Volunteering for Fisheries

In September, I got to volunteer with the contractors for the Fisheries folks. It was a great, calm day out on the water. Oh, and long. A long day on the water. Carrie and I got there at 6am and didn't get home until well after 6pm. It was a long day of cutting fish and marking measurements.

Carrie vs. the whopper

Artsy Fartsy fish egg shot (that's how we knew if they were boys or girls)

Cutting into the fish

Me on the boat

Potts Hot Springs Basin--September

Heidi got the hookup with Ralph Taylor to get us a tour out in Potts Hot Spring Basin. It's normally off limits but... I know people who know people. We also met Dot and Jim Sweeney who came with Ralph. The basin is split into the Upper and Lower Mercurial Groups as well as North Beach and South Beach. Mercurial refers to the emotion (wildly swinging) and not the element. Basically, the tree line is the separation between the Upper and Lower. North Beach is mostly mudpots.

The basin was named for Daniel Potts who

was an early trapper. There are something like 400 features in this basin. There are obligate plants in the basin. Ones that can grow at high temperatures. According to Ralph, no one knows why the plants can stand the high temps, there is a possible bacteria that may help guard the roots.

In the various hot springs, there can be two types of bubbles. Gas bubbles don't change size don't change size but steam bubbles hit the cooler water and collapse.

Lower Mercurial Group has bigger hotter pools and geyser.

There was tall, yellow grass called "Tufted Hair Grass." It's presence means that it is probably wet or was wet for most of the year. Normally, you can sort of trust that stepping on grass tufts will keep you dry and unburned. That's not true here. You also have to be careful of the thermal quicksand. Uh... huh. This is why you can only come with a guide.

It takes decades to build a shelf like this

Why? Why would you walk through a hot spring?

Man made lagoon, the old road is holding it in

They built the original road over a thermal area

A cliff is on South Beach. This wall is where a hot spring used to be, a cross-section of 30 years of hot spring activities

Silicified bacterial mat

Effluessence, usually gypsum but Ralph didn't know what this one was

More bacterial mat

Great Falls

Finally writing a blog post in the same month as a trip.

Heidi had a training in Helena so she suggested that we all go up to Great Falls since she had been wanting to see the mermaid bar at the Sip 'n' Dip and one of my bucket list items was to ride a mechanical bull, the closest of which was at the Flamingo in Great Falls.
So, I left work early on Friday and picked up Trudy and Christie for the four hour ride up to Great Falls. It was an awesome ride up and when we got there, we used Trudy's Droid to check Trip Advisor for a recommendation for dinner. The number one restaurant in Great Falls was a

place called "Goode's Q and Bayou Grill." Of course, Fuddrucker's and Perkins also made the list so it was a little suspect but we still got in the car and headed over. What... an.. AWESOME... decision. It was about 20 minutes 'til closing and there was only one other table in the small restaraunt but we went in anyway. The staff was incredibly friendly and greeted us all with smiles and let us sit anywhere. As we were waiting to order, the owner himself came in and chatted with us. He was so impressed that we came over because of Trip Advisor that he ordered us an etouffe (the house special) for the table. Delicious food, wonderful atmosphere, will have to go back some time.

We then went over to the Flamingo where I had tracked down the only mechanical bull in montana. Or at least the closest one I could find. It was about 9:30 when we got there and it looked for a little bit like I might not get to ride the bull. They need at least eight people to sign up before they blow up the safety mat and there weren't enough people in the bar. We were all anxious to get over to the Sip 'n' Dip because we didn't want to miss the mermaid. Luckily, a big group of people came in and all wanted to ride the bull. So I got my $4 ($4!) ticket and waited my turn to ride the mechanical bull. I had no clue what I was doing but it was totally awesome. I ended up riding twice because Trudy (Thanks Trudy!) bought me another ticket. She and Christie also got to ride when some other folks dropped tickets off at our table.
We then went to the Mermaid Bar where the piano player was still in residence. She is probably older than dirt and doesn't sing, per, se, but is very fun. There are also two large windows behind the bar which look into the pool and, on the weekend, feature swimming mermaids. The picture on the left is me pretending to be a mermaid the next morning.
The next morning, we again consulted Trip Advisor and had breakfast at Five Loaves in Great Falls. It was okay. More of a coffee shop than a breakfast place but the coffee was excellent and my bacon and cheddar pocket was pretty yummy.
We then hit the Charles Russell Museum which was a dream of Heidi's to see.
On the road again, we stopped in Helena, which is actually a cute little place and also in Townsend, to see the glass blowing place there.

