At the Lake

Wilf and I are in Bigfork, MT visiting my parents. We came in search of summer, and thought we’d found it. There has been some backsliding into spring, though, with rain and cool temperatures. Sorta like at home.

We’re settling into the lake routine – baseball games and barbeque dinners, shopping, walking by the river, reading. My brother Bill will arrive next week, at which point we’ll get the boat launched. Bill’s arrival will also help us get our quota of electronics closer to usual. My brother Mike and sister-in-law Christine won’t be joining us this year, so we won’t achieve our full gadget complement.

Why the fixation on gadgets? Well, for one thing, it leads to scenes like this:

Mom never met a PowerPoint presentation full of super cute animals that she didn’t love. Wilf is showing her the latest to arrive – looks like it was a good one.

Rumor has it that summer will return tomorrow – Wilf has the fishing gear all ready and says he’s heading out.He won’t be fishing in any of the local rivers, though. There was a record snow pack in the mountains above us this year – the cool spring has kept it all from coming down at once. The rivers are very high, though and totally blown out. On the way to town we cross the Flathead River – the water level is almost to the bottom of the docks along the banks and the water hardly appears to be moving – the lake it full up and the water is backed up into the river. Apparently the gates at the Kerr Dam at the south end  of the lake are all wide open, but there is still too much water everywhere. And lots more to come, given the way the mountains look. We thought we might take a trip up to the Big Mountain to take a ride up the chair lift. But from down here we can see that there is still snow on the upper runs, so perhaps not…

So – greetings from Montana, with hopes for a sunnier time to come soon!