White Hot Weekend!

Gliding along...

The lyrics from "Cold cold cold" (Little Feat) come to mind as we drive up to the Chief Joseph cross-country ski area (http://visitmt.com/categories/moreinfo.asp?IDRRecordID=13976&siteid=1). Yes, we're at it again. But we're leaving soon and want to get in as much skiing as possible. It's been relatively warm and snow-free down in Hamilton, but up in the mountains, temperatures plummet and big snow flakes fall all around us. We're lucky enough to follow a massive snow plow to the highest point. And we have a blast. The snow comes and goes, but when it's falling, it closes us into a world all our own. It's quiet. We glide! (I'm getting better at the skiing -- nose over knees, strong forward motion, poles low at my sides, balance pretty much in check!).

First stop on the way home? The Naughty Moose, of course (http://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g45128-d1567578-Reviews-Naughty_Moose-Conner_Montana.html).

The sign shows a moose flirting with another species of some kind.

Inside, The Moose is a bar reminiscent of the old mountain West! We've eaten here before after a day on the trails, but we decide to head homeward this time, as our car has started making a rattling sound (from ice on the brakes?) and we want to check it out. The sound stops as suddenly as it started; whether it melted or slid off, it sounds perfectly normal. We speed on home. 

Bar at The Moose.

We get ready for dinner up on Milner hill at Kelsey and Mary's, with their two Portland daughters and Kelsey's brothers Eric and Scott in attendance. Everyone's here for a Sunday evening dance party thrown for Hamiltonian Steve Powell, a director of the Bitter Root Land Trust (http://www.bitterrootlandtrust.org/contact.html), a musician and member of Missoula's Big Sky Mudflaps (http://www.bigskymudflaps.com/) and a person struggling with melanoma. We met him cross-country skiing. He's as friendly a guy as you're likely to come across. This is just a big old party for him, and hundreds of people arrive at the hall with pot-luck dishes that fill tables along three walls of this big space.

The Mudflaps heat up and the dance floor is packed. "Here you just might see an environmentalist dancing with a logger," says our friend Mary Alice Holloway. And as we twist and jitterbug away, we see every age and style of casual dress on this dance floor. What fun. We cool off on our walk home, laughing about all the great music and folks we've met and seen. What a way to end a weekend in a small Montana town.