A Change in the Line-up

Well, we’re past the half-way point and I haven’t finished even a quarter of my goals yet.  In fact, There are now 492 days left and I’ve only finished 19 of my goals. (Although there are several others that I am getting pretty close to finishing.)  There are also a few that for a variety of reasons (most of them financial), I know will simply not happen in those 492 days.  So I’m going to allow myself a mulligan of sorts on 3 of my goals, by moving them to the list of possible items for the next time around and replacing them with three other goals.

64. Go on an Outward Bound trip.

I still like this idea.  I used to work for Outward Bound.  In fact, it was that job that brought me to live in Montana, but I was a logistics co-ordinator.  So while I did get to go out to the field in support of trips, I’ve never actually been through an entire trip.  Maybe in a few years I’ll be ready to take this one on.  So I’ll change it out for ….

64a. Complete at least 7 triathlons / adventure races / multi-sport races. (At least one Olympic length triathlon)

I’ve thought about competing in triathlons since I was a kid.  The idea of a variety of disciplines packed into one competition is very appealing to me, but I’ve never been much of a runner.  Well, this past spring, one of the area bicycle shops sponsored the Grizzly Peak Adventure Race here in Red Lodge.  It was a three-part race that started on the ski hill where I work and finished at the brewery in town.  It was ski 2.5 miles from the top of the mountain to the parking lot; then bike 6.5 miles to the south end of town and then run just over 2.5 miles to the brewery at the north end of town.  It sounded like a lot of fun and almost all of it was downhill, so it seemed doable.  I signed up and pretended that I was doing some training to get ready.  Race day came and although the run really kicked my butt, I finished the race and had a great time.  I decided that I wanted to do more races and that I would need to train for real before I could complete a traditional triathlon.

I started looking around at possibilities and thought about doing one on memorial day weekend, but realized that I just wouldn’t be ready by then so I finally signed up for the Rapid City Sprint Triathlon to take place on Father’s day, June 19th.  Triathlons generally consist of 3 events: swimming, biking, and running, in that order.  They also come in 4 general distances: sprint (swim .25 - .5 mile; bike 13 miles; and run 5 kilometers or 3.1 miles), Olympic (swim 1 mile, bike 26 miles, run 6 miles), Half-Iron (Swim 1.2 miles, bike 56 miles, run 13 miles) and the infamous Iron-man triathlon (swim 2.4 miles, bike 112 miles, run 26 miles)  There are variations on these lengths depending upon the race but this gives you a general idea.  Sprint seemed like the obvious place for me to start.  The Rapid City Race was a half mile swim, a 20 k bike and a 5 k run.  It’s easy to say, but at least for me, it was quite a task to actually do.  I did manage to complete the race with a time of just over 2 hours and 5 minutes.  My goal was just to complete the darn thing so I was happy with whatever amount of time it took me.

It didn’t take long before I signed up for my next race: the Big Sky State Games Sprint Triathlon.  The state games are in Billings, making this race much closer to home than the trip to South Dakota for my first race.  This course was a bit longer: half mile swim (but in a lake this time as opposed to a pool in the first race), 16 mile bike and 5 k run.  Knowing that the bike was longer and that open water swims tend to be slower than pool swims, my goal for this race was to finish in less than two hours.  Race day came and although I’m not a huge fan of starting anything at 6:30 in the morning, the heat of the day made me glad that we started early.  I improved my performance in all 3 events and finished in 1:53:36.  My running is definitely still my weakest portion of the race.  I need to keep training on all of the disciplines, but that one most of all.

That will almost certainly be my last triathlon of this year, but I am doing a couple of just running races in the next month and an Olympic aquabike (swim 1 mile, bike 29, no run) in September.  I’m also thinking about maybe doing a duathlon (run, bike, run some more) in early October.  My hope is to try the Peaks to Prairies race next spring.  That is a pretty major test of endurance.  It is an approximately 8.5 mile run from the beartooth pass down into Red Lodge, then bike about 46 miles down to Laurel, MT and then jump in a kayak and paddle about 23 miles to Billings.  I have a lot of training work to do before I’d be ready to give that a shot, but it’ll be something to work towards all winter.

65. Make a trip to Chile to visit my friends in Temuco and Santiago.

Time and money will make this one very difficult to complete soon.  In order to do this one right, I need to re-learn my spanish, save up some money to be able to travel and see the sights, and enough vacation time to be able to go and relax.  I think this will be better done in a couple of years.  So, replace it with…..

65a. Get a new Road Bicycle

As I started training and competing to triathlons, it quickly became clear to me that my old bike simply would not work.  I last purchased a bike in 1990.  Again, for those of you a little slow with the math, that makes my old bike old enough to drink.  My good old Specialized Hard Rock hybrid mountain bike, was designed to be a mix between a road bike and a mountain bike.  It has a steel frame and 1.5″ wide tires which make it heavy and slow.  It is a great bike and I will continue to ride it around town and on the trails for a long time, but it is like trying to drag an anchor riding it on the roads.  When I bought it, I had been having problems with bending the wheels on my previous bicycle.  I’m a big guy and back then bicycle wheels weren’t made quite like they are now.  So that was a good compromise then.  Now, it’s time for an upgrade.

My New Bike

 Meet the Defy 3, made by Giant Bicycles.  When I started looking at bikes again a few months ago, I started at Montana Cycling and Ski.  I think that they are a great organization.  They sell good bikes and stand behind them, they organize group rides and community events (including the Grizzly Peak Adventure Race I mentioned above) to encourage people to be active, and they work with Red Lodge Mountain to encourage skiing in our area.  Of course I started out looking at the fanciest, lightest, fastest bikes they had.  Then I looked at the price tag and decided to look at something more reasonable.  So I spent some time looking at several bikes, and then I looked at the price tags and took another look at my bank accounts.  So I decided to look at something even more reasonable.  I finally found a bike that is not the greatest bike ever by any means, but it is a light years improvement over my old bike and it can be upgraded as my bank accounts encounter better days.  The shop made me a great deal on the bike and I am super happy riding it.  I’ve always done a lot of bike riding, but when I moved to Red Lodge I stopped for some reason.  A good deal of it was that I hadn’t gotten used to the altitude up here, but also, my old bike just wasn’t well designed for all of the hill climbing that goes with biking in this region.  Now that I’ve got my new bike, I love riding again.  I try to get at least 12-15 miles in before work at least 3 times per week.

