*Happy Montana Day!* April 6 is the unofficial Montana Day.  The entire state of Montana has the single phone area code of 406. Please come visit and see for yourself why this is the Last Best Place!!!

*Happy Unemployed Day! *I quit working two years ago and still have not found employment -- nor have I even looked!

In the past 12 months, we've been really busy ...

had a number of visitors, both first time and repeat replaced every appliance in the house except the garbage disposal completed replacement of every window in the house completed replacement of all exterior doors installation of an open loop ground source heat pump, including 2 wells visited Zion NP (last year March), San Diego, Bay Area, Michigan, Madison WI, and Backus MN

In addition to that a few other activities were squeezed in.

April 6, 2019, the Pond Skim competition at Whitefish Mountain.  Ski down and across a pond of water. The first time is easy; the second time is off a jump; the third time is backwards; and then it gets hard!

April 29, 2019 on the dock at Lake McDonald Lodge.  Mt. Stanton and Mt. Vaught in the background.

May 4, 2019 biking in to Many Glacier.  On the way in we passed Mama griz and cub way too close to the road and to us.  On the return ride they were a much safer distance away.

May 26, 2019 biked up Going-To-The-Sun Road with Rich to the Weeping Wall.  If we had started an hour earlier we might have been stranded by an avalanche that went across the road with about 2 dozen other bikers.  They had to wait 8 hours for the road crew to clear it safely away.

June 22, 2019 a bittersweet 2nd place finish in the Glacier Half Marathon.  Beat by 7 seconds; passed in the last 200 yards by the first place finisher.

June 30, 2019 Lily and Dennis visit.  Among our adventures with them was Sandy's first time to Kintla Lake where we kayaked.  The Boundary Mountain range separates the lake from Canada (it's a huge wall :-))

July 21, 2019 I successfully completed hiking the Dawson-Pitamaken Loop trail.  This has been on my bucket list a long, long time.  17 miles long over two mountain passes.  Part of the difficulty is that it is a very long day trip, it is difficult to find people that are available and in good enough shape to hike it, and is best done on a good weather day.

I was absolutely blessed in that Sally was visiting, we could not have had better weather, and she was patient enough to wait for me and my slow pace ;-)

July 29, 2019 Mt. Siyeh.   Hiking with three age 30-something alpha males, I was humbled enough to admit that they should go on without me.  They did successfully make it to the summit.  There is no official trail, and the route we ended up on was definitely not the easiest route described in the climbing book.  But the weather and views that I experienced were still amazing.  My view of Preston Park on a very clear day, with 4 glaciers beyond was excellent.

Mo on top of Mt. Siyeh, with Cracker Lake 4000 feet below him!!! Lake Sherburne is off in the distance.

August 1, 2019 Otokomi Lake.  10 miles RT hike with Mo.

September 30, 2019 a very early snowstorm.  Cold enough that the Silver Staircase Falls were frozen.

September 30, 2019 I technically cross country in East Glacier Park.  3 feet of snow overnight.  It was a light snow and my skis sunk 2 feet into it.  I hope to someday be able to have cross country skied in every month of the year.

Again, plan a visit and join in the adventures!  There are no bad months.