Montana is big and I have no job

So, after a morning layoff, I went to Montana for my friend Jeff's wedding. It worked out okay for me, because it was a good way to take my mind off of being unemployed for a few days. It wasn't the greatest for Jenna, however, as she was stuck at home to think about how we were going to deal with my lack of income.

Since I don't really have much news on the employment front (aside from some decent leads that I'm hopeful about, but its too soon to tell whether they will pan out), I figured I'd blog a little about the Montana trip.

I didn't know many people who were going, but turned out I had met a couple of the other groomsmen before. The first night I discovered I was one of a few others there that had also been laid off recently, so I was not alone. It turns out it had been raining over melting snow for a few days before we got there, so the ground was solid ice in a lot of places, which made walking a little tricky. We also decided that snowboarding would not likely be all that fantastic, so the whole wedding party, along with some other family and friends went cross country skiing in Glacier National Park instead, which was gorgeous and very big. On the drive out we passed a few bald eagles swirling around in the sky above a turquoise blue river next to some snowy mountains... pretty awesome. I didn't get a picture but here's a random google images hit for 'ya for a visual of what that was like:


Cross Country skiing is actually pretty fun, especially with a big group of mostly novices. I fell more times than I could count due to the slightly icy snow, the complete lack of metal edges on the skis and my total incompetence, but it was still a lot of fun. One of the oddest things I noticed was a sign in the forest that informed you that you were, indeed, in the forest


On the drive back to town, we passed one of the most unusual and scary things I'd ever seen. There was a highway patrol pulled over on the side with someone in front. As we got closer we all caught a glimpse of the culprit. A four-wheeler/ATV was pulled over on the side with a BABY in a car seat strapped to the front (rear-facing of course, for safety). I'm hoping the guy was being pulled over for wrecklessly endangering the baby, and not for a broken taillight or something...

The rehearsal took place in the evening, after the sun went down, but I could tell we were near a lake of some sort. The next day at the wedding, I realized this was not just any lake, but a really, really big lake. In fact, it was Flathead lake, which is 2.5 times bigger than Lake Tahoe, and the largest freshwater lake in the western US. It was gorgeous and enormous, much like Lake Tahoe. I snapped a few cell phone photos that don't even come close to doing it justice. It was really surreal to be so ignorant of the local geography that I wasn't even aware of this lake's existence.


The wedding was great, and it was fun to experience Montana and get to meet some of the natives and take in some of Montana's natural abundance. It never even occured to me to visit Montana before, but now I might consider going back at some point for a trip (it is probably equally gorgeous in the summer).

Anyway, I'm back home now, and getting my job search in motion. Hopefully I won't be out of work for long and no drastic life changes will be necessary.