like. He has two rooms to himself and use of all the shared living spaces as well. It is a nice neighborhood in the University City area in a quiet little neighborhood where there are a lot of retired folks. Not a lot of little kids zooming about. His backyard is spacious, walled in and has lemon trees and a few other fruit trees as well as beautiful flowering bushes. He has been working over 12 hour days the last couple of weeks getting into the flow of his new position. He has had a steep learning curve but is putting in the extra effort to get on track with the high level sports science they use for practice. If you know Tim, he is always eager to learn and then master something new. He is working on that now. He leaves with the team next week to go to Italy for 10 days. They will be playing some games while they are there but will also be doing a lot of touristy-type things that will help with team building for the year. I am so, so proud of what he is doing with his life and I am glad he is finally in a spot where he can be challenged, appreciated, and also have a life because he is getting paid. Makes a momma’s heart happy. He has definitely paid his dues at the last several spots he was at. Anyhow, here are a few photos I took at the San Diego Zoo….

Anyone who knows me just a little bit, knows how much I love sunflower fields. I will drive hours to see them for an hour of photographs, then turn around and drive hours back home. I also loved lavender fields. I am a fan of purple and the smell is amazing. We are fortunate enough to have gone to the lavender fields in Sequim, Washington four years ago. They are some of the most beautiful and large fields of lavender in the United States. Lily and I drove an hour to see a lavender field in Iowa last summer and were more than a bit disappointed. We took more photos with the frogs in the nearby pond. However, we did hear about lavender fields near us in Montana. About 30 minutes away is a tiny rural town called Somers, Montana. We wound our way over there a couple of days ago to visit one of their lavender farms. It did not disappoint. Just like sunflowers, lavender attracts bees. However, there were lots of big, buzzing bumblebees here. They flew just slow enough for me to capture them doing their busy work of pollinating! The first couple of photos let you know how far away we are from everyone!

Lily is still smiling…she hates bugs….especially bees! She is getting better though! She has been my wingman for most of my flower photography over the last couple of years and she is not as nearly as bad as she used to be. Instead of screaming and running, she just makes a weird guttural noise in her throat and throws some pretty impressive matrix moves to avoid any bugs flying near her.

I am FINALLY getting to all the photos on my good camera…so there should be photos coming! I wanted to share some sunset photos. The darkest one…with the moon…that was actually in Washington state as I was driving towards Montana. You know how your GPS sends you on a wild goose chase through the countryside to save you 2 minutes in your drive? Well, I was out in the middle of NOWHERE all alone for over an hour. I was literally getting a little nervous. There were forest fires in the near area and that cloud is actually a smudge of smoke. I was in such a rural area that I thought it was sprinkling but it was actually bugs hitting my windshield and car. Oh my goodness, it was a mess! I could barely see when I pulled into the motel. God was smiling on me though, because they were resurfacing the motel parking lot and the motel had everyone parking at the business next door….a CARWASH. Best $12 I ever spent the next morning! The other sunset photos are from just down the road from us in Columbia Falls. I went down to take some photos of the sunsetting behind the water. I was ill-prepared for the bushes and brambles though. So they are peek-a-boo shots between the branches.

I received a wonderful “welcome to your new home” card in the mail and I wanted to share a Bible verse that was in it. By wisdom a house is built, and through understanding it is established; through knowledge its rooms are filled with rare and beautiful treasures. (Proverbs 24:3-4) I just thought that was such a wonderful verse to read and then share. Lily, Rich, and Tallinn have joined me and I think they are loving the house. The hummingbirds have moved on, although I have seen one straggler since our return. We hung up a regular bird feeder in some high grass near our front porch. I saw a few birds but mostly I am feeding a very fat squirrel and several deer. The squirrels are a deep, dark gray with smaller bodies and tails than those in Nebraska. They are loud! Tallinn chased after one in the yard and it leapt up a tree easily and started just chattering very loudly at him….he gave Tallinn the what have you for a good 2-3 minutes.

This afternoon I looked up and there were three adult deer with four fawns in our front yard. That was a first and a real treat.