66. See an opera in the historic opera house in Vienna (Ideally Don Giovanni).

Again, time, money and language barriers (as well as a lack of showings of Don Giovanni) will make this one difficult to do properly in the next year and a half. So, the substitution will be….

66a. Backpack between the Lake Fork and West Fork Trailheads, over Sundance Pass.

This is another trip that I’ve talked about doing through the Beartooth Mountains, right here in my back yard, that I have never done.  I’ve done several hikes out of both trailheads, but I’ve never just planned a weekend to go up and over.  It wouldn’t be a terribly long or arduous trip I don’t think.  In fact I envision a rather relaxing few day trip of it.  So it needs to be done, and sooner rather than later.

Progress on the Home Front

So my slacker-ism knows no bounds.  I actually started this post way back in September and it turns out that it probably took longer to finish the blog post than to finish the actual projects.  Even back in September, it was way past time to finish up and cross off some of the home improvement items on the list that I’d had started but weren’t finished.  That has changed.

77. Finish the pocket door on the bedroom closet.

 Ok…. well this one isn’t done quite yet, but some more progress has been made on this front.  My mother came to Montana for a couple of weeks back in September and like all of her trips here she spent most of her time working on some aspect of the house.  This time she tackled the daunting task of removing the texture from the walls in the bedroom.  We all knew that it would be a very tedious and extremely dusty job.  But none of us particularly liked the texture or the color on the walls. 

As part of this project, I put in the last 2 pieces of drywall around the new pocket door as well as the new door jamb.  (The old door was a few inches shorter than the new sliding door so we could not re-use the old jamb.)  My hope is to cross this item off of the list very soon.  All that is left is to tighten the hardware in the sliding mechanism and to put the remaining trim on the door.  Although I’m now thinking that it might make sense to go ahead and take care of number 82 - Install new carpet in the living room and bedrooms before putting the trim back on the walls.  It just seems silly to put the trim on when it is going to need to come back off again to install carpet.  That said I think we’d only do the bedrooms at this point.  There is a lot of other stuff to do yet in the living room / kitchen before we’re ready for a new floor in there.  Also, I think I’ve been convinced to go with hardwood floors of some sort for the entire main room (kitchen and living room.)  More on that as we figure it out.

80. Either finish or remove the silly fence in my front yard.

I spoke fairly extensively about this project in an earlier post: Good Fences Make Good Neighbors, Bad Fences are Just Annoying.  I worked steadily on this project for several weeks.  I’d take a few minutes before work to take out another section or a couple of posts.  Finally on August 27th, right before our trip to Wisconsin, the last of the posts came out of the ground.  There has been some additional work that has gone one since then like filling in the post holes and disposing of the concrete blocks around the bottom of the posts.  I gave several of the sections of fencing to my neighbor and his girlfriend and sent the rest to a local ….. place.  I’m not sure how to categorize it.  They do a little bit of all sorts of stuff.  They repair small engines; They sell propane; they collect and sell “scrap” wood.  Many times I’ve needed just a small piece of plywood or 2×4 or something like that for some portion of a project. Instead of buying a whole piece that I don’t really need, I can often buy a piece just big enough for what I need for much, much, much less money.  This is recycling at its best.  I’ve salvaged the posts from the fence and they will be used as part of # 83: Build a new deck / porch.

It took a while to get used to the fence not being there in the front yard, but I definitely like the yard better this way.  That fence just never seemed quite right.  Now that the fence is gone though it makes it more obvious that I need to work on a couple more of the Home related items on my list:  number 86 - Build a nice driveway and number 87 - Build a nice walkway from the driveway to the front door.  The one nice thing that the old fence did accomplish was to define the parking spaces.  It was very clear where people were supposed to park.  Now it is a little more vague – a great deal more vague when there is 2 feet of fresh snow on the ground.  Those two items have moved up on the priority list.  I’m hoping to make a lot of progress on the outside of the house this spring including the new trees (#84) and the new deck (#83).

89. Organize the storage shed. (Including good kayak storage.)

This project had been more or less done for quite some time.  I just needed to add some finishing touches, like a couple of more shelves and a new light fixture outside.  I finished those last few touches on September 21st.  The shed is now much more usable with plenty of room for storage of all sorts of things including my kayaks.  It is so much easier to get to the things that I’m looking for as I no longer have to move nine items just to get into the building.  I’m very happy with how this project came out.

Wow! How big a slacker am I?

It has been entirely way too long since I’ve posted anything on my blog, and lots of things have been happening.  I have a lot of updates to make, but for the same reasons that I haven’t been posting lately, I won’t try to do them all at once.  Since I  returned from my trip to Wisconsin the throttle has pretty much been all the way open trying to get things ready at Red Lodge Mountain.  The resort opens each year the day after Thanksgiving and our busiest week is the one between Christmas and New Year.  Our fiscal year starts on October 1st so it seems inevitable that each year a bunch of projects get approved in early October and we spend all of October, November and December scrambling to get them all implemented and in place as quickly and efficiently as possible.  This year so many projects were approved that involved me, that I’m just now getting caught-up with everything.  It isn’t an ideal scenario, but it is somewhat predictable.  As we’re now less than 2 weeks from the end of  the season, I’m hoping that I will now find time to be more active with my blogging and with crossing items off of the list. 

