summer in the city in full swing.

i'm excited about biking and rollerblading on all the epic bike trails in minneapolis.  i'm excited about farmers markets.  i'm excited about lake swimming.  i'm excited about home cooking (after five summers of unsavory national park cafeteria food).  

i'm even excited about nannylife, though it's fairly beige and not that photogenic.  i'll bring my camera along one of these days...      

this is montana.  

and for a complete change of pace: tomorrow i start my minneapolis nanny job.  

i just got back from montana after a month of deep-cleaning historic hotels and hiking around glacier national park.  i kinda can't believe i ever left this place.  it is undoubtably the most fun place in the world.

these are from glacier view mountain in the whitefish range.  

one summit, six people, three growlers of IPA.    

it turned into summer overnite, and minneapolis won me back immediately.

i'm leaving for montana in the morning, but only for the month of may.  after that i'm spending the whole summer in minnesota.  nannying.  and now that the sun is shining, that seems like a spectacular idea.  a whole summer riding bikes and chilling at the pool.

i'll be without internet or phone for the next few weeks.  see you in june!

this is springtime in minneapolis
a winter wonderland that i was not expecting.

plus the end of the exposed film.  oops.

glenwood springs, frisco and copper mountain on film.
(from a thriftshop camera that i didn't know how to operate. i definitely exposed the film, but i kinda like when that happens!)

i miss colorado already.  hope to be back there in the fall, but the best laid plans of mice and men...

copper mountain is closed for the season, and i'm back in minneapolis for a minute, after a rocky roadtrip from colorado.  we pulled into laramie, wyoming just as they were closing all roads out of laramie for dangerous winter weather.  and so it was that we spent a day in a pool hall in wyoming, and in a geology museum and then a bowling alley, and then took tequila shots and played baseball trivia at an applebees, and overstayed our welcome in the hotel pool.  we drove another whole day in unpleasant winter storms and only made it to des moines, where we ate chinese takeout in a motel 6.  finally back in minnesota, i say to you: stay the hell outta wyoming.

these photos are from the street in Cody, from the last time i was stranded in wyoming.

eight inches of snow on the first day of spring.  we didn't stop giggling all day.

and now its april already.  i'm headed to work in a minute sans socks for the first time since wyoming, and it feels alright.  it's prime patio season around here, all of us sprawled out with rum runners, working on very attractive goggle tans.  two more weeks of this, and then a little springtime vacation in minnehappylis.

hiking Tucker Mountain in my big backyard.  

pretty much right after i took these pictures, my favorite person to ski with tore his knee in a billion places, and my winter got a whole lot less epic (though not as bad as his winter, to be fair).   

i'm skiing with a liiiiiiiiitle more trepidation these days, though our colorado spring began with heaps of surprise snow.  and more in the forecast.    

there are only three weeks left until the end of the season.  things are winding down.  my knees will be thankful for the off-season, but the rest of me hates the idea.