Rosie the Riviter-Geraldine Doyle

Geraldine Doyle, the inspiration behind Rosie the Riviter died today. She was 86

We were on Fisherman's Wharf on Tues when we took these pictures.

San Fran cont'd

 

Freshly cooked Dungeness crab and crusty sour dough bread.  What could be better?

Crab and shrimp rolls made with sour dough. My kind of sandwich!!

 Riding the street car.  A San Fransisco necessity...

We named this guy "The Bush Man" 

He was at the Wharf on the sidewalk hiding behind some branches.  He would scare people as they passed by him.  It was pretty entertaining to watch.

Gotcha!!

We weren't able to go to Alcatraz.  The Ferry rides over to the Island were booked 5 days out when we checked Monday.  Oh well, maybe next time.

San Francisco

 Muir Beach

 Eatin the Dungeness Crab at the Wharf

Christmas Street-lights in SLC

Dave and I went down Christmas Street to see the lights.

It was kind of foggy (part of why it is a bad photo), but we could still see them.  There were Carolers walking down the street stopping to sing at some of the houses. How festive!

Let the Baking Begin!

First batch of Cranberry bread tonight.  Hot out of the oven and Nice and Tangy! 

Tomorrow night, a batch of Spicy Pumpkin Cupcakes for Dave's office party.  Special request by some of his office mates.

The oven was not working until we got it fixed on Monday.  The electronic panel warped and became possessed.  It was beebing, turning on the bottom oven, then switching to the top oven then would switch on warm then back to the bottom oven and then the word "Sabbath" showed up on the display.  At one point it locked the doors and I had food in there!  It was POSSESSED I tell you! 

The Buttergebackenes are the best!

These cookies were last nights accomplishments and they are some of the best I have ever made.

The Morphing of the Monster Tree

The Christmas tree is done. 

I let Dave decide how to decorate the tree this year. He wanted lots of different colors so we have a rainbow tree.  We put boxes and boxes of ornaments on the tree, yet it still looks like it needs more.  I guess that's what happens when you have a monster tree.

 

Monster Tree Update

Yes the tree was too big for the room.  Funny that it wasn't too tall, just too big at the bottom.

(The branches at the bottom are more than 1/2 way in the room)
.

So after cutting about 2 feet and also taking more branches off the bottom, it is a little more manageable.

Dave was in charge of putting the lights on this year.  Tomorrow night we will get the ornaments on the tree (hopefully).

Christmas Tree Hunt

On Saturday Dec. 4th, we took our Christmas tree tag and headed up Lolo Pass.

We turned off Hwy 12 onto the East Fork Creek Road to find our Christmas tree.

It was a gorgeous sunny day in the valley, but up the canyon it was totally cloudy.

We packed up our snow shoes thinking that we were going to be in some pretty deep snow.

Not so deep.  The snow was about as deep as we had on the lawn at the house.  Maybe 6-8 inches.

Since we had our Sorrel's on, we decided to leave the snow shoes behind and go without them. 

Save my first snow shoeing experience for another day....

We had a difficult time finding the right kind of tree.  We couldn't get Ponderosa (not that I would want one for Christmas) and the lodgepoles were too skinny.  I was looking for a Douglas Fir, but I think we got a Western Hemlock.  Probably not the best for ornaments but it does smell good.

 We bagged a big one! 

It will definetly fit height, but I think the bottom is going to be a little bit wide.  Might fill up the whole living room.  Where to put the furniture? lol

 After we got the tree, we took a few minutes to take a picture for our Christmas Cards.

Not the best weather for pictures, but what are ya gonna do?

We had a good time stomping around in the snow and it was the easiest tree getting that I have ever done!

Cody goes home

Cody flew home Sunday morning.  It was a good weekend.  Everyone had a good time.

Bowling

Dave, Cody and I went  bowling on Saturday.

After dinner at the Ironhorse Grill we went home for pie and ice cream.

We also had a couple intense games of Monopoly over the weekend too.  Cody won much to his delight.



The Snow is here

Nov 26, 2010

We got our first legitimate snow storm a week ago and then came the cold.  Last Wednesday it got down to -13 in the morning.

Thanksgiving Day

Family, Friends and good food

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving

Great Falls via Helena Weekend

Dave and I left Missoula around 11:00 and headed toward Great Falls, MT. on Nov 11th.

We had lunch in Helena and I took a few pics on our way out of town.

