RIP little camera

I know I said I’d get some pictures this weekend of what we did and get them on the blog… but our little camera, which has served us faithfully for six years has gone to the great darkroom in the sky. It sort of still takes pictures but they are heavily pixelated and have a weird purple tint to them. You can just barely make out what it was you were taking a photo of and only if you know what it was to start with.

So for the time being, we’re without a point and shoot camera. I’ve still got my digital SLR but it’s a bit inconvenient for hikes and other activities.

Jess and I went out Saturday and climbed St. Mary’s peak. I posted about doing it earlier in the summer without Jess. This time I took her and we did it together. We got kind of a late start but I figured we’d be fine. Then Jess wasn’t really feeling up to it. Being the former challenge camp counselor that I am though, I encouraged her and literally pulled her up the mountain.

We got up to the top and the wind was blowing like crazy. Probably 40-50 mph winds. Now here’s where it gets interesting. The peak adjacent to the one we were on was on fire. This fire has been burning for a while but Saturday it really blew up. It spread over 1,500 acres on Saturday. It’s now burning over 4,000 acres total. The smoke looked like the end of the world. It was crazy. We weren’t in any danger because the wind was blowing the fire away from us. It was an unreal sight to behold.

We didn’t stay up top long though because it was getting late. We dropped back down the trail to the truck and headed for home. Well wouldn’t you know it, while driving down the trail we run into Jess’ dad. He was out bear hunting in his truck. What are the odds?

Anyway, we could see the mountain that was on fire glowing in the dark. Sunday the Forest Service closed off the trail we had hiked and the access road into it. Not because of fire danger but so the fire crews would have easier access in and out and wouldn’t be fighting traffic. So we were the last ones to come out of there for a while.

All in all it was a fun day. Jess didn’t think she could do it but she did and I was proud of her. We got to see something up close that few people ever get to see. If only the camera had lasted a bit longer so we could have gotten a good picture of it.

Nothing going on

For the past week I’ve been thinking I need to update this blog. Unfortunately, there hasn’t been much of anything going on. Nothing. It’s been real slow. We didn’t even do much over the weekend. Just kind of hung out.

We went for a walk on Saturday but it was really hot. I almost melted. No, check that. I melted a little… on the inside. It was pretty bad. I did my best to have a good attitude because Jess was the one that wanted to go for a walk but I was dying. I hate the heat as it is and being melted by the sun was brutal. She took pity on me and cut the walk a little short. She’s a good wife like that.

Sunday I got to watch the Cowboys game since DirecTV was doing a free preview of their Sunday Ticket programming. It was nice to be able to see the Cowboys play even though they weren’t on national TV. I wouldn’t pay $250 for the privilege though. Well, maybe if I had plenty of extra money but it’d have to be a lot of extra money cause I can think of a lot of ways to spend that kind of money.

The biggest news is my continued push to get more involved with local government. The county and city had a meeting last night to discuss working together to build a skatepark. This is something I’ve pushed through editorials at the paper so I went to the meeting to see what they wanted to do. It was interesting. I even gave a few comments during the public comment time. Then, because I was one of three people there from the public… I got asked to be on a skatepark committee. So now I’m on a local government committee. Crazy. It’s good though, it’ll give me some experience and get my name out there with political folks. That should serve me well when I decide to run some day.

I’ll try to do something interesting this weekend so I have something better to post.

A day of politics

I experienced both sides of the political aisle today. It was quite the experience.

For the past several months I’ve been attending the monthly Democratic luncheon. It’s interesting though attended mostly by a bunch of old folks. I’m the youngest by far. Still though, they’re interesting people and I enjoy the lunches. There’s always an interesting topic to discuss (though I’ve just listened for the most part) and I’m learning a bit about how party politics work in this part of the country.

After the lunch, I cruised over to the high school where Republican Denny Rehberg was holding his town hall meeting. He’s our only Representative (Montana only gets 1 since no one lives up here) and it’s pretty rare we get a major politician rolling into town. I wanted to see what he had to say and get a feel for things from the other side on how things are going.

It was shocking to say the least. First off, Rehberg was a master at political doublespeak. Seriously, he could talk for 5 minutes and not answer the question in the slightest. A democrat asked him why he didn’t support affordable health care for everyone (He’s against the public option or any kind of reform) and also asked him to rebuke those in the audience booing and calling Obama a Nazi. He then spent almost 10 minutes talking about how he didn’t know what was in the bill and that he didn’t hear anyone call Obama a Nazi. He didn’t say ANYTHING about fixing the health care problems our country has. I was hoping, seriously hoping, he’d share some kind of Republican plan to provide affordable health care. I didn’t get one though.