Here are a few updates.  Expect more in the next few days.

15. Run for and get elected to the City Council

Well, election day came and went and no write-in campaign surfaced against me.  I ran un-opposed for the open seat on the Red Lodge City Council from Ward number one.  Election results can be found here.  I took office on January 11th of this year after being sworn in at the beginning of the first council meeting of the year.  Interestingly enough, the other seat from ward one was vacated by Jason Priest who was just elected to the Montana State Senate.  Jason was half-way through a two-year term and so we had to appoint somebody from the ward to complete his term.  So, almost immediately after being sworn in, I joined the rest of the council in choosing between two very qualified candidates to take the seat next to me.  Both gentlemen have a long history of service to our community in a variety of ways.  In the end, we selected Ed Williams to join the Council.  Ed is a very intelligent and reasonable person and I look forward to accomplishing several things for the benefit of Ward One and the City of Red Lodge.

Newspaper Clipping of Being Sworn-in as a Council Member

Another point that I’ve found interesting is that my friend Aaron is the second most senior member of the Council, but because he is from the same ward as the most senior member of the council he will still be the junior member from ward number 3.  Conversely, I became the senior member from my ward on the same night that I was sworn in.

24. Go to an opera each year with my mother.

Shortly after returning from Wisconsin, my mother helped Cass drive her troubled car back to Montana and then spent some time out here with me.  While she was here, the three of us went to see The Merry Widow, an opera presented by the Rimrock Opera Company at the Alberta Bair Theater in Billings.  Much like many other opera companies in what I would call medium size cities, the Rimrock Opera presents two operas each year: One in the spring and one in the fall.  I wasn’t familiar with The Merry Widow, a German operetta composed by Franz Lehar, but we were eager to see the show as this was the first opera we’d seen in Billings and the first Cass had ever been to.   My mother and I were a bit disappointed when we realized that they were performing in English rather than in German.  We sort of prefer to hear the music in the language originally written, especially since the super-titles allow you to follow the dialogue anyway.  (I’m told that the Rimrock Opera always does their fall performance in English and the Spring Opera in the original language.)

In the end, it wasn’t the best opera we had ever seen – well it was for Cass — but we all still enjoyed the show.

 

Surprise!

28. Make a surprise visit home for a holiday. 

Another one that we can cross off the list.  After much scheming and a bit of quick thinking on my sister’s part I was able to quite thoroughly surprise my parents and much of the rest of the extended family by showing up unannounced in Wisconsin for Labor Day Weekend.  I actually had planned to surprise my mother on her birthday the Wednesday before, but due to some car troubles we didn’t quite make it in time.  (As one of those strange coincidences that sometimes happens in life my mother’s birthday always falls right near Labor Day; Her sister’s birthday is right near Memorial Day; and her brother’s birthday is right near Veteran’s day)  

My sister and I had planned for Cass and I to show up at a dinner at her house to celebrate mom’s birthday and my nephew’s first day of kindergarten.  Unfortunately Cass’s transmission failed about 4 hours from our destination so we didn’t make it that night.  We finally got a rental car the next day and thanks to some fast talking, my sister convinced my parents to meet her in downtown Madison.  Of course my sister wasn’t there but Cass and I were.  We walked up from behind them and when I was about 20 feet away, my mother turned around and looked right at me.  She didn’t recognize me at all.  She was not even remotely thinking that I might be around.  It wasn’t until I tapped her on the shoulder and asked her for the time that she recognized me.  She was completely surprised and very happy to see us. 

For whatever reason (or excuse), the Ford dealer in Osseo, WI was unable to get the car running again for two full weeks.  Despite the car still being under warranty, they couldn’t take the time to even diagnose the problem for a full week.  Nobody at Ford’s national service office seemed to want to help either.  I think Ford lost Cass and I as customers forever.  It is too bad too.  I had sort of hoped that the rumors were true that Ford was getting their act together.  As far as I’m concerned Ford motor company can go bankrupt and disappear from the face of the planet forever. 

Because of the delays with the car we ended up having an extra week in Wisconsin to visit with my family and friends.  We tried to make the most of it and did some very funny things.  Cass went to her first Division I-A college football game as we saw the UW Badgers beat San Jose State.  We spent a Sunday afternoon with my extended family at my aunt and uncle’s cottage on the lake.  (Cass got to meet the whole family: a little bit of payback for my going to her brother’s wedding this summer.)  Cass developed a taste for frozen custard.  We toured the Sprecher brewery.  (I love their Russian Imperial Stout, but in the gift shop before the tour we found this treasure.)  

Despite the car trouble we had a great trip and a lot of fun.  It was great to see everyone.  Happy Birthday Mom! 

36. Visit 5 friends / groups of friends that I haven’t seen for 10 years. 

During our drive east, we drove all day on the 31st of August to reach Minneapolis, MN at a reasonable time so that I could meet up with my friend Ed.  He’s another of my friends from Villanova that I hadn’t seen in about twelve years.  Ed lived in Simpson hall, which is where I lived for most of my freshman year.  He’s also one of the people who knew me not as Mike but as Du.  Like most nicknames there is a rather lengthy story behind the name Du.  Perhaps I’ll share it some day, but not in this post. 

We got to Ed’s house around eight and since his kids were sick, his wife was happy to have us take him out of the house for a while.  We went to the local chain restaurant just down the road to have a couple of drinks.  We caught up on the old times and what we’ve each been doing for the last 12 years or so.  It also turned out to be trivia night so we jumped in on that.  I figured we’d do pretty well in light of the vast stores of basically worthless knowledge that both Ed and I tend to carry around with us.  The game was broken up into 3 rounds each with a different category: Famous Minnesotans (We were both ashamed that we didn’t know that John Madden is from Minnesota), One hit wonders, and the Emmys.  As I expected we did very well.  In fact we won the second and third rounds getting Ed a couple of free drinks to come back and enjoy with his wife.  We also won the whole darn thing.  Ed got to answer the bonus question worth $50 and just missed it. 

