ze' Park: first two weeks in photos

The laptop dilemma got solved. Yippee-ai-oh. Onward with documentation! I guess I haven't explained our current situation very well yet: we're renting a little efficiency apartment in the employee housing complex of Glacier National Park, where Jason is working for the summer as a fire ecologist. Glacier is about 40 minutes from my hometown of Whitefish, so we go home on the weekends to spend time with family and do in-town chores. Jason currently works ten hours a day, four days a week. I currently work zero hours at a real job but many hours doing sewing/photo/reading/baby-preparation projects, keeping house, making meals, laundering clothes, and generally learning how to be a domestic goddess. Here is Baggie-Washing Day (and one pair of fire pants that needed hemming).

Each morning, Jason gets up around 6 and makes stovetop espresso and steel-cut oats for his breakfast. I get up soon thereafter and make a sack lunch, then quickly find my pillow again. I'll soon be organized enough to make sack lunches the night before. Jason rides his bike three minutes to work, as the sun is just peeking over the Belton Hills by our place. Some days he then drives and hikes out to remote lookout towers or weather stations to fix equipment; some days he is getting refresher training on things like helicopter long-line hookups. Once was an all-day bear training that I snuck into with him by throwing around a few names and some Parkie lingo. That's not true; all I did was walk in, and no one cared. Still, I'm sure it was sneaky and dangerous, an experience that a housewife needs every now and again. Ha ha ha. I say that after two weeks. Anyhow, that was a super informative training and got me in the mood for some bear encounters! With my pepper spray quite handy, of course. And camera.

All of this until fire season starts, at which point Jason'll be involved in trying to squelch little fires that occur by lightening strikes. Meanwhile, In the evenings after dinner, we hike or bike in the Park. Here are some photos of neat scenes and items we've run across during those excursions.

textbook example of deer hair caught on a stick

just after a snow storm

the same scene at Lake McDonald several days later

Does cloud imitate tree, or does tree imitate cloud?

finally, our little Stoffer kidlet, starting to be obviously present

Ggghaaarrrr...

Welp, we've been at the Park for a week and a half, and I have been so anxious to post pictures. In fact, this morning I was set to ride my bike down here to the internet place to do so when my laptop went wacky. Laptops are the bane of humanity's existence, I declare. If anybody knows what do to when it suddenly out of the clear blue makes you give it a password to sign in as the Administrator (for Microsoft), when you've never ever done that before, by all means let me know!

Meanwhile, since I'm paying one US dollar for every five minutes I'm using their computer and not my own, I'll make this snappy. We're doing great! The pregnancy's going fine. Jason's job involves the most random things, which I'll expand upon later. We've gotten into our little routines here, and things are good.

Take care, and I'll post pics soon...as soon as I get the nearest free help for the computer.