A visit from Maggie C

Maggie C. came up here in mid October to visit.  I showed her around Missoula and she seemed to like it very much.  It was a  pretty sweet weekend.  

--Photo by Maggie C of two-story bicycle

--Sweet trail around the side of Mt Jumbo.  Even though it was the wrong one.  My geographer skills are still being honed.

--view of Missoula from the "L"

--David C and Maggie C

--Crazy guy paragliding off the summit

Pictures that indicate the season...

It is presently Fall.  Here are some examples (Starring Bailey, the landlords dog):

The Back yardage

Arteries
Miss Bailey in full effect
I am officially going to stop combating these text problems.  From now on whatever it decides to be... it will be.

Lots of pics of my backyard

Is it just me or do these leaves look edible?  Like sugary cereal.  I am going to try and eat them tonight.

Hi-fiving trees!

Leaves + light

Behind the backyard.  Don't know if that property belongs to us or not.

Bailey has grown weary of my picture taking.

She finds the squirrel much more entertaining and intriguing,  

Garnet- My first Montana ghost town

Garnet is supposed to be the best preserved ghost town in Montana.  It sits at the top of the garnet range.  It was a gold mining town.  I don't know much else about it except that it burnt down once and was rebuilt before it was abandoned after they cleaned out all the gold.  Some people now live there and restored some of the buildings.  I usually like ghost towns that are left how they were at the time everyone left, but it was cool to see the history laid out and to know the story behind everything.

--The drive up the Garnet Range.  It was hazy so its hard to see, but it's a nice view

--Mossy tree

--Garnet in full effect
--Old

--Mining Cars and the old general store

--This is the Saloon.  It was built in 1898.  People became innibraited here.

--This is the newlywed cabin...apparently

--This is the corner of it.  Sorry for the underline.  I don't know how to stop it!  It makes me want to punch things

--(Punching things is the solution.)  An artifact of some type

--Various miners cabins

--grass and a crapper.  (Damn this underlining!  Punching isn;t working anymore)

--Whoops the cabin is dead.

--This is some sort of machine, which I can only assume performed some sort of function.

--The jail!

--These trees look like gigantic beargrass

--Listening to the beginning of the vice-presidential debate on the way back poisoned this beautiful view

Rattlesnake

I finally made it up into Rattlesnake wilderness.  It is 35,000 acres of wilderness and mountains.  It's only four miles north of Missoula.  I only spent an afternoon up there, but people spend weeks backpacking all around there.  It is prime country from what I hear.  I am hoping to spend more time there.  There are seriously like a gagilion black bears in there.  Scary!  With such limited time, we just went a couple miles up one of the trail to this old cabin that was occupied by the curry family in the late 1800's.

--This is Rattlesnake Creek

--This are very Missoula-ish red and green rocks

--I think this was their root cellar

--And of course, this is Montana so people shot it with guns
 --This is the cabin       

--This doorway became sick and puked

--It appears that Mrs. Curtis enjoyed a white kitchen and blue windows

--I don't know why this is underlined but I cant fix it.  

--It is fall here, but it feels kind of like Washington's winter.  I have decided to call it "Finter"

A trip outside of Missoula!

So I entered a motor vehicle for the first time in four weeks.  I was sad to let my streak die, but it was good to get more than ten miles out of town.  I felt like I was travelling extremely fast.  It was weird like being in the future.  A new friend from school, Liz, invited me to go feed her horse at a ranch in Florence.  There were three dogs there that were insane and poorly behaved, but they were nice poochies and I liked them.  The dogs and one of the cats followed us out to the river where we had some intense games of catch with only one tennis ball.  

--This is Brego.  He is a horse.  

--Meet Katie.  She was actually the least crazy but also the least photogenic
--The Bitterroot Mountains
--Kitty who followed us meowing constantly
--Kate, Jake, and Earl enjoying the Bitterroot River

--Earl

--The Riv
--Ponderosa Pinage combined with light
--Right after taking this picture Jake had a tough time getting up this ledge and out of the river.  So I ran down and pulled him up by the collar.  I almost fell in because there was nothing to hold on to.  After I got him out he promptly thanked me by jumping on my camera and then kicking sand all over it.  It is operational but there is still some grinding when turning the aperture dial.  i don't think he meant to.
--Moo.  Angus.  You will probably eat one of these guys later.  Pyramid buttes (I think) in the background. Super huge jagged peak.  I wanted to go up there. 

--Back in Missoula.  I got dropped of at school where my bike was.  This is on the bike trail on the way home

--One of the three tunnels they built for me on my commute.  They go under these horrible busy streets so I don't even have to stop.  That was nice of them.  It probably just looks like a tunnel to most, but if you listen to enough death metal you will realize that it is actually the eye of a panther.