Early February, Early Mornings

Whooooooooowwww

Its now, what, 4 weeks into this full time working/ part time teaching thing and I am... Tired.

Here's the routine for a week: up at 6:15am every day, shower, to the office by 7:45am. Work through the day till 4:45pm, when I dash out the door to the gym. Exercise for an hour, then home for dinner. After dinner is devoted to working on class lectures and slides.

I've found that I can't lecture without a slide show. Talking about history, especially historic built landscapes is such a visual thing. So lecture preps bounce back and forth between searching for the image I want and fact checking what I want to talk about.

I've probably spent an average of 6-8 hours on every lecture. This is the first time the course is being taught, so I'm totally building it from scratch. And because I wasn't sure what I'd want to change after a few weeks, I didn't plan lectures or slideshows very far in advance. So its a lot of work.

I knew it would be a lot of work. Its work I enjoy, really, but it's been a bit of a relentless grind building this thing. Even something like a lovely surprise weekend from my sister can throw my whole "things to get done and when to do them" schedule off.

And every week I seem to fall into a pattern of totally nailing the Tuesday lecture, walking out feeling on top of the world, and then falling flat on my face for the Thursday lecture. Or vice-versa. Its unnerving and confidence-killing. Nothing to do but get back on the horse though. Especially since I'm getting paid to do this.

DJ has been awesome, absolutely awesome about giving me time to work on class stuff. I've neglected housekeeping, demanded he turn off the light by 9:45pm so I could go to sleep (oh the irony!) and generally demanded that all things fit my schedule. He's made dinners, hung out with the dog and kept the house stocked with toilet paper.

And I have a wonderful sister and friends, did I mention that? I turned 29 on Tuesday. And Harlow turned 2. In advance of the birthday, Gretch drove over from Pullman and Ali drove down from Helena for a Chico Hot Springs afternoon and Livingston Saturday night. We stayed at the Murray Hotel (awesome historic hotel across the street from the train station), had dinner at the rib and Chop house and then did a Livingston bars lap. The most entertaining portion of the evening was walking into the Mint Bar and finding it FULL of hipsters. HIPSTERS. In LIVINGSTON. That.... Was unexpected. With their serious black oversize glasses and serious conversations.

Dusty made a delicious dinner of salmon, mashed potatoes, garlic bread and broccoli for my birthday. I received flowers, cards and phone calls. It was a nice, low key day. Which is my style for birthdays. 


This weekend is packed with getting my poop in a group. Writing the handout for the paper my students have due at the end of the month, prepping this week's lectures, prepping some AOII stuff for the annual Corporation meeting at the end of the month. Budgets, agendas, membership, etc. I'm good at that end of the organizational spectrum, I hope. 


And with that, I think I heard the coffee ding that it's ready. Time to get to work!

A busy three day weekend

I spent pretty much all day today preparing my lecture notes and slides for class tomorrow. The kicker is, I still don't have keys to my office, keys to my classroom, or any certainty that I can turn on the projector in the classroom. I know I can turn on the computer, but I didn't test drive the overhead projector when I as in class last Thursday. Foolish of me, since I've now spent 10 hours or so prepping this lecture.

This week, especially tomorrow's lecture, will be a little tricky. It's a subject area I don't know well, so I've had to do a lot of re-learning over the last 18 hours. I think I'm good to go.

In an effort to wind down and sleep at night, I'm making myself stop working between 8 and 9pm tonight. I'd originally hoped to have all the lectures for the week completed by 8pm on Sunday (Monday, this weekend since we had today off for MLK), but chose to not miss out on the Moonlight weekend instead. C'est la vie; I can work on the lectures Tuesday and Wednesday night. And Thursday's subject area is much closer to my knowledge base, so it shouldn't be quite as much work.

I keep reminding myself of the advice a fellow adjunct in the History department gave me: "Contex, contex contex; why is this important, why are you teaching this to students?"

