Tuesday, October 6, 2009

It's been a pretty busy month since my last post. As I've mentioned before, I'm only teaching one class this semester before beginning a regular 2-2 load in the Spring, but nevertheless it seems like I've been running nearly nonstop since I got here.

I've been biking a fair bit in my spare time, even now that there is snow on the ground.

Shot taken back in the pre-snow days

Yes, there is indeed snow on the ground. We got our first snowfall last Wednesday, on September 30! That morning we had very little accumulation on the rooftops and lawns, but nothing on the streets—mostly it was just wet flakes coming down in the morning and early afternoon. Within a day or so, all had melted but the mountains outside town were still snow-capped.

Over the weekend I went to a great place called the 320 Ranch near Yellowstone. My department was hosting a conference called "It's the Economy, Stupid!" so I went up and spent Friday and Saturday night in one of the cabins at the ranch. It was a lot of fun, and since the conference ended at 12:30 pm on Saturday everybody got to do something interesting in the afternoon: some people went horseback riding, others went fly-fishing, others went hiking. I was in the last group, and we hiked through the hills outside the ranch for three or four hours. By the end of our ascent, I was pretty wiped out. As is often the case when I ride my bike up the big hill next to the hospital in town, I found myself sucking pretty hard for air when the going got steep.

On the hike


It was a gorgeous day

The surroundings reminded me a bit of my trip to Van earlier this year


A bit of snow on the mountaintop

I got back to Bozeman on Sunday afternoon, and by evening it had started to snow pretty hard. The snow continued through the night and into Monday afternoon, by which time there were three or four inches on the ground. The temperatures started warming up a bit on Monday, and today we're in the 40s, but most of the ground is still covered.

Back in Bozeman


Monday was a snowy day on campus

Note the enormous size of the snowflakes coming down

Needless to say, it's pretty amazing getting to look at these mountains every day