As with Kevin a couple of months ago, it was great to catch up with an old friend.  I look forward to seeing Ed more often in the future as I pass through the twin cities area on my way to and from Wisconsin. 

As an aside, Ed lives fairly close to the Mall of America.  Since neither Cass or I had ever been to the MOA before, we decided to check it.  (As a matter of fact, before this trip Cass had never been east of Bismarck, ND)  We walked around a fair bit and I was impressed how small a footprint it actually took up despite it overall size.  I expected it to be sprawled out all over the place.  After a bit of acting like a small child I talked Cass into riding some of the roller coasters in the amusement park in the center of the mall.  I love those sorts of rides, but Cass is still acquiring a taste for them…. I hope. 

25. Take my father to at least one ball game each year. 

Once we realized that we were going to be stuck in Wisconsin for a while, we decided to make the most of our time and do some fun things.  On Tuesday, September 17th we decided to catch the Brewers game against the St. Louis Cardinals.  We checked stub hub and were able to find some really good tickets at a really reasonable price so Cass, my dad, and I decided to go see the game. 

 

We arrived at Miller Park in Milwaukee after immersing ourselves in some Wisconsin culture during the drive from Madison.  We stopped and had dinner at the Delafield Brewhaus and listen to my dad’s favorite radio station which plays a reliable offering of polka music.  (I’m sure some of you are re-reading that.  Yes there are still radio stations that play polka music.  This one even has streaming audio on the web.  Check it out here.)  We got to our seats and as I had hoped when we picked out the tickets, we were seated in the section directly in front of Bob Uecker’s broadcast booth.  Some of you may know Uecker as announcer Harry Doyle from the Major League movies.  Some of you probably remember him as the “I must be in the front row!” guy from Miller Lite commercials back in the day.  Some of you may even remember him as the dad on the old sit-com Mr. Belvedere, but Milwaukee Brewers fans know him as Mr. Baseball, the radio announcer of Brewers games.  We caught a few glimpses of the legend and even managed to get a couple of pictures of him on a camera phone. 

Mr. Baseball

 

The game itself was an interesting one.  Four people were thrown out of the game by umpires.  The Brewers manager was thrown out by the second base ump and the home plate umpire threw out the Cardinals pitching coach, a brewers batter and most oddly a fan sitting behind the plate.  Nobody I’ve talked to can remember ever seeing that many ejections or an ump ever throwing out a fan.  About half-way throw the game I noticed a banner above the outfield fence with a picture of a pitcher and the number 599 below it.  I haven’t been following the brewers or baseball very closely this year so I didn’t know what it was all about and I didn’t really dwell on it.  Well, during the break between the eighth and ninth innings I figured out what it was all about.  Brewers closer, Trevor Hoffman, was coming in to try to get career save number 600.  He faced 3 batters and got 3 outs earning his 600th.  It was pretty cool to see and to experience the excitement in the building when it happened.  What I didn’t realize until a couple of days later was that Hoffman was the very first pitcher to earn 600 saves.  So we stumbled into a little bit of baseball history. 

Going to the Sun … Part 3

73. Go to Glacier National Park. 

And now the exciting conclusion of … our trip to Glacier National Park.  Ok, maybe it isn’t all that exciting but it was a great trip and well if you’re reading this I assume that you’re at least somewhat interested.  At the end of my last update you had just heard about our hike at Many Glaciers and our encounter with a black bear wandering around our campground.  On Wednesday morning we got up early and did a very nice hike to see 2 beautiful waterfalls.  The first set of falls, St. Mary Falls, was just a short hike.  The second set of falls, Virginia Falls, was well worth the additional hike further down the trail.  We like St, Mary Falls but we were really pleasantly surprised by Virginia Falls. 

Cass in front of St. Mary Falls

 

Virginia Falls

 

Cass in front of Virginia Falls

 

After returning from the falls we got in another very short hike near St. Mary Lake before having lunch and taking the boat tour that we had hoped to take the night before.  It was a nice tour although it was quick and we probably wouldn’t do it again now that we know exactly what they’re like. We did get some great pictures of some of the things around and in St. Mary Lake though.  The first of the two pictures below is of Gunsight Mountain which is part of the back-packing trips we had originally hoped to do.  The second is of Wild Goose Island in St. Mary Lake.  The lake bed was carved out by glaciers and so the lake is 300 feet deep.  Wild Goose Island is actually a 300 foot high pillar or rock that was harder than the surrounding rock and so this small island was left behind by the glaciers.  All told we were still glad we went on the boat tour. 

Gunsight Mountain

 

Wild Goose Island

 

After the boat tour we exited the east side of the park and drove down to the Two Medicine entrance of the Park.  After a very brief visit there we continued on around the outside of the park and went into Kalispell.  We came to the realization that Cass needed better footwear that provided better ankle support and I needed a thicker pad / air mattress.  We did a little shopping, had dinner, and headed back into the park.  For our last 2 nights in the park we went to Logging Creek Campground.  This smaller campground is in the northwest corner of the park and is accessed via a one lane dirt road.  The Avalanche Creek Campground where we stayed for our first 2 nights has approximately one hundred campsites; the Logging Creek Campground on the other hand only has seven.  This campground also has no potable water source, so we had to filter and treat creek water. 

