Montana and home

Red Lodge, Montana

Me, at the pass.

At the end of my last blog, I mentioned that we would be heading to Montana for a wedding. Well we did and it was a wonderful trip and great experience. We were flying from small airport to small airport so there were three hops, but the flight to Billings was uneventful. When we landed, it was over a hundred degrees, but the temperatures were to change significantly, as they tend to do in the mountains. We stayed in Red Lodge, a nice little town at the foot of the Beartooth Mountains.  We spent a couple days exploring the town and the area before the Sunday wedding. On our first full day, we drove up to the pass on the Beartooth Highway and continued on to the northeast gate of Yellowstone park. It was only in the 50s at the pass, elevation near 11,000' but since I'm pretty much fed up with the heat
I thought it felt great, even with the wind. Cindy of course was freezing, but she did come prepared with a sweatshirt.

A moose visits the wedding

Unfortunately the weather slowly went downhill over the weekend with the day of the wedding, Sunday, being downright miserable. Even in town it was in the 40s with a steady rain. Snow was expected up in the mountains. Still, the wedding and reception were beautiful, with tents set up and heaters deployed. Plus, the beautiful mountain home they rented provided heat and shelter for those who needed it. One uninvited but welcome guest was a moose that wandered down the road near the reception. He created quite a stir and luckily was in a good mood. Despite all, Lea and Darren make a lovely couple and provided an opportunity for everyone to get together and visit a beautiful corner of the country.

Repaired and painted basement window. Please
ignore the over slop on the window.

A before picture of one of the windows.

Work on the home has been slow with all the traveling. I did manage to begin repairing and painting some of the aged and peeling window frames and sills, especially along the south side of the house where the sun has really beat up the old paint. I've been most worried about those south facing frames as I did not want them to go through another winter is such bad shape, The repairs include lots of scraping and brushing followed by liberal amounts of wood filler. So far, I haven't found any damage that requires replacement of the wood. A stumbling block is the second floor window, which is too high for my extension ladder. I'll need to beg, borrow, or steal something bigger to get that job done.

We had a nice gathering of the family a couple nights ago, the first real party we've had at the house. It was nice to get out the outside chairs and tables, and cook spiedies from Sharkey's for the group. It was a pleasantly cool evening as we sat outside (at least for me) with a touch of fall in the air. Reminds me that my time for outdoor work is coming to an end, and that indoor projects will dominate my time, and there are plenty of them. Just ask Cindy. ;)