How you know I don't regularly drive a car in & out of the garage...

Oh crap.

So Monday was the first day of school. I didn't have to be up until 1pm, so I wasn't in a terrible rush. Up at 6am because my body said so, and I immediately went outside to water the lawn and promptly locked myself out. So, change of plans, I walked to my parents' house at 6am to get a spare key, arriving approx. 6.45.

Didn't know which ones were mine, had to wake up my mom, call my dad who'd already left, had a fight with him because he was being insane, walked back and got back into my house. Threw me out of my loop for my morning routine, but no harm done. I mentally moved up one the list of things to do 'get a new set of keys cut and hide them outside somewhere' which has been on the list a long time.

Fast Forward to Friday. E (not *that* E) convinces me at the last minute to go to a concert I'd been on the fence about for awhile. Had a good time. But exhausted this morning. Maybe I'll try to sleep more.

Anyway, because of logistics I end up taking E's car back to my house, to be returned later today. Get to my house maybe 1.30 am. Look for my keys. Can't find them. Crap.

So I came to my parents' house and quietly let myself in and slept on the couch.

Will thoroughly check my bag sometime this morning, but am mentally putting together a list of places they could've been left at school. Best hope is my locker. Worst hope is despair.

And the spare set is locked in my house right now as they never got returned to the folks. And obviously that is missing things like the key to the office, which I was planning to use today to go down and do some work. And one particular key to one door in my house.

I imagine locksmiths are super pricy. I hope I don't have to find out. Crap.

I'll be away for awhile.

Wedding out of town this weekend. I should be back on the internets Tuesday. Ta.

Some pictures of Montana

N has most of them on his camera, I only took a few on mine. Missing: such things as hiking and roof construction.

Eating dinner.


My birthday cake (with a clementine face)


After an afternoon storm.


Dinner another night. BBQ next to the river.


Doing work while the afternoon storms roll in...

Not having internet at the house is going to get to be a pain in the butt.

But I think I'm going to try it for awhile, anyway.

My routine usually involves reading news in the mornings, listening to my bluegrass radio program Saturday mornings from MN, being able to reply to emails, browse the interwebs, read DB, read the usually-*very*-naughty webcomic that posts Sundays, etc.

And I'm a little frustrated not being able to do these things.

I've been looking into my options, though, and everything seems more expensive than it should and I don't really want another monthly expense because I can be... frugal sometimes.

So I'm going to give this no-internet at home thing a try.

I've always got it at the office, and in two weeks I'll have it at school, and if I ever really need it there's always the parental residence or a coffee shop or something.

I'm definitely going to go through a fair bit of withdrawal. And there's no TV in the home. I'm going to be cut off.

But I'll give it a trial, anyway, and see how it goes. Besides, after this semester of school I'll most likely be up in Canada for another few months at the beginning of next year, so if I do end up needing interwebs at home it can probably wait 'til next spring.

But I'm definitely going to be having SH anxiety crises. Missing DB. Wondering if she's posted, what she's said, wanting to comment, etc. I was pretty bad up in Montana too.

But all the same, getting away from being connected is always good. This is probably how addicted some people are to FB. I'm not on FB.

Oops.

So, aside from the missing internets at my house, here's my other annoyance upon returning home.

So, a few months ago I bought 25 lbs of quinoa from Amazon, as they had the best price. Well, I signed up for this service that would ship me the same thing every three months and got a discount for signing up for the recurring shipping thing.

Well, they got me.

Because while I was in Montana, they sent me the email warning me that they were sending another shipment any day now and if I didn't want the other one I better act fast... and I didn't see the email until I also saw the one saying it'd shipped. And I haven't eaten much of my quinoa this summer. So now I'll have almost 50 lbs. And it'll last me a long, long time.

Sigh.

I was going to eat it eventually, so not a huge deal. But that's a lot of quinoa...

And now I better cancel that Amazon recurring shipment thing, as I forgot last go-round. Sigh.

Possibly a long post.

Ok team. Lots to report on. I'm back in Denver.

1st off. Horror of horrors. The neighbors whose unsecured internet I've used for the last year secured it over the weekend. I came to my parents' house tonight to catch up on internet things since I've had no access while I was in Montana. Looks like the end of this gravy train and I'm going to have to get myself an internet service. Not happy about any of this. I'm searching around to see what my best options are going to be, and I don't seem to be happy about any of my choices. Grrr.

So. Trip recap. I wrote some things of varying length each day, and will paste and see how it looks.

10pm July 31, even though I won't get to post this for a few days. Everyone's retiring for the evening, but I hear M over in the next room dabbling on the guitar. I'm stuffed, but figured I'd write a bit before bed.

Got here yesterday. Hadn't seen N or M or N's dad, S, for quite some time. Missed N&M's wedding in the Netherlands last September, felt bad about that, and haven't really spoken to them much in the past year. So it's good I came up here.

Was here at the ranch with them for a bit almost exactly four years ago, but I forgot how awesome it is.

Right outside of Roscoe, with the main part of the ranch right on the E. Rosebud River and about 1/2 sq. mi. in all. Amazing views from right at the bottom of the Beartooth Mntns.

N's dad, S, discovered the place years ago when he was dating a girl from the area (whose family has a much, much, much bigger ranch). I guess they were engaged before he broke it off. But still sort of moved to the area. Must've been hard for her to have her ex-financee having bought a ranch right down the hill from her place...

The three kids recently partitioned it, a bit, but that doesn't really seem to matter.

S's sister lives here year-round and has for decades and runs a pottery studio. Makes some pretty cool stuff. I bought a few pieces earlier today.

But N&M&S are mostly working on raising the roof of the green cabin, about 14 ft wide & 85 ft long, right next to the river, that S's dad got in the property partition amongst the three siblings.

So we worked on it a bit yesterday but are taking the weekend off but will be back at it Monday.

Rain on and off this afternoon, little thunderstorms rolling through, and then just before I came to bed we were out on the deck in this awesome lightning storm, with bolts lighting up the mountains every so often. An awesome evening. Nice and cool.
Going to bed now, though. But we've seen the black bears and the wild turkey families and lots of deer and went to the Wild Animal Refuge in Red Lodge today and saw a bunch of animals who'd been injured early in life and then saved and brought to the refuge to be cared for.

Had a really nice bbq tonight with everyone out on the river. Tons of food.


August 1. Went on a long hike today. Back to work on the roof in the morning. I didn't go as far as everyone else because I was a worried about my knee after what happened last week on Longs. Which did in fact give me some troubles again, but not as bad as last week.

I just foraged a late dinner - 10pm - and have retired to bed. N&M&S are still having a dinner of sorts. I'm also some gridding some geology isopachs. Not too much else for now. Maybe I'll get some hiking pictures up, although I think they're all on N's camera. Also right as we were getting back to the house we saw a barn owl fly up and land on the telephone pole. Pretty cool.


August 2. Happy birthday to me. M baked some of Grandmaman Guisan's gateaux au chocolate. Overflowed a little into the oven even though there's not much flour in them (mostly chocolate) and I just burned my forearm slightly while cleaning the bottom of the oven. Good day of roof building. Slow progress, but wasn't too hot.
Sad I'm going home tomorrow. Would like to stay out here weeks longer. M is badly mosquito bitten after yesterday. I've got a few. S's oars from his rowing days at Oxford in the early 60's are up with some pictures. Pretty amusing.