South Dakota-Thursday, Friday

Our plan for the trip was to have one day where we didn't get out of our jammies. It wasn't quite accomplished, but we came pretty close. I woke up and did some yoga. It wasn't my own first time on the ranch as I had done a little on Wednesday but it was the most extended session I had. It was absolutely wonderful to wake up, climb up a hill and actually greet the rising sun with some Sun Salutations. After the ladies and I went on a four-mile walk down to visit the site of the house where Allie grew up, we settled in to read. 'Cause we had planned a day of not changing out of our jammies and this was pretty darn close. After some quick naps, we also went out in the truck to see more of the Murphy family ranch.

Puppies in a truck!

"Do not worry little penguin. You will not be alone for long. I will build you a family."

Trying to stay cool and just being cool.

South Dakota-Wednesday

Wednesday, August 25

This was the Big, Exciting Day. The raison d'etre. Bison Day.

We woke up early and dressed for the day, got in the truck, and rode out 45 minutes to meet Lane at the ranch. We shifted from Allie's truck to Lane's and rode out about five minutes across the rode to the bison herd. It... was...awesome. The bison know that there's food on the truck so they ran along side, grunting the whole time. We got to feed them "cakes" (tastes like wheat, see left) from our hands. Lane didn't recommend patting the bison but I did it anyway. Their head hair is coarse and sproingy. Very fun. By the way, the animals are huge. It's one thing to know that they're huge. It's another to sit in your car and watch them walk down the road at a level higher than your car. It's a whole other world to be in the bed of a truck petting the darn things. They're huge.

We then went over to the elk compound and got to see the herd of four bucks and 8(?) ladies. They weren't as comfortable coming to eat cakes and one bull in particular did NOT like Lane. He tried to get through the fence to poke holes in Lane's body.

Then came shooting. The family has a shooting range made up of a bunch of old jars and bottles that you can line up on top of a no-longer-in-use washer and drier and then you shoot. I had never shot a gun before. At least, not that I can remember. That day, I got to shoot a .22 rifle, a.17 rifle with a scope, a.30-30 (lots of kick), 9mm sig sauer, and a .357 which is almost just like a Dirty Harry gun. Way fun.

Before we went in for dinner (read here, a very large lunch), we went out to

the south fields to shoot some prairie dogs. It took awhile for us to find them but finally both Allie and I shot some suckers. I think I missed on the first one (and there was some debate on whether it was a prairie dog or a rock) but got the second one I aimed at. I felt horribly guilty and swore never to kill again (that last about two weeks until I went out on the fishing boat) but I had to put up a good front because Lane had taken all this time out of his day to take these three ladies out and I didn't want to cry, especially since he had asked, like, three times if we really wanted to do this.

Dinner helped. Food is a balm to any soul. It's not supposed to be, but c'mon, if it helps, it helps. And this.... this was a spread. Potatoes with gravy, spinach (out of a neighbor's garden) creamed corn, beets, a veggie platter, homemade bread, chicken, honey from the family's bee hives and ice cream for dessert.

Bread Recipe

5-6 cups of whole wheat (yeah, she had her own mill in the kitchen so it was fresh, fresh wheat)

4 cups of water (or just over that amount)

2/3 cup sugar

gluten

yeast

Put everything in mixer and add white flour slowly.

She then took us out to the Stoneville School. The school had only recently closed after being around for almost,

if not over, a hundred years. Community members had decided to come together and make it a museum with each of the classrooms representing a different time period in the school. Some of the locals had old desks. One teacher's daughter had her desk from the school. It's an amazing effort and hopefully will be worth the time.

South Dakota-Tuesday

Tuesday, August 24

Allie and I woke up and walked down to Common Grounds, a coffee shop, to get some drinks.

