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Wii.  Kindle Fire.  DVDs.  Ipods.  So much money and time spent on them.  But never, NEVER, have they captivated my children as did this:

We caught him like this.  Staring off into the distance.  I couldn’t see his face, couldn’t read his mind.  And he didn’t notice we had come up behind him….he was totally lost in thought.  I didn’t ask him what he was thinking; didn’t invade his privacy.

My Captain and Varmint, equally touched by the moment as I, joined him on the edge.  And the three of them gazed down, onto what, I knew not.

But they just lay there, staring, silently.  Every now and again I’d hear a quiet murmur and see a head nod in agreement.  They were captivated.

Age, Time, Reason….all of it was suspended.  I have no idea how long we sat there.

Eventually, I crept up to see what kept them so mesmerized.  It was nothing more than the movement and clarity of the glacial water….fresh off the mountain’s waterfalls as it has flowed for centuries.  This water is so clear…this picture is at a depth that is chest deep, and it looks like it’s only inches deep.  And ICE COLD.

Eventually, my tummy grumbled.  Most of our tender moments end that way, and this was no exception.  I’d be embarrassed, but I’ve come to terms with who I am, and what my priorities are.  So I heaved myself up, suggested we search for a bite to eat, and asked the kids to first face me for a picture so we could remember this moment.  Usually they gripe and roll their eyes.  But this time….

…..this time they wanted to remember.

I was making beans and rice today for the guys working on our beloved mud pit.  Remember the mud pit?  I first told you about it in A Family Affair.  Well….we took a break from it over the summer.  But today My Captain, with some help, picked up the shovels and pick axes once again.

And since I am pretty much worthless with a hammer in my hand (unless I’m cracking nuts…I mean the shells of nuts….oh you know what I mean!)  I went to my favorite place on earth….the kitchen!  Because I like to feed ‘da Troops!

So I made Whole Grain Blueberry Pancakes for them for breakfast.  And I made homemade, full-on-butter white chocolate chip sugar cookies for snacks. And then I made Beans and Rice for them for Lunch.  Because nothing says ‘Thanks for working so hard!” like a big ‘ol case of Gastroenteritis.

And also, farting makes me laugh, so I serve beans often.

Don’t judge.

Anyways….it was during the cooking of the Beans and Rice that I came into contact with a rather painful reminder of a rather painful fact of my rather painful life.

The garlic salt I had reached for was none other than SELBY’S IGA Garlic Salt.  Selby’s grocery store was our little town’s only grocery store.

And it closed its doors after decades of family run service because the bigger, glossier, Starbuck’s carrying grocery chains nearby had run them out of business.

It was SUCH a sad event for our little town.  On so many levels.

And even though we want the wound to heal, every freakin’ time I reach for my spices, I get reminded that our small town is in economic crises.  And OF COURSE I had to buy the jumbo spice canisters when I last shopped there, so I’ll be reminded for a long time to come yet.

It is all so very sad.  Thank goodness I made the fart-inducing beans and rice to make me laugh again, or else I’d still be all goopy about it.

Or, as I like to call it, “The Day I Puked My Guts Out.”

The last hike we attempted while at Glacier National Park this summer with Critter and Varmint was our particularly favorite hike.  My Captain and I fall in love again every time we hike that trail.  Aptly named “The Highline Trail”, it is one of the highest trails in Glacier Park, with its trail head at the Continental Divide, and much of it on a cliff no wider than a sidewalk.

Which would, of course, beg the question, “Then why is your chubby bum on it?”

The answer to which is that I began hiking that trail long before my bum was chubby, and I refuse to stop.

I didn’t warn Critter or Varmint about the nature of this rather precarious section of the trail, because they might freak out.  And because they might have balked.  And because I hate whining, which is ironic since I do it so often myself.

Anyways, I didn’t warn them.

I needn’t have worried about Critter, but Varmint was visibly peeved to see we had to hold onto a guide cable that had been anchored to the cliff wall.

A guide wire that had been stuck through a rubber garden hose, because that is the kind of ingenuity our National Parks Service is known for.  That, and a shoe-string budget.  But hey, it worked.  And Varmint relaxed visibly when she witnessed my own girth securely held by the rubber hose.

