catching up

It's been a while since we posted. After the excitement of the Carr family visit, life went back to normal. Which mostly means: work, work, work. June saw a record number of visitors to the park, and it certainly kept us busy.

The good news is that it finally stopped raining, and summer has officially come to the mountains. After my parents left I hit the trail with two friends for a girl's hike--13 miles through the Black Canyon of Yellowstone. The hike starts near Blacktail Lakes


and goes past Crevice Lake,


and then through the Black Canyon itself. It was HOT--no shade. I slept very, very well that night.





The next day we picked up our friend Ryan at Old Faithful and headed South. We hiked the Lewis Channel loop, 12 miles.


We stopped for lunch on the shore of Shoshane Lake.


The hike back was on an old service road,


and from the scratches on this tree it was clear we weren't the first ones to pass this way.


We spent the 4th of July in West Yellowstone, MT. We perused the shops and I bought something called a mug mat--when you live in the middle of nowhere, you become very excited to shop, no matter what's on offer. That is my only defense.

But that mug mat must've been lucky, because look what we found! It wasn't the same as being at the Taste of Chicago (sniffle, sniffle), but hey--I got my 4th of July hot dog!


There was a parade through the main street of town with lots of floats



and something I've never seen before--if you look closely at her hand, you'll see she's not throwing candy, but that is an actual chicken wing in a ziploc bag.


Don't believe me? My friend Gina caught the bag, and here's a close-up.


Only in Montana...