On the way out to the ranch, we first stopped off at Aunt Teresa’s house so Allie could visit. What a nice lady! She had some cobbler for us to eat and their house was beautiful. It was built to be the fajther’s workshop, but when he got sick, the townsfolk got together and helped them to make it into a home. The stairs are a little dizzying but it seems like a fun place to live.

We also stopped at Keystone, an equivalent gateway community to Gardiner, only it's outside Mount Rushmore, and grabbed some ice cream and Mexican. The lunch was okay but not expensive so it all equaled out. We also ran through a really neat antique store and I found a butter cutter so that I can make real pie crusts now. This is also the closest I got to finding a mechanical bull. Sigh. At least there is always Great Falls

On the way out to the ranch, we played I Spy which was surprisingly difficult at times considering there was really only the open road ahead of us.

We finally got to Allie’s family ranch which was incredibly beautiful. The house was a kit from Sears that the family had lived in. With only two true bedrooms and one bath, I don’t know how they survived with the many, many children (8?) that they had.

We hopped in the truck and rode around. Emily and I sat in the back of the truck with the pupsters and just enjoyed the scenery.

Allie took us down to her favorite tree and we hung out until dusk.

We went for a moonlit walk and then went to bed.

South Dakota-Monday

We went to the Fair. It was awesome.

There were rides, animals, games and just tons of things to do and see: sheep shearing, animal petting, prize animal lookin', people watchin'. Emily, Allie and I got there early in the afternoon, before the crowd gathered. It looked like pretty normal people for the most part. At least before dusk fell. This was the winning Sheep Buster (sheep busting is like a junior rodeo, basically kids riding on sheep until they fall off). The picture on the left is Ben on "Fluffy" who won with a score of 78. This little guy knew he was a star. As soon as we was off that sheep, he had his fingers thrust up in the air walking around letting everyone know that he was number one!We got to watch one of my personal favorites, pig racing. I'm

sure a lot of people would decry this sport as being inhumane but the pigs sure look like they're having fun.

First, there was a practice run so we could see the pigs strut their stuff. Everyone in the crowd got a ticket and then could put one half of it into the bucket whose color corresponded with that of the pig we though might win. Then the pigs were off again. The pig in the black jersey was always put in backwards. At the end, the pigs get a little treat and the barker pulled a ticket from the bucket and the matching half got some little trinket or prize.

The pig wrestling (or "wraissling" as I tried to make everyone say but using it as much as possible) was the event we had come for. There were four teams (two mens, two womens) and everyone was dressed up in theme costumes. Just before the announcer explained the rules, the pigs were covered in baking oil.

The object of the game was to get the 100-150 lb. pig into the bucket. All four team members must have a hand on the pig as it goes in. They can't grab the tail or the ears of the pig, it's a 10 second penalty. The pig must go in feet first, an upside-down pig was an automatic disqualification. There is a maximum of 1:20 seconds to get the pig out of the tub and put it back in the pig pen. The teams must start in four corners of the arena and have at least one hand on the rail. It was hilarious, loud and just down-right fun. I had tried to talk Emily, Allie and Allie's cousin into making up a team but they were adamant about not going in. The winning times were:

Minute Man Archery club 14.21

Children's Miracle Network 50.81

Cedar Canyon Bible Camp 1:17.06

Children's Miracle Network 1:17.22

We then rode the swing ride and after hanging out at the German polka tent for awhile, we went back to Allie’s cousins house and fell promptly asleep

My work is rarely dull

Think about things one might do in a bathroom. Then ponder which of those things one should never, never do in a urinal. Well, we had a little gift that one of our researchers found. Actually, two little gifts, one for each of our public floors.
People, if you're going to do things like this, make sure that there are no cameras in the building. Seriously.

September books

24. Slower month. Better "quality" of book though. If you consider romance novels to be "lesser." Which I don't. They're usually just shorter. And less densely packed. And more enjoyable.

