spelunker

today i finally got up on some mountains. my friend mark and i climbed up the back side if Grinnell Point to look for the old Josephine mines that we had heard about. we found the mine and followed it to the end with headlamps on, until i stuck my face up against a bat and screamed and ran out of the cave. twas a fantastic time. i love the mountains.

many glacier

for the last two weeks i've been living in the many glacier hotel, in a beautiful hotel room with a rad balcony overlooking swiftcurrent lake and grinnell point. the hotel is spooky though (The Shining is based on the many glacier hotel's winter caretaker), and i am sometimes compelled to sleep on my friend cindy's floor instead of in my own beautiful room.

during the day "team clean" is still deep-cleaning dormitories and making up hotel rooms. we are a close-knit and dysfunctional family, drawn together by a mutual preoccupation with hospital corners and shiny toilets that no one else in this valley could possibly understand.

tales from the west end

finished cleaning Lake McDonald Lodge yesterday!
the Dew Drop Inn, my new haunt on the west end
Avalanche Gorge

i have fallen a little in love with the west side of the park these last 2 weeks. we're finishing up our work here, and on tuesday we head east of the continental divide and start cleaning out the Many Glacier Hotel. i'm feeling pretty good about my new career in housekeeping. my knees and fingers are bruised, and my lungs are full of comet, but there's something meditative about the whole business. and Glacier is undeniably the most beautiful place on earth to be scrubbing baseboards.

not a flatlander!

emma and i made it to the mountains, and emma got to see some of glacier national park, and i am at home. i wanted to show emma Swiftcurrent, and driving there was like driving through patagonia (or so i imagine). still pretty wintery up here.

right now i am working with a small opening crew, going through and cleaning out all the hotels in the national park that have been dormant all winter. we're based on the west side of the park for the next few weeks, which is warmer and greener than where i usually work on the east side of the continental divide. i have been living in an abandoned motel on Lake McDonald. this is my view:
i could never tire of waking up to that.

keep missoula weird

spent a few days couchsurfing in missoula. our host is building a couchsurfing empire of sorts, off on a mountain pass north of town. there's a homemade mini-golf course here, chickens and cats and dogs, and emma and i have our own room in the "guesthouse" that's being built for some hypothetical couchsurfing convention. it's odd here but comfortable. the best kind.

missoula is beautiful, in the same way that Telluride, Colorado is beautiful (the first mountain town i ever fell for, followed by many). it even smells good here, like beeswax.

tomorrow we head north, towards Glacier Park and into the snow.

buffalo gals

north dakota is behind us now, and i am feeling western again! the sky is bigger here. there is a spring in my step.

camped in teddy roosevelt national park last night and awoke this morning to the sounds of buffalo chewing and snorting. laid soundlessly in the tent until they moved on to greener grass, then packed very quickly and headed to MONTANA.

remember those signs posted all over yellowstone park? of buffalo goring visitors? i do.

go west, young woman

it is my project tonite to make roadtrip mixtapes because friday i head west for my second montana summer. my friend Emma is coming along for the drive, and because she has never seen montana or the rocky mountains (and i always want my favorite people to see my favorite places), we have decided to stretch the not-too-long drive to glacier national park into a beautiful adventure. here begins Emma's education of The West:

1. goodbye Minneapolis
2. i hear rumors of the world's largest buffalo in Jamestown, North Dakota and i feel that any "world's largest" roadside spectacle is worth the stretch break
   
3. here we camp at teddy roosevelt national park in the north dakota badlands and celebrate MAY DAY.
   
4. here we couchsurf a few days - if the folk of Missoula, MT will toss us a futon.
   
5. East Glacier Park, Montana, where Emma catches the Empire Builder train back to MPLS and where i check in with HR for my summer job in Glacier National Park!
   
6. Swiftcurrent, Glacier National Park. this is the eventual destination, where i will live until september. hopefully emma and i can get into the park and onto a mountain, but i fear snow may keep us out.

(you can see the virtual version of our route here. be excited.)

unearthing the motherblog

since i quit the blogosphere, i've moved back to minneapolis and graduated from college, spent an incredible summer working in glacier national park and an uninspiring year working in the suburbs. but my suburban hiatus is soon over, and in a few weeks i'm heading back to montana, then back to freiburg for part deux (this time as an aupair). it seems it's time to resurrect das mutterblog.

(glacier national park, summer 2008)