Grande Adventures in Montana (by Travis)

The Cast: Starting with me (Travis- blue tank top) going clockwise: me, my mom, Teija (my baby), my sister Vanessa, her husband Bryan, my brother-in-law Charlie, his wife Taina (my sister), my son Chase, my brother-in-law Dicky, his wife Charisse (my sister), my son Makai, my dad

Big Sky Biking:

Chase, Makai, Teija and I left Jess at home for some R&R and took off to Montana for a few days. After driving through a monsoon and a patch of thick fog the size of the San Francisco Bay, we arrived at mom and dad's house in Big Sky at 2 a.m. By 11 we were on our way up to ride the ski lifts and bike down the mountain.



Taina, Charlie, Vanessa and Bryan rented bikes with full face helmets and body armor, so they rode off like maniacs and ditched the rest of us.



Teija wanted to go slow in her little caboose and Charisse agreed to pull her even though it was obvious that she wanted to join the wild crowd. I had Makai tagging along behind me again and we took an easy ride down with Charisse, Teija, Dicky, Chase, mom and dad. Teija slept most of the way, so you can tell we were really tearing it up.




By the time we got to the bottom there was only enough time for one quick run, so dad and I ditched everyone and went on a faster ride down a narrow trail. I was trying to kill him, but somehow he managed to survive. That was a lot of fun, but the day wasn't over yet.

Rafting the Gallatin:

We decided we hadn't abused our bodies enough on the mountain, so we wanted to see if we could abuse our bodies even more on the Gallatin River. We succeeded. We dropped off the kids and met mom and dad's friend Grant to go rafting. Grant used to be a rafting guide so we thought we would be ok.






We floated down 11 miles of river, battling rapids ranging from class I to class III (where class VI is the highest, meaning the river is unnavigable). Several lunatics (Charisse, Taina and Charlie) went through some rapids while “riding the bull”. That means they put their feet over the front of the boat and just held on to the rope.





It looked like a pretty wild ride. But mom thought she would show them up by jumping out of the boat right in the middle of the rapids. Of course there is a rumor going around that Grant pushed her out. She was sitting right by Grant after all. She floated through almost a mile of rapids before Dicky and Bryan were finally able to pull her in the boat. Here's some of the spots that mom floated through sans raft. In the first pic you can see her trailing behind the boat.






When she got back in the boat she was purple and half drowned (or maybe ¾). It was pretty scary, but in the end she only had a few bruises. I took some video of one of the spots she floated through.


After 11 miles mom had had enough and she got out and hitch hiked back to the car. The rest of us had one more mile to go. The “Mad Mile”. It's a solid mile of non-stop rapids; some class II's a lot of class III's and even a treacherous stretch of class IV rapids as you come around House Rock, which is a giant boulder in the middle of the river.

Now that sounded wild, but not wild enough for us, so we decided to go past House Rock sideways. That was definitely much more exciting for most of us, but apparently not enough for Bryan. He decided to jump out of the boat just as we passed House Rock. Then again, he was sitting right by Grant. Hmmmm... I took some video the next day of a few boats going by House Rock. They didn't go sideways though. (pansies!)

We somehow fought through the Mad Mile. We even managed to pull Bryan back in the boat along the way, even though he was yelling at us to leave him in the river ;-)

Thanks for steering us through Grant, but next time keep your hands to yourself! At the end we were soaked, beaten and exhausted, but the day wasn't over yet.

Liquid Nitrogen

After rafting, we went back to mom and dad's for a barbeque. Their friend Greg was there with his wife. He is a Physics professor at MSU. He brought a tank of liquid nitrogen with him!

He also had some homemade ice cream mix in a 5 gallon bucket. He had Charlie slowly pour liquid nitrogen into the bucket while he stirred it.


After only about 10 or 15 minutes (instead of the usual hour to hour and a half) we had homemade ice cream. It was delicious too.



Afterward, Greg had a bunch of liquid nitrogen left over. He certainly couldn't let it go to waste, so he amazed us with some experiments. It was a good way to finally end the day.

Relaxation

The next day we took it easy with some fly fishing. In fact, we took it so easy that we didn't catch anything.





The following day, mom, dad and I took the boys rafting on a much tamer stretch of the river. Mom was still a little nervous to go, though. After that we took the kids to Yellowstone where we saw Old Faithful, 5 elk and 1 whole buffalo. That was as much of Montana as we could handle in one trip so we went home after that.

Adventures with the Winns (by Travis)

The Cast:
Top Row: Olivia (Jess's sister), Ella (Olivia's daughter), Kevin Winn (Jess's step dad), Vanessa (Jess's sister), Izaak (Vanessa's husband), Elizabeth (Vanessa's daughter), Patrice (Jess's mom), Travis (Jess's husband), Jessica Bottom Row: Kevin Hawkes (Natalie's husband), Makai (our son), Natalie (Jess's sister), Chase (Our son), Andrew (Chase's friend), Teija (our daughter)

Happy Soggy Father's Day

We spent Father's Day in Logan. On Saturday we thought it would be fun to go on a bike ride with the whole clan (except Olivia and her family who were back in Virginia). Of course it started to rain as soon as we started, but we went anyway. Makai rode his tag-a-long on the back of my bike and promised he would help pedal. He did help on the downhills.

Teija and Elizabeth scored a free ride behind Vanessa.

They didn't help pedal at all. Freeloaders! They weren't the only lazy ones, though. Vanessa and Natalie's husbands claimed they had to “work” and couldn't go, so we decided to drop in on them to make sure they were really at work. Kevin was at work, but he seemed to have plenty of free time to come chat with us on the sidewalk.

Izaak was also at work, but he was “just getting off” when we got there. How convenient.

We then took a grueling ride up the hill by the USU football stadium. Halfway up I was wondering if Makai was helping me pedal at all. Just then he asked, “Dad, are we going up hill or down hill?” If I hadn't been gasping for air at the time I probably would have yelled, “WHAT?!! ARE YOU SERIOUS?!!” I certainly yelled it in my head. At the end of our long, wet ride, we were all pretty beat, so we made Kevin and Izaak make us dinner.

They prepared a dutch oven dinner, but it was still raining, so they cooked it in the garage. We all huddled around the fire in the garage to warm up and we didn't even burn the house down. The dinner was delicious, too.

The next day was a much nicer day, so we went on another ride with Kevin and Patrice along the river trail. It was a much drier and flatter ride, which is better, I guess, depending on who you are.

By the end of the weekend the kids were all thoroughly exhausted and Jess and I had a very peaceful drive home.