Antiques Roadshow

In July, Emily and I went to the Antiques Roadshow in Billings. It was pretty awesome. We got to the building, gave them our tickets and got in the first line. It moved pretty fast and we were in line for about an hour-hour and a half. It was really fun to see all of the random stuff that people had brought in. We were allowed to take two items each. I took the statue my uncle had given me and a violin Carrie had gotten from her grandmother. Emily brought a mortar and pestle that belonged to a work friend and a calendar that Christie had found in the wall of her apartment when she was remodeling.
Once you get into the area where they do all the pricing, you can't have a phone or camera so I don't have any pics but the people standing in line were enough. I would definitely recommend that anyone going to get tickets go as early as possible since those people got in and got out... fast. We got in around 11 and didn't get done until 3. Yes, some of that was dawdling but no more than a half hour or so. After you get to the main area, you get two tickets, one for each of your items. Mine were Metalwork & Sculpture and Musical Instruments. Emily got Folk Art and something else we determined was more or less Miscellaneous. It was the longest line, by far.
We started with my little statue. The guy was very, very apologetic while telling me that my troubadour is only worth what people are willing to pay for it. I wasn't expecting much so I wasn't very crushed. The guy seemed a little taken aback that I wasn't more crushed. Um, okay.
Our next stop was the Folk Art. Oh yeah baby, we got the married twin (Okay, I know that's really bad not to know his name, but I don't watch enough to actually know names). This woman with a totally sycophantic gleam in her eye tried to cut in front of us but was rebuffed 'cause she didn't have an item. The mortar and pestle ended up being the highest item of our day. The guy and the other woman at the table were pretty impressed. I'm still convinced we might have been on TV if Emily had lied and said it was her great-grandmother's. Oh well.
The next stop was musical instruments. The first table where we didn't get to walk right up. The guy there got excited when he saw the case. It's a fancy, shmancy thing but the violin... turned out not to be what he had expected. He said that it was "only" worth something like $250-300. I say, meh, for a $10 garage-sale buy, that's pretty awesome.
The last stop was Collectibles-or-whatever-that-section-was-called. There were a lot of people in line. We ended up waiting for over and hour. The guy that looked at Christie's calendar was actually very intrigued. It ended up that similar lithographs were selling for about $50-88. This was an unusual litho because the calendar, all twelve tear-off months were still there.
We got to do the thing at the end where you talk to folks but didn't make it on TV. Well, not on purpose. If you see a green skirt covering a wide butt and a white shirt with criss-cross in the back, that's me.

Episode 1 -- April 11 at 7pm
Episode 2 -- April 18 at 7pm
Episode 3 -- April 25 at 7pm

Guatemala-Saturday

Saturday we headed out of Gualan. We bussed past Guatemala City on the way to visit a clinic on Lake Amatitlan. The clinic itself was very nice, but it was in an unsafe place, at least, that's what they told us. The neighborhood was built up around the railroad tracks . Apparently, the local government had an agreement with whatever railway company it is up in Canada that the railway would own all of their own property as well as 100 feet on either side of the tracks for 30 years (I think they were in year 20 or 25). The railway hasn't been kept up so people have built up what would have been called "shanty towns" in the 30s. It was incredibly heartbreaking to see such poverty. It's one of those things that I know exists, but I'd rather not think abuot it. And here we were, confronted with it. One of the families we met had a little boy named Isaiah and he was more or less shunned because he had a cleft palate. Along with polydatyly (extra fingers and toes), cleft palates are the biggest genetic problem that occurs in Guatemala. We asked the doctor from the clinic if he knew about the program that was going on in Zapata. He had no clue but, luckily, one of our ladies had a brochure. Less than a week after we left, Isaiah had surgery. It's frustrating to know that there are so many relief missions occuring in Guatemala (probably all over the world) that could do so much more good if they knew what the other mission groups were doing. If we hadn't just happened to visit both places, this poor kid might not even have survived.

Finally, it was time to go back and hang out at the hotel where Jane and I were going to sleep. For about two hours, the group just hung out and recounted the details of our trip to each other. It was so much fun and all too soon, we had to say goodbye.

It was an awesome trip. If I can swing the time and money, this is definitely something I'd like to try again.

On Sunday, Jane and I flew back to Tampa. I got to stay with Grandma Byrnes at her super fancy apartment and even got a glimpse of the Yankees player (whose name I will never remember) who was staying down there for spring training.

