it's the good ol' summertime

Hmm, it's about that time. About time for another post from this Montana mountain girl!

And I feel very Montana mountain girly today because my friend Jenny and I hiked up to Carlton Ridge (just below Lolo Peak) yesterday, camped overnight near lovely Carlton Lake, and woke up to early morning sunshine and blood-sucking mosquitoes. Ah, Montana! Gotta love it. My legs are not at ALL happy with me, as they have not been subjected to such torture since my days on the Inca Trail, but they will get over it. I love having sore muscles, actually; it feels so utterly lovely to stretch them, and it's also lovely to know that they've gotten a good workout. Ahh.

I'm not feeling overly wordy today, so I think I'll just post some pictures from the past month and a half of my life:

My annual June 13th pilgrimage to the top of Mt. Sentinel:





























My friend Beth and I at the famous Missoula "M"































Andrea and some of her friends attended a wedding in Bozeman, so I drove the short 3 hours to spend a day in Yellowstone with her and her friends. Some silly sister pictures, which are, scarily enough, also NORMAL sister pics:































































































Useful Yellowstone signage:





































































































































































Beehive Geyser, which erupted RIGHT IN FRONT OF US while we were waiting for Old Faithful. We got wet! It was great! Yay, geysers!!











































































































And, in Iowa in July, I got to hang out with Rita before she and David moved to Ithaca































I went to my family reunion on Castle Rock Lake in Wisconsin, and had a blast with my oldest nephew, Dillan. It's great when you find another kindred spirit . . .





























Sunset on Castle Rock Lake





























And, just this last week, my parents and Andrea came through on their to WA! Andrea's moving out to Lynden to start teaching this fall. But of course, we had to do fun Missoula stuff in preparation:


Getting our hair wet in Rattlesnake Creek:































Me sitting happily in the creek, and Andrea all wet and drippy:































Looking sexy at the Old Post (where they CARDED me for the first time in a year--what, because I was with my parents or something??):































And, of course, FLOATING the Clark Fork!! Woohoo!!































The mountains of the Missoula Valley from my hike this past weekend. See all the smoke from the forest fires??































Beautiful (and icy!!) Carlton Lake: