Big Sky Country

So, how was Montana? Fine, thanks for asking.

We were there for a week. Craig was there for a conference, so he was busy nearly the entire time, but my parents decided to join us, which made it a lot more vacationesque for me than our visit to Santa Fe earlier this summer -- it's sure nice to have a support crew! We all stayed together in a pretty swank two-bedroom condo (or, if you're Isaac, a condominium) at a picturesque ski resort called Big Sky. (If you click on the link, our condo had a perfectly framed view of the 11,000 feet high mountain in the banner photograph. Minus the snow, of course.)

Here are a few random tidbits from the trip:

• Yellowstone National Park wasn't super-close to where we were staying -- what with road construction and slow RVs, it took us about two hours to drive there -- but it was fascinating, so we went twice. We saw, as the blurb from the National Park Service says, "Old Faithful and a collection of the world's most extraordinary geysers and hot springs, and the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone." However, as I alluded in a previous post, boiling poisonous water and 1,200-foot-deep canyons aren't exactly toddler-friendly, so we had to carry him more than he would have liked. Maybe we can go back when Isaac is about ten.

• Isaac did get to do some hiking on his own, though. He walked much of the well-groomed 1.7 mile trail to beautiful Ousel Falls in Montana, including scrambling up some rocks. (This made my father theorize that Isaac might become a rock climber.) He also ran most of the flat half-mile trail back to our car returning from the Artist Paint Pots in Yellowstone. (This made my father theorize that he might become a distance runner. You say a half-mile isn't distance running? You're not three feet tall.)
  

• For the fourth time ever, Craig and I spent some time alone together without Isaac. (The previous times were: 1. Grocery shopping for an hour on Thanksgiving Day in 2005; my mom watched Isaac at her house. 2. The El Vez show in San Francisco in December 2006; my mom watched Isaac at our house. 3. At home on our seventh wedding anniversary in April 2007; my parents took Isaac to the park.) This time, we rode the ski lift up the mountain (and back down again), then sat for a while in Adirondack chairs on the lawn and had ice cream. It was like a date.

• Isaac learned some new words, including Adirondack, Yellowstone (pronounced Lello-tone), elk, geyser, stagecoach, thunder, and lightning.
  

• Finally, Isaac had a better time in the swimming pool than he had on previous trips, although he still didn't like it much. But he hates those automatic hot-air hand dryers you find in some public restrooms. They make him practically shake from fear. (He claims he doesn't like the noise, although thunder and lightning were fine, and construction equipment is terrific. So who knows why?)