It's been a busy weekend. DJ's mom worked in Helena last week, and will work in Butte this week, so she stayed with us through the weekend. I worked until 5pm, then ran down to grab dinner with DJ and Michelle. After dinner friends picked me and my cross- country ski gear up so we could say in Moonlight for the weekend with our wonderful friends the Kuntz'es. We've nabbing a weekend at Moonlight Ski Resort since 2010, and I think it's one of my favorite weekends of the year.

Saturday morning we fought hangovers and ventured out for some cross country skiing at Lone Mountain Ranch. It was wonderful to get outdoors in the sunshine, mountains and with wonderful friends. DJ and I need to do this a bit more often.

Kelly (due with their second child, whom A calls "Soucie", in early March), Me and Emily. 

DJ and Michelle came up on Saturday afternoon while we skiied. It was fun to show her the amazing "mountain home," and have her get to spend some time in the mountains with us. DJ made great home made pizzas for dinner, served tapas style. Mmmm, that man of mine, he's one heck of a cook!

Saturday morning we wolfed down breakfast before heading down the mountain to Bozeman, a snowstorm, and lecutres and slides waiting to be compiled. I've been in the office of our house since about noon on Sunday compiling information to share with my students.

It looks to be another difficult week in terms of management of expectations and time. Hopefully I can keep getting up early, making it to work and being productive! At this rate, the spring will fly by.

We're back!

The regularly scheduled posts over the past few weeks probably tipped you off to our Europe trip, huh? I'm not very sneaky.

I have a lot to say about the trip-- it went beautifully, with only unavoidable glitches like the unseasonably warm weather in Rome. It was in the low 90's every day, instead of the upper 70's/ low 80's like we planned for. Lets just say my husband posted a lot of facebook comments about sweaty balls.

I'm still trying to process our trip photos, all 1,030 of them. I promise I won't subject you to all of them. In the mean time, I thought I'd start with the highlights and lowlights of the trip.

Highlight (for me): Day 1- D-Day Tour. I'll post more about it later, but a couple of quick images:

German guns overlooking the Normandy beaches. 

Omaha Beach, looking towards the east. 

Overlooking Omaha Beach. 

American Cemetery at Omaha Beach. 

Really, I have so much more to say about this day. The short version of it is, GO THERE. If you can swing it. If you're in France. GO. 

Now, for the lowlight. I'll explain more of it later too, but the lowlight was the Vatican Museums/ Sistine Chapel. Check out these photos and tell me if you can figure out why:

Yeah... The Vatican Museums host 20-40,000 people in one day. We didn't know that. They also don't make you set up an appointment (like at the Borghese Gallery) so they can send everyone in waves. It was  a giant mass of people shuffling in one direction. It was alos 85 degrees outside, and either they don't have AC, or it couldn't keep up with the masses.  By the time we reached the Sistine Chapel I just wanted OUT. OUT OF THERE RIGHT THIS SECOND. OMFG GET ME OUT OF HERE. And someone brought a baby. And yes, I took a picture of the screaming kid, because I'm an asshole like that. The poor kid was expressing exactly how I felt at that exact moment too. 

If' you're in Rome, don't go to the Sistine Chapel. If you really want to see it in all it's beautiful detail, buy a coffee table book and enjoy it (for about the same price). 

Also: Jet lag is kind of awesome. I've been up since 3:45am (having gone to sleep at 8:30pm). I've gotten a ton done! 

Riding the Route of the Hiawatha

Dusty and I are huge history nerds. Seriously. We spend weekends traipsing around Montana hunting down historic sites. We're those people who buy the "Roadside History of Montana" books and then read them aloud on a drive. Dusty has kind of a big thing for the Milwaukee Road (railroad), more specifically. I'm a fan too.

Big, huge nerds.

So it should be no surprise to you that we used a day of our vacation to ride the "Route of the Hiawatha" last week. And while I wouldn't call it a workout, I would still call it an awesome adventure.

