Books

I really have felt like I've not been reading as much lately, what with trying to pick up various TurboKick routines and studying for my EMR class. However, doing an actual count shows that I am doing about the same. At least, in terms of numbers. It would be interesting to see how many of those are romances, mysteries, young adult (fast reads) vs. biographies, historical fiction, true crime (slightly less fast reads). I'm not gonna do it though because it's my weekend and I'm going to go sit on my butt.

January: 30

Books of 2010

Overall for the year? A heck of a lot (or 357, depending on how you count)

January 18

February 22

March 46

April 38

May 32

June 34

July 28

August 18

September 24

October 33

November 31

December 33

Where the heck have I been?

It's been a busy new year. My parents were here for a week. That was quite the experience. But I've been busiest with the Emergency Medical Responder (EMR) class that started in January. It's two and a half hours a night, twice a week. Plus all of the studying involved. Not sure if I'm going to make it through but it's nice to do something different.

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.