Cass and I at the entrance to the Logging Creek Campground with our bearspray

 

 On Thursday we went on our last big hike of the trip.  We hiked 5.5 miles along Logging Creek to Logging Lake.  Like all of hikes through the week we had to take precautions in case we encountered a bear.  On all of our hikes we each carried bear spray, which is essentially extra strong pepper spray designed to deter aggressive bears.  We also tried to make a point to make as much noise as possible while out hiking.  This alerts bears to your presence so that you don’t accidentally sneak up on and surprise a bear.  However, on this hike we were concerned that we weren’t making enough noise.  We were especially concerned because this trail was not well-travelled like all of the other trails we had been on earlier in the week.  We decided that we needed to come up with a way to keep ourselves talking and making noise.  We played countless rounds of “Who am I?” and I think it helped quite a bit.  It definitely kept us making noise.  This was a good thing.  Based on the track and the scat that we were seeing on that trail, we’re pretty sure that there was a grizzly bear not far from us. 

Trail to Logging Lake through a burn area.

 

When we got to the back-country campsite at Logging Lake we encountered a group of 5 back-packers who had gotten there shortly before us.  We quickly learned that they were all Russian and that they were going to spend two nights at the campsite.  We also learned that they had only brought five Gatorade bottles of water for the five of them and that they had already drank all of it.  They suspected that it was a bad idea to just re-fill their bottles from the lake but they weren’t sure what to do.  We filtered some water for them and left our iodine water treatment tablets with them.  We were a bit concerned that they had no bear spray either but we felt that there was only so much that we could do for them. 

Logging Lake

 

When we got back to camp that night we were definitely sore but were definitely in better shape than we had been on Monday night despite having hiked about the same distance as we had hiked on Monday.  After our last night in the park we packed up our camp for the last time on Friday morning.  We spent most of the day on Friday picking wild berries.  Not being from northwestern Montana I wasn’t sure what a huckleberry looks like so we were hoping that we were picking huckleberries.  It turned out that we were actually picking service berries.  They look sort of similar and are still perfectly safe to eat.  However they aren’t quite as tasty as huckleberries.  (We stopped at a stand just outside the park and picked up a bag of the real deal.) 

We had a fabulous trip as I’ve already mentioned and we’re planning on going back again next year.  Hopefully we’ll be in good enough shape to back-pack up and over gunsight pass. 

7. Make it through an entire softball season without a major injury. 

I get to cross another item off the list.  The softball season officially ended for me on August 29th.  The weekend of the 28th and 29th the Carbon County Co-ed softball league had their end of season tournament.  Based on the regular season records the number one and number two seeds were the Grizzly and Link Construction respectively.  These 2 teams are consistently the best teams in the league which this year had 8 teams.  My team, Mignon’s, was the number 5 seed coming into the tourney.  

The format for the tournament is a round robin set of 3 games on Saturday and then after those 3 games the teams are re-seeded based on their record in those 3 games.  On Saturday we were scheduled to play the #4 team Beaumont Painting, the #2 team Link Construction, and the # 8 team the Snow Creek Saloon.  The snow Creek Saloon team didn’t show up for the tournament so we won that game by forfeit.  We also played well enough to win both of our other games.  So after Saturday the Grizzly had also won all of their games so they maintained the #1 seed and we moved up to the #2 seed.  The way things played out we ended up playing the same 2 teams on Sunday that we played on Saturday.  We played Beaumont Painting and won and then faced Link Construction in the semi-finals.  Despite having beaten Link in the regular season and on Saturday we were unable to beat them one more time.  That sent us to the consolation game against the New Atlas Bar team (If you remember, New Atlas is the bar with all of the animals hanging on the walls that I mentioned as part of my trip to Whitefish back in March.)  We played well and we came in third place which was much better than anyone would have predicted for our team this year.  In the championship game Link beat out Grizzly to win the title for the first time in quite a while.  Congrats to John Link and his whole team! 

As for me personally.  I played well in the tournament and while I scraped up my shin again sliding and I was very sore for several days after the tournament, (it turns out the 6 softball games in 2 days is more than my body was ready for)  I made it through the season without any major injuries.  I’m already looking forward to next season.  Maybe I can make it through two seasons in a row without hurting myself.

Going to the Sun… Part 2

73. Go to Glacier National Park.   

As I promised in my last entry, I have much more to tell about our trip to Glacier National Park.  I’ll preface some of the stories by admitting that I was rather concerned about bears during our trip.  Not long before our trip there was an incident in a campground near Cooke City, MT in which a Grizzly bear sow and her 3 yearling cubs attacked 3 different people and killed and partially consumed one man.  As Cooke City is just over the pass from where I live, it was a hot topic of conversation.  While I know that this is not typical behavior for bears, it demonstrated what desperate and underweight bears can do.  It made me a bit over-cautious about bears.   

 We got to Glacier National Park on a Sunday. As this was my first time in the park, we spent some time in the Apgar village area to help me get a better feel for the park.  We went to the ranger station to see which campgrounds were still available and we also visited the back-country office because we were contemplating doing some back-packing.  From there we got ourselves a campsite in the Avalanche Creek campground which is the last campground on the west side of Logan Pass on the Going to the Sun Road.  Once settled we walked out to the road to catch the shuttle.   

A few years ago the park service began running a free shuttle along the Going to the Sun Road, the only road that runs through the park from the east to west.  We found this shuttle to be hugely helpful during our time in the park.  That first afternoon we rode the shuttle up to the Logan Pass Visitor Center.  We began going for a hike but after a short while we decided to turn around and go back to camp as we had seen that there was going to be a ranger program about the history of wild fires in the park and we wanted to be sure to make it back in time for that program. We made it to that program and really enjoyed it, but it left us making dinner in the dark.  We decided we didn’t want to make dinner in the dark again.   

Mountains near Logan Pass as seen from the High-Line trail

 

The next morning we caught the shuttle up to the Logan Pass Visitor’s Center again.  This time we planned on spending most of the day hiking.  We hike from Logan Pass west along the high-line trail out to the Granite Park Chalet.  This back-country chalet is one of the nine chalets that once existed throughout the park and comprised the major way of seeing the park before the Going to the Sun Road was built.  Today only two of those chalets still exist: Granite Park and Sperry.  It was a 7.6 mile hike from Logan Pass out to the chalet and it was a beautiful hike.   

