The Great Smoke Escape

The month of September in Missoula has been full of smoke. The end of August we saw glimpses of smokey days, but eventually the breeze would clear the air and it would be beautiful again. It's been a hard and unexpected adjustment to spend the majority of our weekends indoors. Biking without a handkerchief over the mouth and nose results in wheezing and chest pains. Everything in our house smells like a campfire. The smoke is coming mainly from two wildfires. The Mustang Complex Fire (just over the Idaho border). This fire has consumed over 300,000 acres of forest. The other fire is an hour south in Hamilton. They have been waking up to 2 inches of ash every day.

This month we worked hard to make a bunch of cycling caps, bags, and baby clothes for the People's Market. The market coincides with the weekend Farmer's Market and nearly a hundred vendors sell their homemade wares. You can enter a lottery to sell for just one weekend. Last weekend was our last chance before our busy training weekends and the season's end. So, we braved the smoke and put out our wares. Unfortunately, Missoulians weren't willing to sacrifice their health for shopping (what is capitalist America coming to?).  We didn't sell a darn thing and by the end we both felt exhausted, nauseous, and frustrated from the smoke. We do, however, now have a surplus supply of goods if anyone is in the shopping mood.

Below is Dietrich at our little space. It's hard to tell from the photo how awful the smoke is, but remember this 1. It's not foggy. 2. We have zero humidity. 3. Missoula is rarely cloudy. So the haze is pure smoke.

Sunday we decided to escape Missoula and head north looking for blue skies. We drove along the Mission Mountains, past St. Ignatious and Arlee towards Flathead lake. 

 This church was built in the 1800's as a Catholic mission in St Ignatious.

 The Madonna and Christ   and Christ depicted as local natives

The original mission sleeping quarters

Here is Flathead. The smoke still present, but way better than Missoula.

We had church on the lake.

There aren't many designated swimming areas but ladders to the water are all along the shore.

 Dietrich showing off his cute smile and furry pits.

Our neighbor says we should count the smokey sunsets as a blessing.

Goodnight from Missoula.

Crafting and Hempfest

We have a few events to give an update on.  First of all, Abigail made a delicious supper of Shrimp scampi and Caprisi salad (the mozzarella tasted like sharp cheddar for some reason).  We took the food as a picnic to the Sacajawea park just across the street and also dressed up in some pretty awesome outfits!  

This is my cool wife

This is me lounging with Thai mat and mahlong

We also did a little crafting.  We covered balloons in lace and yarn respectively.  They were coated with a glue solution and when the dried.... 

And this one became a lamp cover!

Notice the dried flowers - an anniversary gift from Philip and Betsy  

The Hempfest went down on Saturday.  Just so you know, it was based on a movement to legalize industrial hemp.  Here is a website with incredible facts about Hemp: http://www.globalhemp.com/1997/10/north-american-industrial-hemp-council-industrial-hemp-facts-sheet.html

Self-explanatory

Take note:  These "Autism blankets" were sold at the Hempfest.  Not sure what the connection is.

We are the poster children for legalizing industrial Hemp.
No! we are not high because marijuana and hemp are not the  same thing.
It would be like comparing sweet corn to field corn or something like that.

And these people are just a leeetle more hardcore than us

Germanfest!!!  Here are some pictures of the chicken dance, German alpenhorns, and old guys sitting around in their lederhosen(?) and drinking out of their expensive steins.  They had a full band and one of the information tables had a German scrabble game going on in which I played "DIETRICH", one of the only German words I know.

Photo Contest September

These are some photos we took in the heart of Missoula.  Half were taken by Dietrich and half by Abigail.  Any favorites??  Which one do you think is the best?

Holland Lake! (Anniversary Weekend pt. 1)

Last weekend was our 1st anniversary!!!  We celebrated by going to the River City Roots festival, buying some plants for Abigail's work area at the Y, an outing to Holland Lake, pedicures, and going out to dinner at the Silk Road.  These first pictures are of our outing to Holland Lake on Sunday.  Other pictures to follow...

Holland Lake:  This lake was recommended by Abigail's co-workers.  They said it was quieter and less touristy than Flathead Lake.  It was about an hour and a half away and we left at about 10:30 from Missoula and arrived around lunchtime.  We packed a lunch and headed out on the lake.

We stopped at a lake on the way: See the Rockies in the background.  It got increasingly hazy throughout the day.

There seemed to be some moss killing the trees and giving them cool hair. 

We rented a canoe and went out on the lake to find a place to eat

The sunglasses-on-the-collar isn't really a staple look for me.  I did  get a hair cut, though!  Thanks Abigail!

A guy we met later told us that these trees are self-pruning and that's why they have no branches lower down.

The art of decay

We hiked 1 1/2 miles to a falls (Abigail did it in flip flops!!).  This is the view from the falls - see how hazy it is?

There were lots of these friendly little guys hanging out at the cool falls.  We couldn't tell if they were scrawny squirrels or large chipmunks

This one wanted a little better view of my feet (sorry no food!)  We put our weary toes in the water - we couldn't leave them in very long because it was very very cold.

In all their splendor!

We got our feet as dirty as we could for the pedicure.  Just kidding, this was taken after the hike - it looks kinda dead.

We had a great time - after we hiked we went to the swimming area and washed off a bit.  We also continued reading aloud the novel that we started which is Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese.  Very good so far.  Also, more pictures to come of our weekend!!

Love,
Dabigail and Aietrich