Days of fun

Nanna, aka Marilyn, headed back home yesterday after a fun week with us. Well, it was fun for us, I hope she had fun too.

In an effort to distract the boys from the fact that she's gone, we spent yesterday afternoon and today doing "fun stuff".

Charley and I spent a good chunk of the morning yesterday cheering on the triathletes as they ran a course past our house. Charley yelled "You can DO IT!" to nearly all the 200 participants. It was so cute and some of them seemed a bit weepy having an earnest 3 year old holler encouragement at them in the last 1/2 mile. You can imagine how adorable it was. Now he's looking for 'the runners' all the time.

Yesterday there was a festival on in downtown Missoula, so we walked around there and ended up at A Carousel for Missoula. It's just a beautiful place in a great park. The boys were not at all interested in the carousel (although I would loved to have gone on, but no dice...) but there's an amazing play structure (more like a play castle) attached and they went crazy for that.

"Hear me ROAR!"

This is the only shot I got of Charley, because he wouldn't come out for a photo. Would you? So much fun.

Today we took a drive south, through the Bitterroot Valley. It's a pretty cool place, that includes the oldest settlement in Montana.

We hit Lake Como after that.

It's a beautiful spot, no doubt, but a series of things reduced it's charm somewhat. We were a little slap-happy from driving through some of the towns (more on that to come) so there was a certain giddiness at play.

Then Sammy proceeded to do a mega-roll (partially captured here) and landed in the lake:

Then we had the attack of the "Very Angry and Vengeful Wasps!" We killed as many as we could, but there was no end to them. This is an actual (ie: not feigned) pose by Chris in despair, ready to give up our ground and retreat.

Upon seeing a wasp investigating one of the buggy corpses, he was heard shouting "Yeah! See that? Boo hoo! Sad to see your friend dead? I hope it was your wife! Yeah, you heard me!"

You know I can't make this stuff up, right?

We left soon afterwards....

While I wish I could tell you that it's a gorgeous drive, speckled with charming towns, I'm afraid I can't. The Bitterroot Valley seems to be mostly filled with cows, semi-built log homes and miles upon miles of mini-storage units. Why the storage units? Why? There must be a storage unit for every single person in Montana. Does the mountain air create a plague of pack-rack-itis? Are the full of skiis? Kayaks? Their cowboy boots? I'm so confused.

Don't get me wrong... If you look past the human influence on the landscape to the hills and mountains beyond, it's gorgeous. But the humans haven't been kind to this part of the world. There are hundreds of these little casinos dotting the roadside. "Calamity Jane's", "Deadly Dick's", "Poker Pete's"... you get the idea.

There are many, many shops like this, that seem to service all the possible needs of their clients:

(You will have to click on this to see the various wares offered).

In the deserted towns (where does everyone go on Sundays???) there was a definite sense of "liberatarianism". Chris tried to capture the spirit:

Yeah! Back off government!

I even saw this billboard while in the car. I couldn't tell if it was two separate messages, or if this particular housing development was a ticket to the good afterlife:

It was quite a hilarious day. We're going to return to Stevensville because it seemed like it might be kind of cool on a not-deserted Sunday. Wasp Lake and Mini-storage Mile though? I'm not so sure.

That's your update from us cow-folk. Charley starts 2-day-a-week, pre-school tomorrow, so another adventure awaits. Wish us well.

Adios.