Tallinn is getting used to the house. He has his bed in my office and he sleeps there at night. He doesn’t let me far from his sight. He literally runs into me if I stop suddenly. The first morning I woke up and opened the bedroom door, he was there waiting for me. He can hear me get up and is at the door in a flash. He could not, however, figure out the way to the door to the back yard. He was trying to lead the way and looked like a mouse in a maze, trying each door and each direction. He has it all figured out now. He enjoys the big kitchen as he always lays in the middle of the kitchen when I am in there. This kitchen is big enough that I can work around him. I have included a photo of him begging for cheese from Lily. She is not a sharer of things…especially food…and especially with the dog. He always is hopeful though. He has already spent several hours on the front porch with me. The area where our rockers are is always shaded, so it is a nice place to sit and relax.

We got a lot done this week in getting settled. We moved Lily’s furniture to the guest room and then the bigger furniture Rich decided at the last minute to bring to Montana into her room. I went to wake her up the next morning and even though she was sleeping in a king-sized bed, she had managed to wrap herself up in the quilt like a burrito. I don’t know how she does it. She was 5 years old before she could even keep covers on her at night. We had a very long and wide gravel driveway….it is now paved with asphalt . That will be nice in the winter when we need to plow the driveway. I am thinking that if we want Tim to ever visit, we should get a basketball hoop.

We also spent an inordinate amount of time getting license plates for the vehicles, motorcycles, trailers, etc. I managed to get in on a fluke I now know, to get my driver’s license. Lily has a quick turnaround though. She had to get her driver’s license and license plates done in a 2.5 week period of time before she leaves for college. I took her 30 minutes away to the nearest driver’s license place. They turned us away and said come back the next morning at 8 a.m. So we did, and were turned away again. By this time, I was not happy. I was told to get an appointment. The next available appointment was October 23rd. We hopped in the car and drove an hour south to Polson, MT and walked right in and got it done there. My license will most likely outlast me at 12 years. Lily will renew hers at age 21 in 2.5 years. Either way, hopefully it can all be done online. The DMV for the license plates was also challenging. No appointments are given. You show up, take a number and then scan a QR code which tells you the number they are on and then leave. The first time I went, I was turned away because I needed Rich’s signature on a document. I came back and arrived before it even opened. There were already dozens of people in line around the building. We all filed in at 8 a.m. when they opened and took a number. They only have 3 out of 6 windows open. They service 20 people an hour on average. Remember when I said we arrived before they opened? Well, we waited 5 hours to be seen. We also found out we could only do 2 items at a time. We have two vehicles, a motorcycle, Lily’s car, an enclosed trailer, and a motorcycle trailer. All of them needed to be licensed. This meant we had to go to this place at least 3 times. There is no going to a smaller location because the taxes you pay on your title is county specific. So they open at 8 a.m. By 9 a.m., there is a sign on the ticket dispenser…..

I think I could make a lot of money if I had a food truck outside of this building. I actually said to the woman working there the last time I went in, “I think all of you are really nice people but I would much rather see you socially than here in this building. This has been crazy.” Anyhow, all good for now. Renewal can be done online or you can walk right up to a window without a number. Sigh. This will seriously make me think twice about getting a new vehicle. I know it will happen come winter though, because my 10 year old Altima isn’t good in the snow and ice.

We have had very warm weather for here over the last few weeks. Mid-90’s to even 100 degrees. We have very low humidity though, so that is helpful for being outside…especially if you are in the shade. However, it has been bad for the forest fires here in Montana. Every day seems different. It was really smokey the last several days, but today was mostly overcast and 25 degrees cooler, and I couldn’t smell the smoke at all. We have a chance of rain the next couple of days, so hopefully that will help as well. I went out yesterday as the sun was coming up to take some photos. It was smokey at that point, but I got a couple of good photos. These are my phone photos, so hopefully my good camera will give me some good ones as well.

We also took a quick trip about 45 minutes south to pick some cherries. Cherries and huckleberries are very popular here. Huckleberries are expensive because they grow wild…you can’t just plant them. I think Rich and Lily have eaten their weight in cherries in the last two weeks!

