I think I deserve a slacker award lately! The great thing about summer is that I can not post in a while and not feel a bit guilty about it.

A little over a week ago we went to Great Falls, MT and did the tourist thing. We stopped at Ulm Pishkun at the First Peoples Buffalo Jump State Park. Ulm is the town near the jump and Pishkun comes from the Blackfeet word for ‘deep blood kettle’. At a mile long, it’s believe to be the largest jump in North America and was used for 600 years — much longer than most jumps are used.

We also made it out to Ryan Dam to see why Great Falls is called Great Falls. I’ll admit it — I first thought they should have named it ‘Meh Falls’, but before the dam was built, it would have been a beautiful sight.

Since it was going on, and well, we were there, we went to the Montana State Fair, which was also kind of ‘meh’. We did spend the two bucks to see the freak show, though. It was somewhat entertaining.

Other than that we’ve been doing some more fishing, a little geocaching and other various things. I’ve been making ATCs and plans for altering a candy box I have. Now that Dan has been laid-off from his job we plan on a few more trips around Montana and some major geocaching hunts. The Northwest Montana fair should be going live in a few days, so we’ll attend that and the rodeo as well.

Dat’s all I got!

Dan’s new blog is finally all moved over to my domain and ready to roll. Now all he needs to do is post something! Check it out and give him a nudge: Pop Snark Hooligan!

All Dan wanted out of a video game console was Guitar Hero. All I wanted was Zelda. Naturally I won. It was a Nintendo Wii for us and The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess goodness.

Then came Sunday’s release of Guitar Hero III for the Nintendo Wii.

I anticipate sleeping again sometime in 2008.

Side note: I went to my 12:30 Drawing class today prepared for mid-term critique. I got out of the car, pulled my portfolio out of the back seat and began to head towards the building. “Excuse me, Miss? Classes in the ATB building have been cancelled; there was a gas leak.”

The brand-spanking-new, ten-million-dollar, ATB building — had a gas leak.

Wonderful.

On this day a long, long time ago, my honey was born.

Edit: I should mention that the model rocketry stuff was sort of an early birthday present to him.

From Kootenai Falls and the Swinging Bridge. This was most assuredly a scenic stop.

From the road side of the bridge.

Taken from the center of the swinging bridge.

Another taken from the center of the bridge.

This one was taken from the opposite side of the bridge. I had to prove that I did cross it, afterall.

Rocks on the banks of the river.

That’s Dan.

Another view from on the bridge.

Reason 5,986,463 why I love Dan: He wrote this.

I did promise more photos from Fort Missoula, I did not, however, count on our ISP switch to leave us internet-less. I only got a little cranky, I swear! (I can hear you all now in unison, “poor Dan!”)

These are (obviously) of a steam train located near the museum at Historic Fort Missoula. When you walk up to the platform there’s a bit of information that I didn’t bother to read, and you can look inside the cab. [edit] If you know as little about steam trains as I do, check out the Wiki. It has a diagram that labels all of the components.

Wondering what that funky red ‘building’ is behind the train? I didn’t think so, but there are photos of the Wood Chipper (or so Dan tells me) at a later date.

For Valentine’s Day Dan added a new Cloisonne fish and two dragonflies to my ever-growing collection. I love these things. I think I’m up to about thirty of them.

We both like the undersides almost as much as the upsides.

This is about half of the collection. I know I probably shouldn’t post a photo of my jewelry box, but that’s not where I keep the good stuff.

How many nearly identical notebooks does one man need? Apparently 10 small ones, and one large one, and he hates the large ones! Oops, I think there’s a few more in his bag that I missed.

Dan is an honest-to-goodness “Nice Guy,” (yes, they really do get the girls) also a “Good Guy.” Every day he gives me a new reason to want to stay (not that I’ve been threatening to leave), and it’s great that at the end of that day I can honestly say that, in addition to love him, I really like him. Not a lot of couples can say that. Posts like This One on 10 of the coolest people on the planet is today’s new reason.