September 2010

Summer has ended here in the mountain valley and fall is upon us. Snow is covering the peaks at the higher elevations and the leaves are starting to change colors. So time has come to make our plans back to Texas and to ponder where the summer has gone. The past month has been active with a trip to Glacier National Park, day hikes, weekly golf games, a weekend at Henry’s Lake, attending the Blue Angels air show, and the continued sewing project. My garden failed to produce any eatable vegetables this year. I believe my late planting and the cool nights never allowed the roots to mature.
Minnie has been working hard making purses and bags to support Melissa in this year’s Cancer walk. She makes these bags to sell or exchange for a donation supporting the Susan G Konan foundation for breast cancer research. This is the second year Melissa has participated in the sixty mile walk. Please read more information about this and share with friends and family at http://www.the3day.org/ or click the link to donate. Melissa has great blog about her fund raising and training at

http://www.the3day.org/goto/mheselmeyer

Our trip to Glacier was almost a bust because of the rain and fog that was hovering the park. We tent camped there in the park and it was a really nice campground. However the wind came up in the late afternoon and almost blew us away! We were able to move sites and move into the trees. The ranger told us that the wind was a normal occurrence there. Poor Maggie was cold the whole time we were there… She just wanted to stay in the tent in the sleeping bags. We made the best of it and were able to see most of the formations, but some were obscured by fog banks. This weather was unexpected and not forecasted by the Weather Channel, so I failed at bring the proper clothes and was not enjoying being that cold and wet.
Our second annual visit to Henry’s lake is a wonderful bonus for working in the campground. The campground owner invites us to use his cabin just south of West Yellowstone that over looks Henry’s lake. It sets in a grove of Aspens and the view is like living in a postcard. I have been looking forward to this trip all summer. A day trip while there was to a ghost town, Virginia City Montana. The town has preserved many of the original building from the late 1800’s, even the boardwalk is in place. With our luck though we visited the day after almost the entire town shut down for the season! The only places that were open was the bar (of course), a café, one gift shop ( the clerk was a Houstonian) and an ice cream shop.
While at the cabin Mark and I played Scrabble. The first time we didn’t keep score and both of us though we won so the next game we kept score. And wouldn’t you know the old fart won!
Not much else to share, Minnie does a lot on her facebook, so we will be back in Texas around mid-October and hope to see ya’ll soon.