Google decided to let me know how much I travelled in the month of July. I am tired looking at it. We have one more trip to make….and it is coming up in about a week. It is time to take Miss Lily to college!

I was able to get my medical care almost completely squared away this week. That was a huge load off my shoulders. My new oncologist seems very knowledgeable and kind. He listened to my heart and actually touched me. I was a human patient and not a terminal disease sitting in front of him. I had a social worker call me that afternoon to get me plugged into the cancer support system in Montana. I also had a nurse navigator call me and she helped me figure out how to get a general practitioner lined up near to me, get a referral for the palliative medicine department, and let me know she is my advocate and I can call her about anything. I was overwhelmed with how thorough they were and how caring. I will likely be seeing my oncologist monthly along with my treatments. I hadn’t seen my oncologist in Omaha in person in over 2 years. I am cautiously optimistic. I have forgotten what it is like to live in a small town where everyone knows and takes care of others.

Finally I want to mention my Joe. He left this earth 17 months ago today and I still miss him as much as I did then. I spent a lot of time prior to that date facing death with my stage IV cancer diagnosis. I thought that would be the toughest thing I ever went through….was dying from cancer. Instead, it was facing LIFE….learning to live without one of my cherished children. That was my profound thought for the week….I thought facing DEATH would be my biggest challenge, but facing LIFE is. I was so very worried that moving to a new place without any memories of Joe would be hard. It is, but I have to have faith that he lives in my heart….no matter where I am. It doesn’t allow me to miss him less though. In one moment, I feel like he just died yesterday…another moment, it seems like forever since I have seen his face and heard his voice. Other times, the total disbelief that Joe has died hits me like a shovel over the head. Today was a dull ache of missing him with lots of tears. It is so hard to believe he has been gone this long already. Out of our three children, we thought Joe would love this spot in Montana the most. It is hard to know we will never share it with him. I also miss his wife and dogs, and his many friends. He left such a vast hole in my life and heart. Learning to live without them…and my support system I left behind in Omaha has been a bit of a challenge. Hopefully when we return to Montana after moving Lily to Kansas City, Rich and I can start to meet some more people and get involved in the community.

This was the take away from the homily on Sunday. Are you wheat or weeds? Do you grow to choke out the spirituality of others or do you grow to become nourishment for those around you? It has been stuck in my head for the last few days….especially since I am typing this to procrastinate pulling the weeds and picking up pinecones in my yard today. I mowed yesterday. It was a lot of mowing…. a lot of area and with tall, thick grass. I listened to a couple of hours of my audiobook while doing it though and I am blessed to finally have a level yard, so that was nice. I know a lot of you are in places the heat has been absolutely unbearable as of late. It was 99 here near Kalispell on Monday. The weekend wasn’t much better. But a cool front popped through and we are hovering around 80 with low humidity, so there is no excuse to not be out working in the yard. Sigh….unless you feel you need to catch up on your blogging, that is.