Lake McDonald seen through the mountains from the High Line trail

 

Granite Park Chalet

 

Something sort of funny happened during our hike.  Maybe half-way to the chalet I had to stop to pee.  I took a few steps off the side of the trail and after making sure that nobody was coming, I started to take care of my business.  Suddenly a small ground squirrel appeared near my feet and he run up and started drinking my urine before it even hit the ground.  There were plenty of streams and waterfalls so I don’t think he needed the water.  Maybe there was some sort of nutrients, perhaps excess from the vitamins that I take, that my body was flushing.  I don’t know what it was, but he was very excited but lapping my urine right out of the air.  I  tried chasing him away with my foot; I tried yelling at him; I even thought about peeing on his head, but there was no deterring him.  It is a mental image I’ll not soon lose.   

From the Granite Park Chalet we had a 4 mile hike down-hill to “the loop” where we would catch the shuttle back to camp.  Unfortunately, about 2 to 3 miles from our destination, Cass twisted her ankle and fell.  After cleaning up her cuts and wrapping the ankle we limped the rest of the way out.    

   

We hiked just under 12 miles on the day and between Cass’s ankle and just being sore from hiking, we were hurting.  We decided that night that we would take it a bit easier the next couple of days and that we needed to re-evaluate the idea of doing an extended back-country trip.   

   

The next morning we packed up our camp and did the short hike around the Trail of the Cedars.  Cass’s parents might while building the boardwalks that make up this trail so she wanted to be sure to hike it.  We then drove up and over Logan Pass to the east side of the park.  After setting up camp in the Rising Sun Campground, we drove to the Many Glacier portion of the park.  We did a nice easy hike around Swiftcurrent Lake and admired the Many Glacier Hotel before heading back to camp.   

Many Glacier Hotel

 

We were going to enjoy a leisurely boat tour on St. Mary lake but due to a watch that was set a bit slow, we just missed the boat.  So we walked back to camp and while having dinner we saw a black bear walk around the edge of the campground.  A ranger was nearby and the bear was quickly chased off.  We found out later that he was a bit of a regular in that area but was considered to be largely harmless.  We finished the Tuesday evening at a ranger program about the geology of the park.   

Many Glacier Hotel

 

More stories from this trip still to come…..

Going to the Sun… Part 1

An update on progress in general: today is day number 177 of the 1001 or almost 18% of the way through my time.  So far I’ve only finished 4 of my 101 goals, but I’ve started and made progress on 29 others.  I think I’m still doing ok, but I need to finish up and cross off some of the items that have been sitting out there mostly done.  Hopefully I’ll get several finished up in the next couple of weeks.

73. Go to Glacier National Park.

 Last week, Cass and I took a vacation and went to Glacier National Park.  That is part of the reason I haven’t made any posts for so long.  I’ve been away from computers for the past 11 days or so.  We Left Red Lodge on Friday the 13th and spent the night camping in Seeley Lake, MT.  On Saturday we met up with my friend Katie who lives in Whitefish.  (See my earlier entry about going skiing with her back in March)  On Sunday, we headed into the park, got a campsite and caught a shuttle going up to Logan pass on Going to the Sun Road.  We spent 2 nights at the Avalanche Creek campground, 1 night at Rising Sun, and then 2 nights at Logging Creek Campground in the Northwest Corner of the park.  During the course of the week, we hiked about 30 miles, took a boat tour, went into pretty much every entrance of the park, saw 2 ranger programs, saw a bear, goats and big horn sheep, and met some Russians who seemed to never have heard about water purification.  It was a great trip and I will post many more details and lots of pictures in the coming days.

59. Spend at least 12 nights per year in the”back-country.”

The purpose of this item was to try to help make sure that I get several nights each summer away from the grind of every day life.  When I say back-country I generally mean a wilderness area where you have to hike or float to get there.  However, the true nature of this item was to spend some time camping and getting away from it all.  While our time camping doesn’t truly match the wilderness criteria, it was excellent time away from the grind.  So with that in mind I suggest an alternative definition of back-country.  To truly be back-country an area needs to meet 3 criteria: 1. No electrical outlets.  2. No cell phone reception 3. No vehicle access.  Since our six nights camping met the first 2 of these 3 criteria and because it was such a relaxing trip, I’m going to count those 6 nights at 2/3 value.  So I’m giving myself credit for 4 nights in the back-country.

1. Lose weight – get under 220 pounds and stay there for more than a year.

After a week of hiking and camping I decided to do an official update of my weight.  I have been hovering between 240 and 245 all summer, but as of this morning I’m down to 235 lbs.  That’s down around 35 lbs from about 270 back in October and down ten pounds from the last update in late March.  I’m now only 15 pounds from my target weight of 220.

The Last Red Elvis

62. Watch or re-watch every movie that has won the best picture oscar since the year I was born (1975)

Before talking about the actual movies, I’ve made a few observations about this task in general.  Since the beginning of my challenge, I’ve now watched fourteen of the thirty-seven movies I’ve required  of myself.  However there are only 7 more movies on the list that I’ve never seen before; 5 if you exclude the 2 that haven’t yet been named best picture (2010 and 2011)  When I started, there were 14 or 12 depending upon how you count. So I’m more than half-way in that aspect.

1987 – The Last Emperor  Like many of the movies on this list, The Last Emperor is a very vissually appealling movie with a historical basis.  It is about the man who was the last to be Emperor of China.  He ascended to the throne at the age of three, but spent most of his life locked either in a palace or in a prison of communist China.  The movie does an excellent job of telling the interesting story of his life while jumping between his youth and his later years over the course of almost 3 hours. 

I’ve long been a fan of world war one and world war II documentaries.  I used to watch the History channel for hours on end, especialy when it earned its old nickname of ‘The Hitler Channel.’  This movie brings an often unmentioned perspective to that period of history.  This is not a documentary by any stretch of the imagination, but it does give another view of the time.

