I've been spending a little more time in the outdoors lately, and thought I'd share some photos. Boring for most people, but a few of you loyal readers might like to see them.

My first excursion of the summer was out to Lewis and Clark Caverns, a cave system about a 45 minute drive (to the west) from my house. I really kind of adore this place. I don't go often enough.


They recently installed some new lights, which show off the colors in the rocks better.


The columns and stalagtites are very cool.


I was the only one who showed up for the tour at this particular time of day, so I got my own, personal trip through the caverns, just me and this guy (the tour guide) showing me with his flashlight how some of the rock formations are translucent.


This long, dark (man-made) tunnel is the exit.


And here's my tour guide opening the door to the outside world for me.


And this is the walk back to the parking lot.

About a month later, I went camping. My dogs have never been camping before, and I wondered how they would do. This was an experiment in a nice campground about a 40 minute drive (to the South) from home.


Here's my wrinkly tent that's been packed up a long, long time and was pitched in the near-dark.


Me and the dogs in the tent. I love how their personalities shine through here.


It was a pretty gorgeous morning.


We walked around the trails leading from the campground. (Seen here.) Then drove farther up the canyon.


Past a reservoir.


To the (relatively easy, paved) hiking trail leading to Palisade Falls.


Me at Palisade Falls.


Duchess playing in the stream.


Duke playing in the stream. You can see his usually stand-up ears are being held back in the "woah... this is all seems very dodgy" position.

I think a good time was had by all.

So I was making dinner this evening and put some chicken in a skillet to cook, then stepped into another room for a minute. I hadn't been gone very long (honest!) when Duchess starting barking her loudest bark ever and staring at me intently with that "read my mind, you daft woman!" look on her face. I mean, it was very loud barking. You know how a fire alarm is so loud your ears ring? Yeah, like that. I even thought to myself, wow, you're as loud as my fire alarm! How do you do that when you're such a small dog?

Sadly, I wasn't doing a great job of reading her mind, but I could tell she wanted me to do _something_ and it was _urgent_. So I thought to myself, "well, before I do anything I need to go check on what I've got going on the stove. then I can figure out what's got you so upset."

But as I moved into the kitchen she stopped barking. She was still staring at me and looking alarmed, but I guess I was moving in the right direction.

It wasn't until I was standing almost right at the stove that I smelled the smoke. Now I'm sure you're all thinking "wow! Duchess just saved the house from burning down!" and let me assure you - the house was in no danger of burning down. Dinner wasn't even in danger of burning down. Something had just splashed on the burner and it was smoking a little bit. And the chicken was starting smell good.

Duchess watched the whole operation very carefully as I stirred the sizzling chicken and turned on the fan to disperse the smell of smoke. She relaxed visibly as things went back to normal, but continues to follow me closely around the house this evening instead of lounging by the fire.

So on the one hand - I'm glad I know now that Duchess recognizes that smoke is a bad thing, and I'm glad she could smell it so much sooner than I could (and felt the need to alert me to it). She also alerted me to it long before the smoke alarms even thought about going off. So that's great. And I'm also hoping I'll know what that bark means the next time I hear it.

But I have this sneaking suspicion that the alarm on her face wasn't so much because she knew _something_ was burning - but that THE CHICKEN was BURNING!!!!111 This dog adores chicken. Far more than she loves me. I'm just a conduit to very occasional treats of chicken.

So I'm not going to throw out my smoke alarms and trust the dog to warn me if the house is on fire. I mean, this is a fancy condo, but it's definitely not made of chicken.

Since I have clients on the other side of the globe right now, my sleep schedule can be a little wacky. This morning was a sleep-in morning, so I was still in bed at 8:13 or so.

We had a pretty serious storm last night - about ten inches of very wet snow. I'd heard it sliding off the roof several times during the night. So when I woke up at 8:13 or so to a rumbling noise, that's all I thought it was - more snow sliding off the roof. So I rolled over and went back to sleep.

When I was mostly awake an hour later, I wandered downstairs to check my email. A friend of mine in California sent me an instant message as soon as I sat down. It said, "hey, you doing okay today? My best Bozeman bud said there was some sort of explosion downtown..." And I went wha huh? I assured her that I was okay, and that we had snow, but I had no idea what happened downtown.

My first thought was to google, so I did. That brought me a few links to newspapers with just a sketch of what I knew had to be an ongoing news story. (For those of you not already in the know, here's a link to the local newspaper story.) My next thought was to turn on the TV and see if one of the local stations had any video. That's when I discovered the snow had temporarily knocked out my satellite TV reception. Hrm.

So then I wondered if there was a twitter hashtag yet. I just had no idea how many Bozeman locals used Twitter. I'd never checked before. A little digging brought me to the #bozexplod hashtag. And boy, was it hopping. By the time I read one page of messages from local Bozeman residents (including links to photos) there would already be another 20 comments to read.

So I was getting updates on the story every 30 seconds or so, with some great photos and links to things like live streaming radio broadcasts of press conferences. (It hadn't even occurred to me to turn on the radio.) So I could sit in the comfort of my own home and get way more information than if I had been standing on the street downtown getting in the way.

This is why I love technology, and why I feel like we're still in the middle of figuring out how best to use it. This was a very natural, very useful way of getting information about what was going on in my small town in the middle of nowhere.

There was very little national news coverage of the story - and even if CNN had really glommed onto it, the local Twitterers still would have done better. By noon they were reminding us that the firefighters and police could sure use something to eat, and maybe a drink of water. They started organizing where to bring donations for emergency personnel.

But I'm sure there are still evolutions to how this technology will sort itself out in the future. The crowdsourced google map of affected areas and suggested alternate routes for getting around was an excellent use of the knowledge-sphere. Many people contributed to creating that map, and many more found it a useful resource - much more useful than a radio or TV news reporter chanting off a list of street names.

It's been a surreal day. One person is still missing, the fire is still burning, and the Twitter feed is still rolling along - a little slower now, but still with great information. And now I've starting following the twitters of several locals. Who knew this day would bring so much.

Just in case you were wondering, my favorite architect is Antoni Gaudi. Here's a link to some photos of his work. And in particular, I wish I could live in this house.

Someday I would like to travel to Barcelona and other places where this style of architecture is common. And if I ever get to build a house I never plan to sell, I'll definitely try to find someone who will draw up plans for me that incorporate all these curves and organic lines. A girl can dream, right?

I'm really enjoying the false spring we get here in Montana in February. It only lasts a couple of weeks, but the temperature gets up near 50F and the snow melts back a bit. This is great for general getting-around and walking the dogs. Not so great for skiing. Oh well.

One thing's for sure - this isn't going to last long. We had snow till June in 2008 and there's no reason to think 2009 will be much different. I'm sure in just a few days we'll be back down around zero F and dodging blizzards.

And you know, I think maybe instead of false spring, this should be called the Mud Season. It's pretty messy out there.