So we returned to Omaha early in the morning on Thursday, July 13th. Tim flew in from California that same day, just 22 hours later. Yes, it was a long day. Tim got to go furniture shopping in our house from the furniture we had not moved and were going to sell. He also went through his belongings to take to his new place. I think I told you before that for the last 18 months, he has pretty much been living at a boarding house. He has a room with a twin bed and a small desk that he purchased. It was supposed to be temporary but ended up being 18 months. In fact, I had a facebook memory pop up today that said it was 2 years ago today that I moved him out of his apartment in Fort Collins, Colorado. We moved him from there to Morgantown, West Virginia, and 6 months later, moved him to East Palo Alto, California. Anyhow…I think he’ll be staying put for awhile now. We rented a small uhaul trailer to put the furniture, bike, and boxes in. Tim and I took off on Friday, July 14th, less than 24 hours since he arrived, to head the 25 hours to his place in East Palo Alto. It was HOT crossing the desert areas of Nevada, Utah salt flats, and Wyoming. The air conditioning in the car just doesn’t keep up well when the outside temperature is 109 degrees. We listened to a couple of audiobooks, and a half a dozen or more podcasts. Once we arrived in East Palo Alto on Sunday night, we got to work packing up his room. We left Monday afternoon to head to San Diego. We stopped just short of there so we didn’t have to try to unload in the dark. We drove up to his new place Tuesday morning around 0945. He has three roommates and they seem pretty nice. Tim has two rooms: a large bedroom and then a smaller room he uses for a den with a couch and TV, and his home workout stuff. We unloaded the uhaul and car by 11:30 and then took the empty uhaul around San Diego picking up furniture he had bought off of Craig’s List or similar. We dropped all that off at his place, returned the uhaul, then started unpacking and building furniture that came in boxes. By Wednesday afternoon, we needed a break and went to the San Diego Zoo. It is only about 20 minutes from Tim’s house. His work is 14 minutes from his house and Miramar…the infamous Top Gun Navy Aviation training base, is 14 minutes in the opposite direction. We got to hear the “sound of freedom” quite often. Good thing he grew up on Air Force bases and is used to hearing jet fighters screaming across the sky morning, noon and night. Thursday morning I flew from San Diego to San Jose. Tim and I switched vehicles so I now have my old car back and he has my newer SUV. We had parked the car at the San Jose airport on the drive down to San Diego. That allowed me to shave 7 hours off my drive to Montana. I through California to Oregon on Thursday. Friday, I took a small detour and went to Crater Lake National Park. Rich, Tim, and I went snowshoeing there in March of this year….there was so much snow that everything was closed. This time I saw a completely different scene and was able to go up to the rim and do a two hour trolley trip around the rim and hear stories of the park. I will share all of that when I get my photos from my good camera uploaded and processed. I continued on to Washington state, where I stayed Friday night and then drove the rest of the way back home to Montana on Saturday afternoon.

I have been trying to do work around the house and some of those random tasks like getting a Montana’s driver’s license . Plates are next. Actually, pulling weeds are next! I should hop to it! Here are some photos from the trip with Tim and then from California to here. I took a couple of sunset photos here Monday night….it was amazing. Can’t wait to introduce Lily and Tallinn to our new home!

These were some of the stand we saw on the way down from Palo Alto to San Diego. So many farmers’ stands with garlic this and that….even garlic ice cream. No…we didn’t stop.

Here is the final shot with Tim and the Stanford women’s basketball team during one of their summer lifts. Several are missing because they are playing with their country’s national team during summer play. Also a view of the desert as we drove across the country….and then the Utah salt flats.

Here are some photos from Crater Lake National Park in Oregon…

These are the deer who are hanging out in my front yard…

This is the sunset in Washington state I took when I was driving in the middle of nowhere. There was a lot of smoke in the air from some forest fires in Oregon…and that smudge is actually smoke and not a cloud. It was eerily beautiful.

Here are the sunset photos taken about 6 miles from my house on Monday night.

I happen to be someplace where I have a bit of time to myself today….which I haven’t had in a very long time. I wanted to catch you up on the goings-on of the Messina family.

