As most of you know, I left Albuquerque for Kalispell Friday morning and spent the past three days with Bella. We had, as she calls it, "a spontaneous, crazy weekend."
Day 1: I landed around noon. Grabbed some supplies from the local gear shop, namely chalk and canister fuel for the stove, then went to Natural Grocers to get food! Can you say, "freshly ground peanut butter and free-range turkey jerky"? We might have overdosed on sodium over the course of 72 hours... lab results still pending ;)
After picking Bella up from her medical terminology class at Flathead Community College around 2:00, we had an hour to kill until her house opened up for us to grab her camping gear. We went to a lovely local coffee shop where I tasted my first Jitter Bug. Its a delicious frappuccino with small bits of chocolate-covered espresso beans. Heaven! **see top photo for jitter bug love face**
We jetted to Whitefish Mountain Ski Resort (or as the locals call it, 'Big Mountain'), rented bikes, took the ski lift up, and spent the evening downhill mountain biking. **See second and third photos** I was convinced I would whip her butt on the slopes but she actually kept up. I was seriously impressed... I did NOT go easy on her. After 8.5 miles of cycling, we made it back to the bottom of the mountain and faced the drive to our campsite with glum anticipation.
Sprawled on the pavement outside the rental shop, staring at the sky and moaning in sore-cycling-wrist-induced pain, we peeled ourselves up and drove down to Whitefish Lake National Park Campgrounds. DO NOT EVER CAMP HERE. There's a train that rolls through Whitefish that just so happens to pass about, oh, a football field from where we were camped. It didn't stop all night. Yes, it was just as painful as it sounds. By the morning Bella and I had done mental gymnastics to convince ourselves the ground-shaking train whistle was actually comforting.
Day 2: gluten-free pancakes with peanut butter and local/raw honey cheered up our disposition. We packed up camp and headed into town for a morning yoga session at Bee Hive. The owner Molly hosts super small classes and uses essential oils throughout class. Bella and I both have experienced many unpleasant yoga classes for a variety of reasons; we both agreed this class was not only in a gorgeous setting but it also had a calm atmosphere and combined the right amount of difficult movement with serene stretching.
We drove to Eureka, MT then out of town about 1/2 hour to a climbing site called Stone Hill. Bella has climbed here once before. We got out of the car and winds were appx 30 MPH, the sky was clouded over, temp was 40 degrees, and there was a light drizzle. For us women who have spent days and days stuck outside in all arrays of wretched conditions, this threw is into acute PTSD and we bailed. Quick! Bell had never been to Missoula so we headed for fairer weather and drove south.
Missoula is gorgeous, by the way. We went to Cara's park (local hot spot located just outside of down town with fabulous people watching) and went for a little run around town. Incidentally, we crossed over to Montana University campus in the middle of a big game. Running through a crowd of tailgaters is incredibly fun, actually. We made it back to our car at Cara's just in time to drive to Roxy theatre for the showing of Meru. I've ranted about this movie to all of you, individually probably. If you still haven't seen it, you need to. It's showing at all major theatres. I bawled the first time. Bella had the sniffles and she's not even a legit-climber... yet... buah hahahaha **insert evil face**
We boot-legged a gorgeous campsite just outside of Kootenai creek in the Bitterroot National Forest, made a heavenly dinner of cheezy, red-sauce, gluten-free pasta and red pepper soup, watched the full moon rise, made the most ghetto smores in the world (over a pocket camp stove and sans graham crackers) and hit the sack hard that night.
Day 3: woke up with the sun, rested and ready to climb. Made our way to Missoula's gem of a climbing area. Our first climb was a 5.7 R-rated trad lead. Pretty solid rock, gorgeous line, just little protection. I belayed Bella up to the top of the climb and together we simul-rappelled down the face. She started giggling in a hysterical way when I told her what I had in store. The photo of us on our rappel is below. Simul-rappeling is a very unique form of descending: the rope runs through an anchor and comes out to each person. It's a counter-balance situation, if I were to stand on a ledge in the middle of a rappel, Bella would go hurdling down. Vice versa: if Bella were to weight the rope before I had weighted it, I would get sucked up into the anchor. Both parties have to trust each other, unequivocally, to do this type of rappel. We lived ;)
We worked hard on a hard-sport line, burned off the rock, and ran away to Flathead Lake for cooler waters. Cool is an understatement. We froze our ARMS off in the lake. It's all on video so you can laugh at our suffering. I will make a short movie and show everyone over Christmas. Stay tuned! Here's our photo after getting out of the water, standing on the shore line laughing uncontrollably while we poorly toweled our bodies off with Bella's flannel shirts (she's obsessed with flannel, by the way).
We got back into town and picked up Bella's adorable boyfriend Will; I needed to get a couple items for dinner- you can't show up at a guest home empty-handed! We collected sparkling cider and stuff to make gluten free wild-blueberry and organic raspberry pies. Mmmmm :) We dropped off Will, he was cooking dinner for his house that evening, and went to Sky House where Bella lives with 10 other girls. Gulp! Dinner was hilarious. One of the girls Elizabeth had to make an ethnic food so she chose German. Okay, quinoa and lentils isn't German in my book, but I'm not complaining. After dinner the girls guzzled the grape juice and inhaled the pies. Truthfully, the bulimic lady ate most of the pie and that made me a little concerned, but I'm hoping she let all those anti-oxidants settle in her tummy.
Bella and I took a late-night drive back to the top of Big Mountain, this time to watch the lunar eclipse. A "once in a generation event" the last one was in 1982, the next won't be till 2033. Super moons happen a few times a year (this is when the moon is as close as possible to the earth on it's orbit, thus making the moon appear 14% larger in size). A lunar eclipse during a super moon is what makes this occurrence so rare. The moon waned quickly but glowed in an occluded blood-red hue for over an hour. We drove back to Kalispell in the dark night.
This morning after breakfast of chai with almond milk and honey and gluten-free oatmeal, Bella, Will, and I went to another coffee shop and watched Danny DeVito clips while waiting for classes to begin. As I dropped her off at college and watched her walk away, the morning rays hitting her long, untamed hair, I cried.
It's strange spending time with family when you haven't in a while- you
realize there's someone else, just like you, who has the same thought patterns
and good intentions. We were all raised in one home, together we learned how to
interact with the world. How to approach difficult situations head-on, to be
competitive and stubborn, but curious and kind at the same time. Despite our
flaws, we are all beautiful and smart, altruistic and empathetic...
we have the biggest minds and hearts of anyone I have ever met
and continue to meet.
Thank you Bella for our amazing time together and for making me feel at
home. I love you (all) to pieces.
