The other night it was about midnight and I was going to bed when I could hear the wind really howling. I looked outside and it was just dumping giant flakes of wet snow, which were blowing sideways in the orange glow of the streetlights. Usually the snow we get is fairly light but these flakes were ginourmous because it was relatively warm. I decided to delay bedtime and go outside for a few minutes. .
It was really dynamic weather, which is always interesting. But I think it lasted all of about 15 minutes because about as soon as I went inside it had stopped.
The daylight pictures are from yesterday evening when I braved the slop of melting snow to go for a bike ride in the more rural area to the west of town.
I don’t get to see that much live music out here, so it is nice when a good band comes though. Especially when the band included two folks from Asheville. They did two shows that night because the original show sold out rather quickly. Tyler Ramsey played 4 shows because he opened each time as well, whoa!
I woke up this morning and there was snow on the ground and snow falling rather rapidly. That was certainly a first, in Breckenridge it snowed a foot when we left on May 1st but up until now that was the latest snow I’d ever seen.
The town hosted the 22nd Bozofest this weekend, which is an Ultimate (frisbee) tournament. Technically it is just called “Ultimate” because the word “frisbee” is copyrighted. Teams came from places such as Salt Lake City, Portland, and Edmonton (in Canada), quite a drive for some people.
It was a exciting (and tiring) weekend of Ultimate and revelry in 2 days of warm and sunny weather. This was mildly astounding considering that the weather was cold and rainy all last week. It then proceeded to be about as nice as you could possibly want for exactly two days, then Memorial day was cold and rainy, and today it was snowing. Mother Nature must have wanted us to play some frisbee!
There was a fun party for the tournament (this an Ultimate tradition) about 30 minutes outside of town with kegs of beer, a bonfire, a live band, and spaghetti dinner. It was out in the country with horses and cows, and anyone that wanted to could camp in a nearby field. I managed to get my honda stuck in said field after I slightly overestimated its off-roading capabilities. But luckily thats what teammates are for isn’t it? Especially largish Ultimate players. Thanks to all the Bozos that assisted in unsticking me.
Mom and Dad are going to be here in a week. Also of note I now have a plane ticket to go visit Davy during the beginning of July.
After that I’m going to be back in Asheville during the first couple weeks of August. It should be a good summer.
Here are a couple of totally non Ultimate related pictures of a hike Kez and I did last week up to the top of Baldy Moutain. The last time I was up there was in September of last year, it is a tough hike towards the end but once you get up there it has some good views.
Here are a couple of shots from the climb Joe and I did Monday afternoon. The climb is called the Gallatin Tower and is located down Gallatin Canyon as you go towards Yellowstone NP and Big Sky ski resort. It was a great way to spend a relatively warm afternoon in Bozeman. I recognize the beard is getting a little out of hand. I’m going to do someting about that one of these days.
Its been a good week. Busy, but good. On Thursday I went rock climbing at one of the closest local areas, Practice Rock, with Joe and Luke. I had been there before but not since winter had arrived. I was quite proud of myself as I did my first 2 lead climbs using “traditional” protection. (You climb up with the rope trailing you, place protection in the rock, clip yourself to it, and keep climbing ) Leading a climb is more difficult (and scary) than being the 2nd person up. And trad climbing is another level of difficulty above just sport climbing (sport is where there are pre-placed bolts that you the clip the rope to as you climb)
It was a lot of fun and makes me look that much forward to summer where hopefully I’ll become familiar with all the local areas around here. I found out that the class I’m teaching is only 3 days a week. I did a fair amount of climbing when I was going to school in Chapel Hill, and not much since then. It has been a good to return to something I enjoyed so much.
There was also a “Pow Wow” here at MSU this weekend, about a block from my house in the basketball complex. I’d never been to one but I believe they are much more frequent in the western part of the country. It was really interesting, and I could go on for awhile about that as well. However, for the sake of brevity here are a couple of low-quality films shot by my camera and then sent through You Tube to make sure they end up looking extra cruddy.
Got back into town Friday evening and have spent the weekend adjusting to being back. It has been warm in Bozeman, about 65-70F for the weekend. Most of the snow that was on the ground before Spring Break has melted. Its pretty spring-like here although I’m not getting my spring pants on just yet because I expect more snow.
There are some pictures on my Plogger gallery from the trip. Here’s the direct link to the new ones Spring Break Pictures
The pictures from Zion have some captions located above the picture. None of the other’s do yet. I had done a bunch but I refreshed the page and they all went away. 🙁
Also, when you first come to a picture, you can click on it to get a bigger, nicer one. And depending on what browser you’re using, another click might make it even bigger! whoa!
It was an awesome trip. I’ll update more in a little while. Right now I’m back at school and there are some things I need to attend to.