Here's how it works. You drive to Lookout Pass ski area on the border and buy your $9 ticket. It's another $9 if you're taking the shuttle bus back from the bottom to the parking area. Since we were headed back to Harrison after the bike ride, and you can drive from the end of the trail along the old railroad bed to St. Maries and on to Harrison, we only paid for DJ to take the shuttle bus.

Tickets in hand, you drive into Montana and get off at the Taft exit. Then you drive up about 2 miles to the "East Portal" of the St. Paul Tunnel and park in the parking lot.

Pro tip: the earlier you can get there the better. We arrived at about 11 am and the parking lot was nearly overflowing.

The East Portal area has some really nice interpretative plaques about the Milwaukee Road through this area and the "Big Burn" of 1910.

Once you've gotten acquainted with the signage, you head to the tent where they check your ticket and give you the FAQ's.

You'll need to bring your own bike, headlamp (for the tunnels) and helmet. I'd also recommend taking water/ liquid and snacks.

'Cause I'm all about the snacks!

And from there, you're off! First through the mile and a half long Saint Paul Tunnel. In the depths, it's 45 degrees year round. Your headlamp will definitely not seem bright enough at first, and the sides are full of water, but it's really, really a cool deal!

The interperative signs at the railroad sidings are really well done.

The route winds in a loop around a long drainage in the upper St. Joe River, so you're able to look down on the trestles you'll ride across below. 

The Milwaukee Road was completed about 1910, and went to an all electric railroad between Harlowton, MT and Avery, ID. They were able to draw hydropwer off of Montana Power's new dams on the Missouri River; which of course was another subsidiary company of Standard Oil, along with the Anaconda Company and the Milwaukee Road. Sounds like familiar politics, no?

The ride is pretty much all downhill, though at a gentle 3-5% grade. I could have ridden back up it, but it would have been a grinder under the hot sun.

 It's fun to look back up and see where you've been.

The inside of the tunnels are pretty muddy, so a little splatter is to be expected (note: Dusty's rear end).

The tricky part about tunnels is coordinating turning ON the headlamp and taking OFF the sunglasses.

Overall, the route is a really neat way to bring people into contact with their national forests and history. It sounds like the trail will be extended 30 miles from Taft to St. Regis sometime in the nearish future. Since it's all downhill and they run a shuttle back to the parking lot, one doesn't have to be athletic to use the trail. I'd recommend riding the Route of the Hiawatha for any reasonably fit person who can balance on a bike and operate the brake levers. It's really a fun way to get back into some of the most extraordinarily beautiful, and remote, parts of the US!

A quick trip east

Friday night we threw things in the truck and headed east for an over nighter.

First, we stopped in Livingston for a drive up burger, fries/ onion ring and huckleberry shakes. Though it totally threw off my diet, it was a fun experience!

After slurping our shakes, we headed further east to Big Timber, then south up the Boulder River valley. We stopped at Natural Arch State Park, where the Boulder River had once carved an arch through the limestone. The arch collapsed in 1988.

The river, like all of them in Montana right now, was running hard. I'm not sure if, or when, we'll see a slow down in rivers this summer.

You could feel the pedestrian bridge trembling as you walked across it.

Water level gets low enough in the late summer that the water "disappears". The river isn't dry; rather, the water is coursing through subterranean channels in the limestone. The channels are caused by both water erosion, and the water creating a chemical reaction with the limestone to dissolve the stone and expand the channels.

The river goes over these falls. The nuttiest thing? People kyack off of this!

Once we finished poking around at the bridge, we continued up the valley into the Gallatin Natural Forest. Most of the campgrounds had room, though the further you got up the gravel road many camping spots were underwater. In some places you had to ford a creek that was over the road. We finally settled on this camping spot.

Where, to Harlow's delight, a creek coursed through the back. A creek with sticks in it.

As the fire pit area had standing water, it was tough to keep Harlow dry. We ended up sleeping in the back of the truck, with Harlow in the "dog taco" (tarp strung into a U shape between the back seat head rests and the front seat head rests) in the back of the cab. We stayed dry!