I went out with Susan and Kaylyn for the latter's birthday party and felt just ancient since all of their friends were in their early- to mid-twenties. It's only 5 years but I just felt out of sync. Anyway, got to sleep in an absolutely lovely bed and finally, after another 7 hours of uneventful travel, made it back to Bozeman.

Hanging at Lake

Drove down to Lake Hotel last night. Yes, I ventured into the park. Carrie and her dad were down fishing so I met them for dinner. Well, I saw her car on the side of the road and veered over. When I asked how the fish were running, she replied nicely enough but when I said, "and your dog is just sacked out" she kind of got a little weirded out. With the water running and not being able to see me clearly, she had no idea that the person talking to her actually knew her.

We had a lovely and delicious dinner at the hotel and I stuck around to hang out in the lobby. It was like a scene out of "Dirty Dancing." Piano player entertaining the mostly over 60 audience all seated in wicker chairs in the sunroom. This Labor Day weekend is really the last hurrah before most of the families have to get back so the kids can go to school. There are still a lot of retirees and Elderhostel tours but the summer season is really winding down. Thank you Baby Jesus.

Book update

June: 34
July: 28
August: 18 (but I don't have anything until the 6th... must have missed a few. But I was pretty busy that week. Who knows?)

Saturday, July 24th

First (hopefully not only) snorkeling of the season took place at our favorite snorkeling area, Fountain Flats Drive. Heidi, Trudy, and I were the only repeats who went with seven newbies. The water was nice and warm, which unfortunately, probably kept the fish away. There were no sightings of fish on this trip. But we all had fun and that's all that matters.

Big Lebowski Party, July 9th

We finally had our Big Lebowski party! My fairly Odd June was out since we had such crappy weather but I was determined to get at least that done. I sent out the invite, prepped the log o' meat (seven pounds of hamburger from Costco) and waited for people to show up. I had said 7. Well, by 7:30, Allie and Emily were the only ones who had shown up and I decided that I could have a couple of beers. But then, they all started trickling in and I ended up having 27 people for the movie that night! The White Russian milkshakes were a hit and though the movie hiccuped a bit at the end, it was still a great evening.

Busy, busy, busy-Friday the 23rd

Well, the busy season is finally upon us. Okay, it has been for awhile now but I'm finally getting around to blogging about it. This particular time of craziness began again with a Christmas in July/July birthdays celebrations. Carrie sent out invites to the general public and around 25 people showed up, going in and out as the mood took them. I dressed up in my Christmas apron and my fancy, shmancy red heels.

People came, they ate, they also helped cook

Drunken Chicken was cooked and consumed (de-ricious!)

Ben resting after a night of Wii

Guatemala-Friday

Last day of work, but we only ended up working in the morning. The country house was pretty well completed so we mixed some concrete in the morning and went to the dedication ceremonies in the afternoon. These were done mostly in Spanish so I didn't understand a lot of what was going on. It was really cute, because, at both cermonies, we handed out cross necklaces to the kids. At the first ceremony, one little girl kept asking Ron a question, and he thought she wanted more necklaces, but she kept shaking her head. We finally got Cheryl over to translate and what the little girl was asking was, "How tall are you people?" A valid question since the average height of the group was probably about 5'10" and Cheryl brought that down pretty far by being about 5'6".

That afternoon, a small group of us went to a building in Gualan run by a group called Hearts in Motion. They are run out of Indiana (Highland) and work with Guatemala specifically. One of their functions is to bring in dentists and other doctors to help with the rampant problems of cleft palates and polydactyly.

They go out into the local community periodically and identify the children most at risk. Every Wednesday, they bus the kids into the building and make sure they get a nutritious meal for the week. They also have room to keep several children on site. They had four while we were there. One little boy had been so neglected that he would probably never walk. There was one little boy who lifted his arms up to me so I picked him up and carried him around. He was so sweet, but when he opened his moth, the most awful, fetid smell came out. His teeth were rotting in his mouth, and several of the cavities where teeth should be were just oozing puss. It broke my heart. I ended up sobbing like a little girl on the bus back.

House Ceremony Complete with Plaque

Doing the Invocation

Dinner... Yum!

Sauces for the tacos

Breakfast