I also found it interesting that while I suspect most people were glad in 1987 that the dialogue was almost entirely in English, I found it a bit distracting.  I think after seeing movies like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Hero among others, I’ve come to expect movies with this visual style to have the words spoken in the appropriate language with English subtitles.  It was odd for me to realize this because I’ve been known to complain at times about having to “read” movies with sub-titles.  It seems it might be time to re-evaluate.

1980 – Ordinary People This might be the only movie on the list that I don’t think I’d even heard of before starting the list.  It stars Mary Tyler Moore, Donald Sutherland, Judd Hirsch, and Timothy Hutton and was the directing debut for Robert Redford.  The movie is about a suburban northern illinois family and their emotional / psycological turmoils after the oldest son dies in boating accident.  It is a good movie and I am surprised that I had never heard of it before, especially in light of all the big names in the cast.  I might watch this one again.

80. Either finish or remove the silly fence in my front yard.

The plan for the weekend was to spend some time with Cass and to remove my fence.  However, the weather was pretty nice so I ended up kayaking the Stillwater River both days and going to the Red Lodge Festival of Nations on Saturday night.  I’m trying to keep a good balance between crossing things off of the list and keeping in mind the point of the list in the first point: to enjoy life and take full advantage of the opportunities around me.  Despite all of this other activity I did get a little more than half of the fence taken out.  I think I’ve made the right choice in taking it out.  I’ll give you a detailed description and some pictures once I have it all out.

In the mean-time a little about the weekend.  On Saturday, Cass and I kayaked the Stillwater river from Johnson Bridge down to Swinging Bridge.  Cass just learning to kayak so this is a good section for getting a bit more comfortable with the boat and with being on the water.  She did really well and is already seeking out wave trains a slightly more challenging water instead of just trying to stay in the “green water.”  I’m really proud of how well she’s doing having only started the sport in June.

Saturday night we went to the Festival of Nations and saw two bands.  The first was Fishtank Ensemble.  This is a high energy group that plays what they describe as cross-pollinated gypsy music.  It was a lot of fun and a bit different.  All of the members were very good and the lead singer was notable, but the slap bass player definitely stole the show.  He is a phonominal mucisian and one heck of a showman.  If you geta chance, check them out.

Igor and Red Elvises (from their Facebook Page)

After walking downtown for some dinner, we came back to the festival for Igor and Red Elvises.  Holy Cow!  These guys were an absolute blast.  We had so much fun!  Every member of the group is a complete showman and they clearly have at least as much fun as all of the people in the crowd.  (and that is definitely saying something.)  For those of you from the Wisconsin area who have seen Pat McCurdy, these guys are even more fun.  While very few songs will ever rival Pat’s Sex and Beer, the Red Elvises’ Closet Disco Dancer is right up there.  The picture above only begins to give you an idea of how much fun this band is.  (For the record that giant red bass guitar is not just a prop for the picture.  That is the guitar he played through the entire show!)  Seek them out! Find them and enjoy their unique experience.  They just might become, as Igor likes to proclaim after most songs, “YOUR FAVORITE BAND!”

You are Standing on Top of the Largest Volcano in the World

37. Show 3 friends who have never seen it  around Yellowstone National Park.

One of my very best friends in the world, Leslie, finally came to visit me in Montana for the first time.  She brought her little girl with her and I got to show them both around the Red Lodge area including Yellowstone National Park.  Yesterday, the 2 of them and Cass and I hit the road at 7AM and headed over the Beartooth Pass towards Cooke City, MT and Yellowstone National Park.  Since we only had one day for them to see the park we decided to do the whirlwind tour.  We entered the PArk at the northeast entrance and drove through the Lamar River valley.  There are always plenty of Buffalo wondering the fields (and even on the road) through that area.   We even saw two separate bears within the first 45 minutes in the park.

We then drove down to the canyon section of the park to see my favorite part of the park: the falls in the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River.  There are 2 large and powerful waterfalls one almost right after the other.  The upper falls are 109 feet tall and the lower falls are 308 feet tall.  These 2 large waterfalls within a beautiful canyon never fail to move me.  I’ve always loved being near rivers and these waterfalls are a perfect example.

The Upper Falls as seen from the trail to the brink of the Lower Falls

After having lunch in the parking lot, we started heading towards Old Faithful.  While passing Yellowstone Lake Leslie made several comments comparing the size of the lake to the Sea of Galilee.  (She went on a trip to Israel earlier this year.)  She suspected that Yellowstone Lake is bigger.  A little quick research suggests that she was right: the Sea of Galilee is approximately 33 miles in circumference and covers about 64 square miles while Yellowstone Lake covers 136 square miles and boasts 110 miles of shore-line.  I pointed out to her what I think is the more impressive statistic that almost all of Yellowstone lake lies within and is only a small portion of the caldera from the last time the Yellowstone Volcano erupted.  The most recent caldera measures about 34 miles by 45 miles or approximately 1,500 square miles.  For reference, Mt. St. Helens is 2 square miles.

A USGS map showing the size of the Yellowstone caldera

Our arrival at Old Faithful was timed just about perfectly.  Sometimes you may have to wait well over an hour to see an eruption of Old Faithful.  We walked up to the geyser area and it erupted about 15 minutes later.  Old Faithful is not the most impressive geyser in the park, its just the most predictable.  This particular eruption was impressive but not the greatest I’ve seen.  The best geyser eruption I’ve seen was a few year’s ago when I brought my parents to the park.  We had just missed Old Faithful so we decided to take a walk around the area to see some of the other less predictable geysers.  We didn’t expect to see any great eruptions but we needed to kill some time.  We made our way around and sat down near the Beehive geyser to watch Old Faithful from a distance and avoid the crowds.  Old Faithful went off and it was OK.  However, just a minute or so after O.F. finished beehive erupted right next to us.  It was a much bigger and much longer eruption and we were standing so close we could feel the warm mist.