Saturday morning we stopped off in Big Timber for coffee, then headed up to Harlowton. Yes, the town that our dog is named after, which is, in turned, named for the guy who started the "Jawbone" railroad in Montana. Which was eventually sold out to the Milwaukee Road. We stopped at the depot.

And after poking around a bit, found out what I'm meant to do with my life. Rehab the Graves Hotel in downtown Harlo.

I mean, seriously, with a south-facing porch like this?

The hotel is not currently in operation, and the entire building needs work. It's for sale. Think I could convince DJ that our destiny is to operate the Graves Hotel in Harlowton MT?

From Harlow we headed back west, through Martinsdale and past Bridge Bowl. Harlow (the dog) was pooped!

Lake trips

We went to Lake Coeur d'Alene for Memorial Day weekend. The drive over there in late May is heartbreakingly gorgeous. Swift moving rivers, snowy mountaintops and rich green grass everywhere. 

I didn't expect nice weather; the forecast called for 42 degrees and 100% chance of rain all weekend. I packed in preparation of drinking and playing scrabble all weekend. Instead it was beautiful, with only a shower while I was on a bike ride. 

Harlow has become quite the road trip dog:

She'll lie down on the "dog taco" in the back seat and do that drowsy dog thing. You know, eyes closed, head bobbing up and down, almost asleep but not quite there.

It cracks me up when she lies with her paws crossed. Such a lady.

The dog taco came in handy on Friday night, when Harlow had her first bought of car sickness after driving down the long, windy road into Harrison. She puked just as we rounded the corner at One Shot Charlie's bar. Not the first time One Shots has made someone toss their cookies. Thankfully the dog taco caught all of it. We hosed everything down and were off into the night.

I've done a bad thing. I taught the pupperoni that two pats on the bed means come cudde with me.

She learned that trick after about two tries!

I went for two 25 mile bike rides over the weekend, and one16 mile dwadling bike tour with Dusty. You've got to bike it out in this crowd, or else risk coming home 1 lb heavier for every day you were out there. My family likes good food.

On my way back towards Harrison I came upon this guy, snacking on an aspen.

We stared at each other for a bit, unsure what to do. He is obviously not an adult moose, but also not a baby, so I wasn't too worried about getting between him and his mamma. Those things will charge you if they feel threatened. So I stood there with my bike for about 5 minutes, willing him to run away. When he didn't, I rode past him as far to the left side of the bike path as I possibly could.

And then two miles later I came across another moose!!! Two moose in three miles. Those things stink.

Harlow, in the mean time, was an exhausted dog by Sunday. She spent Saturday playing epic games of chuck-it, a lengthy game of fetch the duck with my dad, and generally socializing.

By Sunday she could barely keep herself awake to enjoy the fun.

Have I ever mentioned the shack at the lake? See, when my parents bought their place, they also bought the little house next door from the previous owner. Alternatively called "the guesthouse" or "the shack" but sometimes "the shithole", the building has been bike and tool storage, a rental, and all but abandoned. Until my mom worked out a deal with a local handyman last winter; he and his wife lived in the shack rent free in exchange for them fixing the building up. My parents bought the materials, they did the work.

I assumed the worst with this deal. I've always thought the shack was salvage-able; I just wasn't so sure about this horse-trading arrangement. But, to my chagrin, it worked out. Crow makes an excellent dinner, FYI.

There are still a few things to be done, like fixing the window in the door, and a bit of trim work. But it's otherwise liveable and rentable and a cool little building. My parents will have it painted this fall and have gutters installed.

I shamed my mom into keeping the original windows in the building. They thought about replacing them with something vinyl and I was obnoxious and rude and impertinent insistent that they keep the originals. We spent time this weekend razor-blading them back open after they'd been painted shut. Later this summer we'll rebuild the storm windows and screens, and repaint the outside of them in preparation for the later painting this fall. It feels good to be able to put my money where my mouth is on the windows.

Overall, a very, very satisfactory weekend. One which makes me rethink my entire career choice. Why didn't I become a teacher, who could live at the lake for the summer?