Do you see that road down there?  In the upper corner of this picture of Critter on the trail?  That road, The Going To The Sun Road, is a full 400 feet down from the rock wall/cliff we were walking on.  The cars, the people, all of them were like tiny little ants to us.

See those trees down there?  They are on average about 50 feet high.

See those patches of white down below us? Those are actually snow fields bigger than football fields.

Look, the point I am making is that we are seriously high up, we are dangling on a narrow little path, and you just need to be super impressed, ok?  Like the next time you see me, you need to tell me how amazing we are.  That is what my point is.

Though in the interest of full disclosure, we only hiked about 3 miles of the Highline, which in truth is about 11 miles.  My Captain and I have completed it before (and I lost toenails every time we did it), but we weren’t going to ask the kids to do that.

We didn’t ask them to do that for several reasons:

1) We want them to love hiking, not see it as a death march.

2) My arthritic knee would not handle the 11 miles of Highline.  Nuh-hun.  No-Siree.

3) Varmint had begun to cry.  That is usually a good clue that we might want to consider turning around.

and

4) I had begun a raging headache that was starting to make me nauseous.  And I’m not talking a little urp here and there, I’m talking the “keep my car window down and roll the window behind me UP” kind of nausea.  Don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about.  We’ve all experienced that particular kind of the-car-might-still-be-in-motion-but-I’m-going-to-lose-breakfast-anyways nausea.

OOh, and 5) the Mountain Goats were starting to mock us.  Well, they were starting to mock me in particular.

“Are you SERIOUS with that chubby bum up here on this goat trail, lady?”

If you haven’t been mocked by a wild mountain goat, you haven’t lived, I tell you.

And you can see why this is our particularly favorite trail.  Death-defying ledges, Puking, Goat-Mockings…it has something to offer for everyone.

I think my kids will remember (read: have nightmares about) that trail for years to come.

My Varmint is an imp, pure and simple.  You’d never guess it to look at her.  So sweet and pure and generous, with intelligent eyes that bely a kind heart…she’s every mother’s dream child.

Except for that imp thing.

I wanted to remember a beautiful moment at a beautiful spot in a beautiful state during a beautiful vacation with my beautiful beloveds.  That’s all I really wanted.  Was that so much to ask?

Here’s the spot.

I gathered the my beloveds and took a photo.

Varmint!  Stop it!  Just smile.  We don’t need the goofy tongue, thank you.

No, you may not stick your finger up My Captain’s nose for the picture, either.

Varmint!

I swear you are SUCH an Imp!

AUGH.  You are not right in the head, goofball!

Will you PLEASE be serious?!

Thank you.

Wait….

CRITTER!  Now why aren’t you smiling?!

DOH!

I give up.

Well, we’ve done it.  No surprise to anyone who knows us, or maybe even any of you kind people who read Mamaboe with any regularity.

We’ve bought land for our retirement near Glacier Park, Montana.

Land on which we will one day build a modest log home.  Land on which we will one day live out our salad years with the hopes that our children will visit often, or, at the very least, drop our grandchildren off with frequency for appropriate grand-parental doting and spoiling.

But in the meantime, this pristine woodland will need to be merely protected and stewarded.  14 acres it is, complete with old growth forest of Birch and Pine and Hemlock and Aspen…oh,  and a pure, glacial melt, gurgling creek.  And it’s currently populated with any number of wild birds.

And Bears.

And Mountain Lions.

And Eagles.

And Mooses.

(It was the Mooses that sold me, frankly.)

So this trip to Montana, My Captain and I introduced Critter and Varmint to our real estate investment.

My Captain took Critter for a walk around the perimeter of the property and they came upon a tree that had been well and truly used as a scratching post from a Grizzly Bear.

“Now wait just a minute!”  You cry! “Why do you say those are from a grizzly? I mean, many different animals could have caused that scratching!”

True.  If those scratchings were just regular scratchings.  Many different wild animals like to dig for insects hors-d’oevres, and many like to sharpen their claws on bark.

But see, there is one reason, and one reason alone that we are more than sure it was a Griz.

See that kid?  That 9-year-old boy who stands several feet tall?  He’s about 7 feet below the top most scratching.

This ain’t the doins of a little baby racoon folks.  And if it is….

I don’t want to meet the Mama!