After 10 short and hard-worked days in Montana getting the house set up, Rich and I left to drive to Omaha and pick up Lily for a family reunion in Florida. We first drove to Kansas City (about 3 hours for those of you who aren’t familiar with flyover state geography). Michelle was supposed to go on this trip with us but had to bow out last minute. Don’t worry…it is a good thing. She got a promotion at work and had some schooling she needed to attend to and it started around the same time. Anyhow, from KC we flew to Tampa and spent a couple of days with Tammie (Rich’s little sister) and his parents. They have a house together in New Port Richey. Over the next 48 hours, family members started arriving from all over…Rich’s brother and sister-in-law and two of their kids from the DC area. Our son, Tim, from California, a niece from upstate New York, and a niece and nephew out of Boston. All-in-all, there were 14 of us once everyone arrived. We packed everyone and their belongings into three vehicles and drove to the port in Tampa and got on a cruise ship for a short, 5-day cruise. This was a celebration cruise because we had a lot to celebrate….Brittany (our niece) graduating with her master’s degree and her 28th birthday, Lily graduating from high school, Rich’s dad turning 80 (in Aug), Rich’s sister, Tammie, turning 50, and Tim getting a job at UCSD! (thank you prayer warriors! He had a phone call within 24 hours of me asking for prayers on this….offering him the job! God is good!) This was a shorter cruise….we weren’t sure how Rich’s mom would handle the upheaval in her life. She has moderate Alzheimer’s disease and it is just hard…on her and those who care for her. That was the idea around the trip. We wanted Rich’s dad and sister, her two caregivers, to be able to go on a vacation and have someone else there to watch over her. So there was 14 of us….ages 15 to almost 80. It was like herding cats a majority of the time. However, we spent the trip almost always all together. We ate our meals together and traveled off ship together. We almost missed the boat together at our stop in Roatan, Honduras…but alas, they waited for us. The couple in Cozumel the next day was not so lucky. They were on the pier as the ship pulled away. Yikes! In Roatan we went to a farm with macaws, guinea pigs, sloths and monkeys. We got to hold the sloths…they just snuggled right in. They smile….slowly. It was so very cool. The monkeys were hopping on and off of everyone in the cage with them. They really liked my camera. I have so many good photos on my good camera, but all these photos will be from phones so I can get this post up. I will post those good photos once I process them. We also went to a chocolate factory and then everyone went snorkeling off a couple of boats. Rich and I stayed back to watch everyone’s belongings and his mom, who spent a lot of the time counting the boats in the bay.

The next stop was Cozumel, Mexico. We did more snorkeling here and the obligatory tequila tasting at a local family’s compound. Not a fan of tequila….but they made plenty of money off our family! Rich bought a beautiful and very colorful beaded elephant from an indigenous artist there. They take fish bones and grind them up into a paste….harden in and then carve the animals. They slowly cover the animal with wax and then place tiny glass beads in brilliant cultural designs to complete the sculpture. It took the artist a couple of months to complete the elephant we bought. We had him sign the piece for us.

After being on the ship for 5 days, we disembarked and made it back to New Port Richey. Board games and card games were played. Joe and Heather taught us how to play dirty rummy. I think we’ll be playing it for years to come. Rich took his sister, Tammie, her son, Casey, our son, Tim, and Joe & Heather’s daughters, Tristan and Brittany skydiving. Then, just as they came…the relatives started leaving to return to their homes. We were the last to go. We were able to spend some time with Rich’s Uncle John and Auntie Joyce and later with their son, cousin John & Kim. Here are a few photos from that last day in Florida.

Rich, Lily, and I flew out to New England after 9 days in Florida. We landed in Portsmouth, New Hampshire and drove in the fog and rain to Salisbury Beach to see Rich’s Auntie DeeDee. We loved connecting with her again. Since Rich’s parents and sister have moved to Florida, we don’t get to see his extended family in New England very often. Have you ever been around Italian aunties? They take one look at you and deem you starving and they feed you anything and everything they have in their house. We stayed the night with his Auntie Cathy and Uncle Mike and they served us a very large breakfast the next morning. We spent the afternoon at our cousin, Dina’s house with the cousins. We celebrated Jared’s birthday (one of the youngest cousins) and just all got caught up. It was really nice. Lily met two of her cousins she had never met before who are the same age. We left Dina’s (in New Hampshire) and drove to Bath, Maine. We had that as our home base for a couple of days as we tootled around Maine. Our big task was to go on a 4-hour tour out of Booth Bay to see whales and puffins. The puffins were the most important thing for Lily and we were able to see them through the mist and rain. Lily can sleep anywhere…as you can see below. We also went to Freeport, Maine to see the original LL Bean store (the big rain boot), and to Kennebunk Port. Rich and I had lobster rolls the two days we were in Maine. We had a great time in New England…even if it was only 4 days. We spent our last night with cousin Jared and his wife Dawn, and family. They have a farm with baby doll sheep, goats, miniature donkeys, kittens, and dogs.

