Montana Trip

I went to Montana to visit Nick (friend who moved to MT after 7 years in Tahoe) last week for 5 nights. Had a lot of fun. Above picture, at a Whitefish, Montana coffee shop with really good sausage sandwiches, is pretty telling of Nick and my friendship. Over the years, we've had several obsessive hobbies. We seem to do a hobby for a while then move on. Among the favorites have been disc golf, Halo (XBOX - til 3am before we were had wives to go home to...........ah, the good old days), chess, raquetball. To the casual onlooker these may look like nothing more than boy distractions like football or NFL, but to Nick and I they have served as the bedrock of a lot of cool philosophical conversations and.......nevermind, maybe they were just boy distractions.

Chess is a good one now because we can still do it from long distance - we play online chess many days during Nick's lunch break. The online chess board has the game on the left and a chat box on the right........so it feels like the good old days, minus the coffee shop atmosphere and overpriced food.

Also saw young families, and kids, in Montana, and they looked like pink elephants. If you don't know what I'm talking about, it's probably because you don't live in Tahoe and you aren't aware of the diminishing population of that rare breed - all of our friends with young families have moved.

Anyway, Leila and I have yet again kicked around the idea of moving somewhere other than Tahoe (maybe a place where they are building new schools instead of closing schools?) but have yet again arrived at our previous path of least resistance conclusions...........we'll just stay here for a bit longer (or forever?).

Went to a cool church in Montana, 26 year old pastor, I was skeptical at first but really liked him.....his sermon was a 10.

All in all, I really liked the Flathead valley (Kalispell / Whitefish area), but I haven't been there for the winter yet and apparently that is the dreaded time. I plan to take Leila back to MT next year in Spring to visit before Judah is 2 years old (I think thats the cutoff for free baby flying).

Bryan.....

Here are some pictures from Montana:

http://picasaweb.google.com/lporter94/BryansVisit?authkey=dSysybQ6NEc#slideshow/5253337182262165522