This skull sculpture is in front of the Art museum in Helena.

Below sculpture next to capitol building

Just north of Helena there is a ton of bug kill trees.  If you are looking from far away it doesn't look very bad, but...

 when you get closer it is pretty extensive.  All the reddish brown trees are dead.

Should make for intense fires.

 My first view of the Missouri River (near the Big Belt Mountains)

First Peoples Buffalo Jump State Park

This State Park is where the Indians ran buffalo over the cliff.  It is located off I-15 at the Ulm exit 10 miles south of Great Falls.  Originally called Ulm Pishkun State Park the name was changed.  Ulm being the name of the town named after Billy Ulm a local rancher.  Pishkun is a Blackfoot word meaning 'deep blood kettle'.

You can see the cliffs in the back along the horizon in picture below.  Apparently they had used it quite often because there used to be large piles of bones and carcasses just below the cliffs.  They estimate that the jump had been used for over 2000 years prior to Lewis and Clark's expidition and there are the remains of millions of buffalo that had been "processed" there by the Indians.

Prairie Dogs Gallore!! 

On the way out to the cliff, there is a black tailed prairie dog community (town).  I was surprised at how many prairie dogs I saw!  Funny little critters. Chirping and barking at me when I tried to get closer for a picture.

I thought it was interesting that the area where they have their burrows has very short or no grass but around the community there is grass 1-2 ft high.  They all looked pretty plump, but I don't know what they had left to eat.

  

  

This is the view from the top of the cliff.

 Dave is standing at the cliffs edge.

 There were clumps of really tall grass on the path below the cliff.  Some of it was taller than me.

Great Falls Montana Nov. 11 2010

Our first stop when we arrived was the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center.

 The "Great Falls"
Too bad most of the falls were ruined by dams that were put in.

 Nov. 12, 2010

The Charles Marion Russell Museum

 I was intrigued to find out that Charlie liked to draw little pictures on his correspondence to friends.  There were lots of letters in the museum that had little drawings on them like the ones below.  He even decorated envelopes of some too.

 This is a chair made with bison horns that he sat on in his studio.

 This was one of my favorites

"Fire on the River"

I love the colors in it. (Yes, I think there is purple in it)

He made his own Christmas Cards too. 

Goofing off in the kids section of the museum. 

This is Russell's actual studio below.  Located next to their house.  The Russell's had 4 lots in Great Falls located between 4th and 5th Ave North off of 13th Street North.  The museum is located behind the house and studio.

 This sign is located in front of the studio next to the sidewalk.  It is part of a retaining wall that was put in by the Russell's.

Inside the studio

It was interesting that the studio still smelled from stale cigarette smoke after all this time. 

He died in 1926 at the age of 62.

 

Giant Springs State Park

This spring is right next to the Missouri river and they estimate that 150 million gallons of water per day come from this spring.  Another interesting thing about this spring is that they say the water comes from the Little Belt Mountains 60 miles southeast of Great Falls and it takes a little less than 50 years for the water to reach the spring.

Next to the springs is a fish hatchery.

One last look at the Missouri River before leaving Great Falls.

We spent the night at Helena and went to the "Fall Art Walk" Friday (Nov. 12th) night from 6-9 pm.  

Most of the stores in the downtown walking mall had different local artist's work on display in their shops.  After the  Russell museum that morning and the Helena Art Walk, Dave declared that he was all "arted" out for a little while.

Saturday morning we took the truck to the Les Schwab tire store to get our rear passenger tire checked. We had gotten a low tire pressure light on the day before and I wanted to make sure we didn't have any problems for the remainder of our trip home.  Good thing we did because there was a piece of plastic stuck in the tire.  So after getting patched up, we are on our way again.

Valley of a Thousand Hay Stacks

On our way back to Missoula, we drove thru the Little Blackfoot Valley near Garrison, MT nicknamed "Valley of a Thousand Hay Stacks"

As you drive thru this valley on Hwy 12 west of Helena, you will see haystacks (like below) scattered thoughout the fields.

They use the catapult looking device below to stack the hay.  It is called a "Beaverslide".  It was invented between 1889 and 1910 in the Big Hole Valley.

The hay is pulled up the face of the slide area (see below) and when it gets to the top it drops off the back onto the stack. Apparently they are moveable, but I don't see wheels on any of them, so I am not sure how this is done.

Another Weekend Adventure of Fun!