Auntie Cathy had let us know that there was major construction in Boston, so we flew to KC out of Manchester, NH instead. Of course there was a delay in leaving….which caused us to miss our connecting flight in DC. By the time we got to KCI and drove 3 hours north to Omaha, it was after 1 in the morning on Thursday. (yesterday). Tim flew in late last night and has been furniture shopping at our house with the remainder of our furniture we are selling and didn’t move to Montana. The little U-Haul trailer is packed, and he and I will take off in a couple of hours to start towards his place in East Palo Alto, CA. It is a 25-hour drive. Once we get to his place, we’ll load up the rest of his belongings and then start the drive to San Diego, which is 7 hours. He has found a place to rent with more space for him and 3 roommates in a 4000 sq ft home with a large yard only 15 minutes from his work. I am happy that he will be moving into a good situation and a nice neighborhood. I will start traveling back to Montana from San Deigo a week from now. So in 3 weeks, I will have been in 3 countries, and the four corners of the lower 48 states….Florida, Maine, Southern California, and Washington State (which I travel through on the way back to Montana). Rich and Lily will be busy getting loose ends tied up with the house in Omaha and the business. They will join me a few days after I get back. We then will have 3 glorious weeks to enjoy Montana before flying with her down to move her into her dorms in mid August. So it may be awhile before I post again, but know I am travelling our beautiful country and hope to share my experiences when I am back online. (and yes, I am tired. Wouldn’t you be?) 🙂

On June 10th, just two days before we left for Montana, I did a tour of the cheetah breeding facility at the Wildlife Safari in Ashland, Nebraska. It is part of the Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha, but located over 30 minutes away from each other. The Wildlife Safari has a huge acreage that houses herds of buffalo, elk, many wild birds, a bear, and a wolf pack. It is spectacular to drive through. There are some places to get out and hike to fenced areas, but for the most part, you drive through the grounds at a snail’s pace through the fields of elk, deer, and buffalo. I have been there many times but there are some behind the scenes programs there that are not open to the public that I just heard about recently. There is both a cheetah and a lion breeding program on the back forty away from the prying eyes of the people going through the safari. I had gone on a backstage cheetah experience the month prior at the zoo and that was when they talked about the breeding program at the Wildlife Safari. I checked it out and they had a tour the Saturday before I left for Montana and I signed up for it. It was worth every penny! We were a small group of maybe 7-8 people and we were met with two zookeepers who were so knowledgeable, they blew my mind. I learned so much about the cheetahs!

I am going to try to remember as much as I can, but with chemo brain….grief fog….and just the utter busy-ness of my life in the last couple of weeks, I know I will forget a lot. You will notice that the keepers are wearing masks. Cheetahs are high susceptible to COVID. We had to stay at least 10-12 feet from the fence. The lions had all been vaccinated but evidently there is a shortage of cheetah COVID vaccine right now, so they have not been vaccinated yet. Male cheetahs have to be separated from their mother and female litter mates by age 18 months. The boys go off together and the group of them is called a coalition. The gene pool for cheetahs is very small. There was a time in history about 10,000 years ago where there were very few cheetahs and there was a bottleneck of the gene pool. There were so few that they bred with each other to keep from extinction. Almost all cheetahs are related by DNA to each other much more closely than you would think. Evidently there is a male cheetah from Russia who is in the breeding facility and he is highly sought after as a mate to the females within the western hemisphere because he is not closely related by DNA. He is the perfect mate for the gals on this side of the world. There is a group of zookeepers and scientists who work on figuring out which of the cheetahs should be mated and when. Cheetahs have very sensitive stomachs and they can only eat the really good beef that is raised just for them. There is a place in western Nebraska that creates the beef for the big cats of the United States. How cool that they are right here in the state! The Wildlife Safari also had “retired” cheetahs – cheetahs too old to breed and retired from being on display. They live out their end years in the comfort and quiet of the Wildlife Safari, roaming their yard and playing with toys. The zookeepers were very big on have stuff for the cheetahs to stimulate their minds in their environments. They have huge fields to run and play in. They also have indoor facilities that they can choose to come in an relax in if the weather is bad or they just need a break inside. I was very impressed. The keepers say that the cheetah breeding centers are run very similarly to each other all over the world so that when a cheetah is transferred to another facility to breed, they won’t be stressed out. Many cheetahs carry the herpes virus and it is relatively kept under control unless they get sick or are stressed out. Then they can get very sick, very fast. Told you I learned a lot! But that’s all I can remember tonight.

