Getting close to the end . . .

Hoary marmot in Glacier National Park!
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First off: I've started a flickr.com website to display more photos. You can visit my page at flickr.com/photos/ sarahsphotostrip.

It's not totally updated, but it's completely photos from Montana and there are more, at a bigger size, than allowed on this blog.

At this point it's REALLY hard to believe I only have a little over two weeks left here at the ranch. The weeks are going faster, and there are still so many things left to do that it has become frantic to plan weekends, and the weekends are so short . . . . . Eek! I have gotten to do some pretty awesome things: backcountry camping in Yellowstone, seeing a glacier in Glacier National Park, shaking Barack Obama's hand at the Butte 4th of July Parade, boating on Priest Lake in the panhandle of Idaho, and now today we're leaving to go camping in the Grand Tetons! I guess I can't complain ;) I've also had some lazy weekends here at the ranch, or driving to Missoula to see the Batman movie and eat out (eating out seems so uncommon now. . . . . ), thrift store shopping in Pburg, and general getting to know everyone here at the ranch.

Classic national park photo
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The ranch is a pretty cool place (I'll try to get some more pictures up). We really are located along the Continental Divide; if you walk to one side of the pasture you can see some of the mountains that make up our little portion of it (the snow is almost completely melted off by this point). Speaking of which, we have a huge pasture for the five horses that live here. A couple nights ago I went on a walk through the pasture to the gazebo, a two-story wooden construction that sits next to Carpp's Creek and overlooks the Continental Divide mountains. I took my time walking through the pasture hoping to see some ground squirrels, (they are so cute, but their holes are dangerous for the horses . . .  earlier this summer one of the more experienced-ranch-wise interns, Jacob, was designated to go out one night and shoot as many as he could!). I was disappointed I didn't see any last night. I made it to the gazebo and climbed the ladder to the second story thinking I would get some quality reading time (and I did), but I spent the first 15 minutes or so just looking out at everything around me; craggy mountains, creek, pasture, tree-covered hills. Ahhhhhhhh. It's a beautiful place out here.

Priest Lake, Idaho
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One of the cool things about the ranch, and this area of Montana, is that it's full of ghost-town-esque places. There are several ghost-towns in this part of the state in general. We kind of have our own little ghost-town right by the ranch; across the road there are several collapsing log buildings from the mining days. One of our first warnings here from the lodge manager was to be careful if/when hiking in the woods because there are abandoned mine shafts in some areas! When driving towards Anaconda, there is a huge ravine-like area, and along the cliff opposite the road you can see old, rickety, mine-cart looking chutes that look as if they could instantly fall into the water rushing at the bottom of the ravine. Even Philipsburg is something of a ghost town, with its peak population happening sometime at the turn of the 20th century and many of the buildings that stand today on Broadway, the main drag, are the originals from that time period. There are lots of fun stories about the ranch grounds from the earlier 20th century, such as one about this man who ran off into the wilderness carrying a moose over his shoulders. Now, I have seen a few moose since I've been here, and I'm not sure about the possibility of giving one a piggy-back ride up into the wilderness.

So as mentioned, a few weeks ago we had a Project Vote Smart-planned trip to Glacier National Park. It was amazing!!!! We had a campsite near Lake MacDonald, a beautiful spot near the West Entrance. A trip of 30 or so people is pretty big, but it actually worked out well. We all got to go rafting together on the Flathead River (I sat in the front of the raft so I could get splashed and spook myself a little by going first into the rapids), and then split up into smaller groups to do other activities. There were 10 of us (two cars) who took full advantage of our time, hiking different trails to lakes and water falls and driving the Going-to-the-sun Road; I saw some mountain goats and my favorite, marmots! (I'm excited about going to the Tetons because my favorite type of marmot, the Yellow-bellied Marmot, lives in the park . . . .a marmot is the mountain version of the Woodchuck).  One of the cars saw a grizzly bear a little ways off from the road (it's true, they have photographs), but we were leading and we missed it!

Just this past weekend I went to Priest Lake in Idaho with four other girls here at the ranch. One of my friends here, Megan, has vacationed there for years with her family and worked at Hill's Resort on the lake for the last few summers, so she invited some of us to go up with her and relax; swim, boat, kayak, lay around on the dock. The sun tired us out pretty easily even though we weren't doing much! Megan's younger brother is working at the resort this summer so one of his friends took us out in his boat and we sped up to the Upper Lake, which is accessible through a narrow pass (about the width of a small river). The Upper Lake, about 10 miles from the Canadian border, has some sort of park-protection status and homes and resorts aren't allowed to develop up there -  so the narrow pass spits you out and you're in this beautiful lake of cold, dark blue water surrounded completely by forest. We got up there and jumped in and swam around, jumping off the boat again and again and again. We didn't get to spend too much time there since a few of the people in our boat had to get back to work at the resort later that evening - plus the lake is 22 miles long so it takes some time to cover it! The lake itself and the area are gorgeous, surrounded by mountains and forest (plus we had some great weather to top it off). We ended up crashing in the living room of some of Megan's friends who work at the resort; their place was ideally located to walk to the main docks of the resort so we had easy access back and forth. The Priest Lake area is a vacation spot mainly for people from Washington state (we actually even crossed into Washington for a split-second on our drive); and I learned something I NEVER KNEW before: Spokane, WA is not pronounced Spo-KANE like sugar CANE, but Spo-KAN, like soda can. Totally blew my mind. Couldn't get over it. I wouldn't be surprised if you gathered up all the people there, in cabins, at the resort, etc., if I wouldn't be among a handful or two of people from IN/KY and further East. It was like being in a different country! It was a great (albeit short) trip, and a good time road tripping with some of my favorite girl friends here at the ranch.

As far as work goes, I've finished up with the PSA program which I was working on for the last month or so; I only have a few calls here and there but we've now moved onto national network airplay and have had some decent response. Right now the media department is brainstorming for exposure at the Democratic National Convention, because we got access to go inside (no access was granted for the Republican National Convention, although we have a parking spot for a bus in the vicinity), so we're getting ready to pitch ideas to our senior advisor here in the office. It is really nice to have an internship where we do get to be involved in a lot of the idea processes and decision-making - no running to get coffee as part of my job description (except when I'm feeling a little drowsy myself . . . )! I'll have to wrap up all the work I've been doing in the next couple weeks and get ready to haul out (and figure how to strategically pack all the stuff I have for the plane ride home! That's the biggest challenge).

Lots of things to participate and look forward to before the end: The Grand Tetons trip for the weekend (I planned it and there are 13 people going - I hope everything goes well!) and then friends from high school  - Lyndsay, John, Mark, Chris, Jared, and Tyler - visiting me the week I leave.

These last few weeks are going to finish off pretty quickly . . . . .