My parents in front of the beehive geyser in 2007

After we saw our eruption on this most recent trip, we decided it was time to get some ice cream and water.  That’s when the world got a little bit smaller.  We were sitting on the front steps of the lodge eating our ice cream when I looked up and saw my friend Sage.  It’s always a little weird seeing someone you know unexpectedly in the park. (although it’s happened to me before: I once bumped into a friend who I didn’t even know was on vacation from Wisconsin while hiking into the Yellowstone Canyon.)  What made this encounter even more peculiar though was that Sage is in the process of hiking the Continental Divide Trail.  She was on day 80 of her trek fom Mexico to Canada hiking through the Rocky Mountains.  We visited for a while and she got back on the trail: She wanted to make it to Montana by nightfall.

Cass and I near the Firehole River

The rest of our Park time included a few more geysers and the fountain paintpots.  We had a very nice stop at the falls on the firehole river and then drove past the mammoth hot springs.  We saw some mountain goats and had the rare treat of seeing a Mountain Lion. It was starting to get dark when we stopped for the obilgatory pictures by the Roosevelt Arch at the North Entrance to the park. 

We topped off the night with a very nice dinner on the roof-top lounge at Rosie’s, a restaurant in Gardiner, MT that provides a beautiful view of the north entrance of the park.  A quality day was had by all.

Good Fences Make Good Neighbors, Bad Fences are Just Annoying

80. Either finish or remove the silly fence in my front yard. 

I hadn’t planned on attacking this project for a while, but events transpired that drove the issue.   I received a couple of calls in the past week from the owner of the house next to mine.  It seems that there was a leak in the water service line that supplies that house and it was creating something of a bog in their front yard.  After a bit of line-locating, the plumbers discovered that their house didn’t connect directly to directly to the city’s main pipe but instead ran across my front yard and connected to my water service pipe.  This sort of situation is not uncommon in Red Lodge and it isn’t terribly surprising either as the two houses were once owned by the same family and actually look very much alike. 

To properly deal with the issue, my neighbors and their plumbers suggested digging  a hole in my front yard to expose the valve and junction where their pipe attached to mine.  We’d then cap and abandon their old pipe while running a new pipe from their house directly to the street and the city’s main.  Of course this junction lies pretty much directly below a portion of the silly fence in my front yard that has made me just a little crazy since the day I moved into the house.  So that portion of the fence had to come down, at least temporarily. 

You can see part of my silly fence in this picture.

 

Why do I dislike this fence so much? Well, there are a few reasons.  Despite what Robert Frost might have you believe, I don’t think that good fences make good neighbors.  In fact, I think that especially in small town neighborhoods fences have the opposite effect.  I have some great conversations with my neighbor which start with him coming over to retrieve his great dane Jackson who likes to lie down (and poop) under the trees in my yard.  If I had a full fence, those conversations might never happen.  That brings me to the second thing I don’t like about the fence.  My lot is 125 feet deep, but the fence only goes back for maybe 40 feet of it, so the fence is strictly for show.  It doesn’t effectively fence anything in or out.  It is also a very funny shape.  In efforts to keep the apple tree and as much yard as possible inside the fence but have the driveway and garbage can outside the fence, it has a very strange even convoluted shape.  And finally, the damn thing is just difficult to mow around. 

So that’s it.  I don’t like the fence, so it is coming down.  I asked the guys who took down the first section to dig the hole to not bother putting it back up.  Now I just need to get motivated enough to take the rest of it down.  And I need to figure out what to do with all of that fencing material. 

39. Read On Liberty by John Stuart Mill. 

This morning I began reading John Stuart Mill’s essay On Liberty.  I’ve been looking forward to reading this essay since I first came across a quote from it: “The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient warrant.”  I agree with this sentiment and I think it is a great expression of my opinion of much of what is going on politics these days.  Don’t mis-understand, I’m not signing up for any tea party gatherings.  I do however think that the more people have things provided for them, the less they are motivated to provide for themselves and those who depend upon them.  While I agree that everyone should wear a seat belt while in a car, I’m not sure that “Click it or Ticket” programs are the best use of limited government resources. 

When I sat down to start reading, I grabbed a highlighter because I had a feeling that I was going to find a lot of quotes that I’d like.  I was right.  I’m only about 20 pages into the essay and I’ve already found a few quotes that I like.  The one I liked the best was this one about the freedom of religion. 

 Yet so natural to mankind is intolerance in whatever they really care about, that religious freedom has hardly anywhere been practically realized, except where religious indifference, which dislikes to have its peace disturbed by theological quarrels, has added its weight to the scale. In the minds of almost all religious persons, even in the most tolerant countries, the duty of toleration is admitted with tacit reserves. 

It’s a good point about freedom of religion and consistent with some of the things I pointed out in my last entry about my views on religion.  While Mill’s writing style is a bit wordy and difficult to digest at time, I’m looking forward to reading the rest of this essay and probably the other 3 essays of his that are in the same book. 

7. Make it through an entire softball season without a major injury. 

There was another night of softball last night, and still no major injuries.  The bottom of my left foot is a little sore today though.  I think my body is just not accustomed to running so much.  Despite a loss, I played well after subbing in about half-way through the game.  No errors in right-center field although I came very close to mis-playing one fly ball.  I charged in a bit too much and the ball almost sailed over my head.  Fortunately, the long arms that tend to run in my family saved me.  I was able to reach up at the last moment at snag the ball, but just barely.  I batted well too: 2-2 with a double and a home run.  After my in-the-park home run, my teammates gave me a fair amount of grief about my size, but admitted that I could run pretty fast for a guy my size.  There we several references to freight trains and tree trunks.  Oh well, a home run is still a home run.