Here are some photos of the boys in the coaltion:

Here are some photos of a momma cheetah and her cubs. There are four of them and two are male and two are female. They were born Nov 14th, 2022, so were almost 8 months old the day I got to meet them. This was the first cheetah breeding program tour of the season and the first for this momma, Clio. She was a first-time mom and has done very well with her four cubs. She seemed pretty non-plussed by our presence and even just laid down with her cubs around her playing after they were done feeding them.

So those are the photos of those little cuties….who meow and purr…and cannot roar. They mostly chirp, which is so unusual to hear. I did get a few photos of some of the other animals at the park that day. Of course, there was a cardinal singing to loudly in a tree at the end of the cheetah area the whole time I was there….over an hour. I always see cardinals when I am at a zoo. I like to think that it is just a sign that Joe is there with me, enjoying watching the animals like I am. He would have loved this backstage encounter so much.

Well, after 10 short days in our beautiful new home….we drove back to Omaha. We borrowed the Play It Again Sports trailer and needed to return it and we have a Messina family reunion cruise planned out of Tampa on Saturday. So we came back to Omaha to get a few things done before we leave tomorrow again. Here are a few photos from our trip across Montana. We drove 12 hours the first day and 11 of them were in Montana. That was from the northwest corner down to the southeast corner. It’s a big state, people, but it sure is pretty.

We stopped in Deadwood, South Dakota the first night. We actually made pretty good time because we had left at 0600 that morning. After 12 hours in the truck, we wanted to walk around a bit in the gathering dusk. Here are a few photos from that. There is never a stream where my husband doesn’t attempt to try and fall in.

A couple of updates…good ones! I FINALLY got assigned to an oncologist in Kalispell and I even have an appointment. August 1st. Yay! Hurdle number one jumped over and cleared. And as of this morning, it looks like we will finally close on the house tomorrow via long distance. Also yay! Rich has worked so hard getting everything ready for this loan assumption. The company we are forced to work with has been pleasant but non-communicative and miserably slow. We were told underwriting would take 2-4 days. Four weeks later, we are finally cleared. We had to pull over on the side of the highway more than once on our way back to Omaha to submit more paperwork to these people. Arduous just doesn’t even seem to touch the tip of the iceberg on this venture. To make matters worse, they are in the eastern time zone and we were in mountain…so with a two hour time difference, we had short windows for phone tag…..and there was a lot of phone tag. So prayers lifted it all goes through tomorrow. The puzzle is starting to take shape. The only remaining missing piece is our Tim. He is currently working at Stanford University. He has been at his temp job for 18 months now. He has applied to several other jobs and one of them is in San Diego. He is a top contender for this job. I am praying multiple times a day that it comes to fruition. If any of you prayer warriors out there want to join me, I would be thankful. Hopefully he hears something in the next few days. I want him out of the living situation he is in and into something better for his mental health. What was supposed to be temporary ended up being 18 months…he deserves better than a $1000/month tiny bedroom at a boarding house where he lives with 9 other people he doesn’t know. This new job may give him the opportunity to have a better living situation….although San Diego is just as expensive as Palo Alto. It would also be a great stepping stone in his career. So please if you have a spare moment, lift this petition up for Tim. Thanks!

I forgot my favorite outdoor spot at the house! I watch the deer from here and the hummingbirds flit around! We put up a feeder and they have figured out they can come here for food now rather than just spying on us. I see them in the front yard and in the back yard when I am doing laundry. They hover at the window and watch me. It has happened twice. Anyhow, Rich got us these lovely rockers and they will get some good use!