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Colter posted his version of our weekend together on his blog, along with photos of their skiing.  Click here to see them.

Weekend With Kids

My wanderings led us to Missoula and Bozeman this weekend to connect with Larkin, Colter and Alli.  We had a leisurely Saturday and had lunch with Larkin in Missoula, before we headed on to Bozeman.   On Sunday afternoon we drove up to Bridger Bowl ski area, where I found some early wildflowers.  Warren is still in "ski-mode" so the 3 of them hiked on up to the ridge to take a late-season run. After a shopping trip to REI on Monday, we headed back home.  Hopefully my brevity in this text will be made up in the photos below--a picture is worth a thousand words, so this will really be a dissertation!  Be sure to go all the way down--I found a new flower and it's at the end, but no peeking ahead!

Larkin in Missoula; no, this is not the new flower....

Definitely a couple of wild flowers!

Colter and Alli's house in Bozeman

They just bought another, newer Subaru!

Alli and Kyler in the yard

Colter and Dad

Alli and Colter; sweetheart flowers

Glacier lilies greeted us right off at the ski area.

The Rocky Mountain maples were stunning.

Hard-core skier nerds

Then we saw a moose!

Then we saw her CALF--it's legs were so wobbly, we thought that maybe it had been born that day!

Look at those little splayed legs!  Mama moose looks a little winter-beat.

Glacier lilies and Spring Beauties covered the hillsides where I was.

Ball-head Waterleaf

Wyoming Kittentails

More kitten-tails, further along.

Yellow Violets

Ball-head Waterleaf

Surprise!  A new one for me!  Steer's head flower!  It's related to bleeding heart.

Looking at the approaching shower in the valley.

Looking the other direction at my flowered hillside and the snowy ridge above.

Big Mountain Trail

It has been a rainy day.  We decided to stay a little closer to home this time and not to go back to Lubec today.  We headed up to Whitefish to check out the Danny On Trail up Big Mountain.  We got as far as Hogan's and started to cross a bit of snow on the trail, it started raining pretty hard, so we decided that was far enough.  Saw some lovely blooms, but no surprises.

This little Downy Woodpecker was hammering away on the top of this metal lamp-post!

Catkins on Mountain Alder

Utah Honeysuckle (which will be Red Twin-berry later this summer)

Rocky Mountain Maple; you hardly notice the little green flowers until you look closely!

Rocky Mountain Maple flowers

Trillium--this was the flower of the day!

Huckleberry blossoms!

Glacier Lily

Raindrops on Glacier Lily--this one had such a sweet shape!

Flower-nerd Lynn on a snowy trail.

wierd stuff like slime mold on the forest floor; will have to look this stuff up!

We also saw Yellow Violets, Spring Beauty, Gooseberry, and only ONE Fairyslipper!

Mother's Day on the South Boundary Trail

This afternoon after church, I met Lynn in Columbia Falls and we drove on to West Glacier for a short hike.  She hasn't seen as many Fairyslippers as I have at Lone Pine, so we were on the look-out for them.  The latter section of what we hiked today was through lovely woods, just perfect for Fairyslippers, and we counted 102!!  Most of them were just singles scattered in the woods or along the trail, but then we came to several little clumps and that upped our count.  She definitely got her "Fairyslipper fix" today!

I love the spots on this one!

I meant to start with our flower list, but I was so excited about the 102 that it came first!  Very different sightings than on Lubec Ridge:  Glacier Lillies that were done, Trillium, Oregon Grape, lots of Strawberry, yellow Violets, blue Violets, Arnica, Fern-leaf Parsley, Yellow Biscuitroot, Serviceberry, Gooseberry, Fairybell, False Solomon Seal, Woods Pussy Toes, Clematis, Blue-Eyed Mary, Wild Sarsaparilla, Huckleberry, Meadowrue, Mountain Lover and Paintbrush.  22!  I'm only going to post my favorite photos; we'll see more of these later this summer as well.  I'm posting these with my Mom in mind; I know she would have loved to have walked with us today!!!  Love you Mom!

Yellow Violets

Blue Violets and Strawberry

Blue Violets

Fern-leaf Parsley

Indian Paintbrush

More Paintbrush

Mountain Lover or Paxistima; very tiny flowers in the leaf joints.

False Solomon's Seal; the flowers have just barely bloomed.

Huckleberry blossom; the leaves look frost-nipped!

New growth on the Larch (or Tamarack) trees.
This is not an evergreen; the needles turn gold in the autumn and fall off.

We had a couple of mystery flowers that we are working on, but they are such lovely photos I'm going to post them.

This may be a very young Baneberry start.

This was on a flowering tree, but I have no idea...