we rode halfway up the mountain on top of a snowcoach to eat dinner in a lovely yurt. ate by lantern light with anesthesiologists from new york city, served mashed potatoes and chocolate fondu by waiters wearing headlamps. fit on a sled with both of my parents and crashed into a snowbank.

it's a new family goal to eat dinner in as many strange tent scenarios as possible. a few years ago we ate christmas dinner in this circus tent in germany. i like the idea of dinners so strange we could never forget them.

mumsey and pops are in big sky for a visit. i have a lot of winter adventure photos to wade through, but not now. there's a hot tub outside and a glass of malbec with my name on it.

on the road in montana.
i remember when i could just walk down the road to buy groceries...

"an adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered." -g.k. chesterton
i need a pick-me-up. it's february.

some photos from the last few weeks.

our one bedroom condo with three roommates,
two cats and sometimes a dog.
learning to ski in the trees.
learning to bake at high elevation.
more truck than i can handle.

monochrome life

back to glacier in 90 days.
and counting.

sisters in winter wonderland.
and then a bar made out of snow.
this winter is better than most.

bozeman is not a bad place to wait for a sister.
a dive motel and a dive bar or two, and
weather so warm i want to skip down the street.

(big sky on a point-n-shoot II)

sister is on a greyhound bound for montana.isn't that swell?

a summary:

2010 began on the street in germany, drinking caipirinhas with mumsey and pops and dodging fireworks. then there were four more months in moosewald, and four rambunctious kids, a cozy attic bedroom, rhubarb yogurt and marzipan croissants, snowshoeing in switzerland, hysterical fasching adventures, a new holga, the black forest, a trip to the north sea, monkey-feeding in france, backyard soccer and violin lessons, several dancenights in frankfurt, a beautiful blooming spring, a volcano in iceland...

then there was a cabin in montana, some lovely familiar faces, a restaurant full of plastic lattice, summer sledding and swimming and cliff jumping, a very exciting summit, a gnarly spider bite, polebridge with the ladies, iceberg lake with the germans, raspberry pie and cowboy coffee, a new special spot, forest parties, costume hikes, grizzly bears, a pretty new kayak, a death march to canada...

and then there was a roadtrip west, a great salty desert, a huge alpine lake, a scary car fire, ocean and mountains and redwoods, lots of couches, lots of phớ, a greyhound east, three weeks in minneapolis...

and it ends here in big sky, with a bottle of gnarly head and a divebar full of dirtbags.

i like trajectories like these.

hello 2011.

it was a good solstice year. a summer solstice hoedown in the forest, and on a bridge, and in a river. some winter solstice glühwein, an epic eclipse, 2am snowshoeing in snow up to our necks.

and now we have more daylight to look forward to, thank treesus.

(big sky on a point-n-shoot)

i'm having a hard time taking pictures in the winter. if i take off my gloves, i will lose my fingers. and besides, i don't trust myself with a more valuable camera in tow. i'm not that great of a skier.

so my photos this winter will by grainy and blurry, and they will not do justice to this INCREDIBLY BEAUTIFUL PLACE.

i'm staring to love this town, despite a boring job and a condo that could be on an episode of "hoarders." i've thrown myself into skiing, sink or swim, on a pair of ugly old rentals i scored dumpster diving at work. there are 5,512 skiable acres in big sky...an average of two skiers per acre on the resort's busiest day. madness. and you can ski right off the PEAK at 11,166 feet.
finally! a way to get down mountains that is as exciting as climbing them! montana is paradise for an adrenaline junkie.

i got exciting mail from Mumsey yesterday, from what is quite possibly the best website on the internet. i walked home from work with a glorious package full of lebkuchen and spätzle and doppelkeks and wild mushroom soup packets...... all the fixins to create a little german christmas magic in my strange Big Sky apartment.

these photos are from last december in freiburg. a very different winter from the one i'm living now! this season i'm enjoying my lebkuchen with a cold PBR :)