A completely wonderful day

(I didn't have to leave right away)

Every morning working in Big Sky begins with an hour drive out of Bozeman and then down the Gallatin Canyon. The first part is just driving in the country towards the mountains, but the Canyon is something else. Many people say they have gotten sick of this part of the drive after doing it a lot, I certainly haven't. I used to drive it a lot when I worked in the field every day but I never got tired of it. It is a windy (as in "to wind" not "the wind") road following the Gallatin River through a pretty thin canyon. The sky yesterday was super blue, as opposed to the overcast-ness of last week. A couple of whispy clouds floated by, not not much of anything.

As we get closer to Big Sky we start climbing in elevation and all of a sudden there are clouds hanging over the mountains--no blue sky! Hmmm, I hope this isn't a bad sign. As we drive through the Meadow Village of Big Sky the clouds are sticking around and we're thinking we might be driving through fog soon. After taking the turnoff towards where we were working and climbing a little more we are driving through fog and we were a little worried.

But before too long we busted out of the clouds and came out over them and could see nothing but blue sky. The first job we had to do was in a fairly remote spot next to a valley. The valley was completely filled with clouds and fog which we were looking down on. I really wish I had had my camera yesterday. The sun was starting to warm things up and the first job consisted of a mile and half walk while pounding wood stakes in the ground for the center line of a planned road. It was awesome.

The rest of the day went pretty much like that. The sun was shining out of a blue sky all day, our jobs were many and varied, but none were too hard. We spent time walking through forests looking for old survey markers and investigating areas for future jobs.

Like I said, it didn't feel like I should have been being paid for it (but I'll take the money). People go on vacation to do things like I did for my job yesterday. It is days like yesterday that make me miss going to the field everyday like I used to. Of course, there are days like the last couple of weeks that remind me that a day in the office every once in a while is pretty nice too.