swan valley, week three

In this last post about our stay in Montana, the photos will have to speak for themselves. There is much that is absent from the photos, such as the hours the kids spent building bows and arrows, a birdhouse, and a flower pot with Bob the Builder in his (dusty, but charmingly so...ahem) workshop; the startling recognition during a "playdate" with old friends that children who were born during my years in Missoula are now teenagers on their way out towards the big world; visits to Splash (a water park) and the Big Dipper (canonical ice cream place); biking around town; the farmer's market, aka the most important social weekly event in Missoula; and various others. The photos capture only the moments when landscape and people and my camera happened to come together.
:::
Fishing on Rock Creek and enjoying George's lovely cabin. The wind was strong, but Sava managed to reel in a couple of fish (or so I'm told).

 

can you spot the two children?

Fishing on Georgetown Lake and, simultaneously, meeting our neighbors who just moved from California back to Montana. The sky that day was worth its clouds in gold.

 

Bob and Sava; Sava was the only one who, in a party of five, caught a fish on Georgetown lake; there is a picture of that somewhere on Bob's phone

 

(Added later, photos of proof below.)

Stopping in pretty spots along Highway 83, which we traversed multiple times between Condon and Missoula.

Summit Lake, where a lady from the Montana Loon Society was counting loons

Bob Marshall Wilderness? or Mission Mountains? I can never remember which one is which, and they flank the highway. 

Practicing casting or just playing in Swan River, ten minutes from the cabin.

 

Making paint out of rocks at the creek.

Enjoying some much needed rain,

and watching the sun, which also sets in Missoula.

Cold rainy weather curtailed our drive back and forced us to come home in two days instead of five, skipping our planned camping at the Tetons and then later at Shasta. Truthfully, though, we were all ready to head home, and we look forward to seeing these places on our next trip. It was wonderful to be away, and it feels comfortable to be home. The kids covered 3,800 miles better than we could have ever imagined, and we'd like to believe that they will cherish the memories of those five weeks. We will.