Goodbyes...

Well, today is the day my friend Jana Lynn leaves for Georgia. She has been my bestest friend in the kitchen ! But school starts soon for her, and she must go! It is making me realize how short our time is here in this beautiful place. We took pictures in the kitchen to commemorate our last day together. Wearing our homade aprons and picking out the craziest utensils from the kitchen, we posed for a pic. Funny stuff!
Well, this past weekend, we actually made it up the mountain at Blue Lake...talk about amazing. The off-road trip up the mountain was an adventure all in itself! We piled into the matress-clad back of 4 camp pickups and drove about 2 hours up the mountain. These roads were 'primative', and so not maintained. This equals many boulders, mudholes, divits...you name it! And so we would rev up the engine, and fly through! I guess it is tradition to stand up behind the cab, hold on to whatever you can, and scream your way through the mud holes and everything else...needless to say we were covered in dust and mud! But it was a blast. Except for the part when Old Blue broke down on us b/c too much water in something-or-other parts of the truck. So we got out, split our selves up between the other pickups, and took off! We ate lunch at Solomon city, and abandoned mine city waaay up in the mountains. Broken down buildings and shacks scatter the landscape..very interesting. 8 more miles and we were at Blue Lake...just beautiful. We didn't want to waste any time, so we hopped out onto the rocky ground, cinched up our packs, and headed up the steep mountainside. Mounument loomed before us...i actually couldn't believe the feat we were about to tackle. Within the first few moments, my lungs started to hurt...oh no..not a good sign! Well, we were at about 10, 000 ft above sea level...of course the burn is going to happen!! Slow and steady, we crept up that mountain face. There were some meadows along the way, which were actually full of flowers and grass. The high elevation parts of these mountains are actually in their late spring/early summer season. After about 1 hour, we finally reached the top of the mountain. 10, 995 ft. But Greg says with our heads we hit about 11,000 :) Being up on the top feels like no other thing in the world....all i could do was just sit in awe. And praise the Lord for making that creation! We could see for miles and miles...just more mountains! We even caught sight of the tallest point in Montana, about 15,000 ft. There was a book to sign, saying that you had been to the top. I guess Joe can now check off one thing on his "life's to -do list": climb a mountain. We will try to post pics soon...although they don't do justice!