Yesterday we went for a short and sweet bike ride up on the hills around Bozeman. We did a loop starting on the Story Mill Trail, crossing Bridger Canyon Road, going up and around to Sypes Canyon Road, and then coming back on some other road that definitely wasn’t Springhill. There was basically no traffic, warm weather, and amazing views of the Bridgers and Gallatin Valley.
Despite being a little ritzy Fremont was pretty sweet. There was a lot of activity in a couple little blocks, and the leaves on the trees lining the street were in prime fall colors. It was a little bit like a fairy-tale land, with a troll and everything.
To get to the Ballard Locks you had to go through a neighborhood called Fremont, and we stopped and walked around a bit on the way back. It was an eclectic place with some fairly well to do folks around. Wikipedia says
Sometimes referred to as “The People’s Republic of Fremont,” and at one time a center of the counterculture, Fremont has somewhat gentrified in recent years.
Definitely not your average neighborhood though.
The second day we went to the Hiram M. Chittenden Locks (aka the Ballard Locks) and the accompanying Carl S. English Jr gardens. Two places every bit as spectacular as their names.
I would have happily made the 3 mile trip from Capital Hill to Ballard for either some locks or some gardens and to have both of them together was an unstoppable force the likes of which I may not encounter for a long time to come.
Hilary and I just came back from an extended weekend visiting her friend Stephanie in Seattle. She has a sick crib in a super-neato part of town (Capital Hill) and was nice enough to show us around town and let us harass her for a while.
Seattle is a city with an impressive amount of things going on for its size. I am fond of it.
I just found out that Bozeman’s neighboring Ultimate team, the Mental Toss Flycoons from Missoula, Montana beat Shazam Remains 15 to 11 for the Club Ultimate National Championship in the mixed division earlier today.
In case you aren’t totally familiar with competitive club Ultimate in the states, there are three divisions, Mixed (co-ed), Open (basically Men), and Women’s. The Club Championship, a four day tournament held once a year in Sarasota, Flordia and, has teams from all over. The two other teams to win national championships were Jam (Open Division) and Fury (Women’s Division), both from San Francisco. Shazam, the team the Flycoons beat in the finals, is from Seattle, Washington.
Montana Ultimate is the bomb! We (the Bozos) played the Flycoons in September and lost a close game 13-10. The Flycoons are a spirited team with some excellent chemistry. They play super hard every point, but still seem to manage to have fun, which I definitely appreciate. For some teams, an intense desire to win can block out what is great about Ultimate.
Beating a team from Seattle is especially impressive, given that Seattle is one of the premier cities for Ultimate in the nation and therefore have a much bigger pool of talent to pick from than Missoula.
Another key feature of their National Championship is that no less than three local Bozeman Ultimate superstars, Emily Kimmel, Camas Key, and Dominic Benincasa joined the team late in the season and helped bring this one back to Montana.
Oh yeah, not only did The Flycoons win a National Championship, they did it in impressive style. With seven wins and only one loss over all four days, against some of the best teams in the nation. They won their last three games (where a single loss eliminates you) 15-5, 15-11, 15-11.
As a tribute I scoured the archives for a couple more pictures of their game against us at sectionals. (Pictures already posted can be viewed here)
**Update** For a much more in-depth account of the tournament see Flycoon player Tim Murray’s blog here
The Bozeman Ultimate crew got together after their fine performance at Northwest Mixed Regionals. Joey took some video at the tournament and along with her husband Camas, had the team over to her house to watch it.
Towards the end of the night the bag game was played (This is when I realized I had my camera with me). The goal is to pick the bag up off the ground with your mouth, with only 1 foot on the floor. Every round the bag gets cut so it is shorter and shorter. I am not very good at this game.
It was a great evening though, thanks to the Key’s for having us over. And thanks to Cyn for making the most epic spinach-artichoke dip ever.
This was the scene in the middle afternoon out in front of the library at MSU Bozeman last Thursday.
It makes me feel old to wonder why these kids are wearing what they are wearing. The gnome look seems to be in this year.
I believe this was put on by a fraternity..(Sigma ????) to raise money for cancer.
On Thursday Jeff and I took advantage of the nice weather and managed to get out in the evening on a bike ride to Belgrade.
I have a big test tomorrow but the weather this weekend was too nice to stay inside under the fluorescent lights all day.
My boy Jeff and I did a road ride up Hyalite Canyon today. It was phat yo. Check out these sweet pics. Bozeman rulez.
These are the last of the pictures of Yellowstone from last weekend. After Norris we went to Upper Geyser Basin. It was the first time I’d seen it in the snow. Certainly way less tourists trying to see Old Faithful than in the summertime. The giant parking lot was almost completely empty.
