On one of Lily’s last days in the Flathead River Valley, they had a big open house event at the Sportsman and Ski Haus in Kalispell. We raced to get over there and see the birds of prey they had on display. Montana Wild Wings were there with their ambassador birds. They aren’t located too far from us and I think maybe Rich and I will possibly volunteer with them. We had a great time talking with the volunteers about these beautiful birds…some bigger than others. They had some tiny owls! Lily is a huge fan of birds, so this was fun to experience together.

While Lily was here, we wanted to make sure she got to spend some time in the park before she went to Kansas City for school. Since COVID, there has been a strict ticket system to get into Glacier National Park. Having a park pass isn’t good enough. You need to get a daily vehicle entrance pass to go on certain roads during the hours of 6 a.m. and 3 p.m. You can get in outside of those times with your park pass. This will go on until September 10th…when the official end of the high tourist season is over. Then the locals can start to enjoy the park without the crowds. If you can’t get the vehicle passes (they go on sale months ahead of time with a few being released 48 hours prior) you can do a tour of some kind and be able to enter the park. We chose to do a Red Bus tour. These Red Buses are actually serviced and stored within walking distance of our house. They are pretty cool. They are vintage 1930’s red buses with roll back tops. They seat 16 and this fleet of 33 red vintage buses are the one of the oldest fleet of working vehicles in the world. We took a tour from Apgar Village near the West Entrance (about 20 minutes from our house) to Logan Pass (which is the highest point on the Going-To-The-Sun Road, which cuts through the park). It was a little smokey….we have several wildfires burning in our area. A huge storm blew in while we were at Logan Pass….but we had a good time and learned a lot from our driver. I would love to do the East side at some point, as well. Lily also got an ice cream cone with huckleberry ice-cream. The water is crystal clear in GNP…and the mountains are always spectacular.

We have purchased a few kayaks since we arrived here. We have a single, where I drop Rich off on a river somewhere and pick him up somewhere else. We also have a tandem, where Rich and I take it out to the lake to paddle around. We took Lily out during the brief time she was here this summer. She and Rich rode together in the tandem and I rode in the single. To quote Rich, “This was a learning experience. Two things we learned: Cyndi paddles stronger on her left side and Lily needs her own paddle!” There is also huge woodpecker we saw when kayaking.

Last weekend I got up early and went down the road to take some sunrise photos. I had several things that I loved in these photos….haybales….mountains….dramatic clouds (and some smoke as well-not my favorite but dramatic nonetheless), and purple flowers. How can you go wrong when you mix those things together with a rising sun? You can’t! God’s glory just smacks you in the face!

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.