I guess I could kind of expect that though… but the behavior of those in the audience was appalling to me. If someone was on the Republican side, they could ramble on and speak as long as they want and everyone was quiet and listened. As soon as someone said anything in favor of health care reform, they were immediately booed and told to sit down by the people in the audience. It was very rude.

Now I know this isn’t specific to Republicans… I’m sure it’s happened in the past… but seriously, why does that make it acceptable? Town Hall meetings are supposed to be a chance for citizens to speak directly to their congressman… like it or not, they have a right to share their feelings with them and they deserve to be given respect while they do that. If you truly have the best ideas, answering honest questions shouldn’t be a threat. Booing someone and yelling at them to sit down and shut up doesn’t respect their right to address their congressman… and aside from that, it’s just demeaning and shouldn’t be acceptable.

I was disappointed in the way those people behaved. And if given the chance, I would have said something. I just wish our elected official would have had the courage to say something. His lack of action was a sad example of partisan politics and I lost a lot of respect for him after watching that.

On the Oregon trail

Ok, so I haven’t gotten to the blog in a while. I’ve been busy. We went over to Portland for my bro-in-law’s wedding. He’s been dating his (now wife) for 5 years and we all knew they’d get married but he put it off for a while.

So, here’s our trip in a nutshell. I didn’t include pics from the drive over because… well, I was stuck in the back of my father-in-law’s truck and it was miserable. 12 hours of being trapped in a small space with too many people.

Once we got there though, we had a little free time to do stuff. First up, checking out Mt. Hood. We didn’t have the money to be able to ski up there so I didn’t take my skis which made the trip up to the mountain bittersweet.

That’s Jess and I standing at the bottom of the snow. We’re a little up the path from the Timberline Lodge. The snowfields are over my shoulder and it looked like so much fun to be up there. Next time we go I’m taking skis and getting in some skiing. That much is for sure.

This is looking the other way, back toward the lodge and away from the mountain. It was pretty smokey that day. Plenty of fires burning in the area I guess. It was still pretty though and you could tell that in the winter it’s absolutely gorgeous. The lodge is really cool too with some amazing achitecture inside. Huge, huge beams running all over the place. I really liked it and would love to spend some time there in the winter.

Then we went over to the rehearsal. My mom-in-law bought these aprons for Mattie and Steph so they’d look appropriate for the rehearsal. It was the most detailed rehearsal I’ve ever been a part of. They went through EVERYTHING. Plus, it was about a million degrees. I was sweating. I knew that having to go through all that in a suit was going to be unpleasant at best. But it was fun to watch the whole thing and exciting knowing they were finally going to tie the knot.

This tree was in the middle of the wedding location. I just thought it looked cool.

The rehearsal dinner was at the bride’s parents’ house. They have little dogs. One of them is only a year old and has a problem with piddling around the house. So he got this little diaper put on him. I thought it was so funny I needed to take a picture of it. Funny little thing. He bounced all over the place instead of walking. And yes, it’s a boy with a bow in its hair.

The next day Jess and I had some free time so we went to check out VooDoo doughnut. We’d seen the place on the Travel Chanel or Food Network or something. They make weird donuts like a maple bacon bar. I was after the “Tex-Ass” donut. And I got one.

Now that’s a donut! Tasty too.

So then it was wedding day. Finally!

It was a small wedding but nice. Since I was sitting on the end of the front row, I couldn’t really get pictures of anyone walking down the aisle. I couldn’t see over everyone so all I could see was when they were all standing up front.

I think this is when they were saying their vows to each other. They wrote their own vows and they were very good. I was impressed. Steph cried, of course, though she said she didn’t plan to.

Then it was time to KISS THE BRIDE!

They had a LONG wedding kiss. I probably should have covered my eyes!

But enough of the ceremony… Let’s get some cake!

They did cupcakes instead of a traditional cake. They were really good. I had 2 and split a third with Jess.

As usual though, all good things must come to an end… and soon it was time for Mattie and Steph to leave. So we put them in their car and off they went!

And the next morning we left for home. It was another grueling 12 hour drive to get back home. It was a fun trip, though one I don’t intend to drive again anytime soon. At least not in a dual-cab truck with five people. But it was great fun to see Matt and Steph and I wish them a great marriage… now that it’s finally started.

Catching up

Well, quite a bit has happened since I climbed that last peak. I went on vacation! And I climbed another local peak.

I didn’t get too many pictures from our little trip. We went down to Colorado for a few days. I needed to get away and I hadn’t seen my family in a while so we went and spent some quality time with them. It was a good time. We spent a couple days in the mountains and then got to hang out at home for a couple days as well. And I got to go to lunch with my dad. Something I miss quite a bit.

Anyway, here’s a picture of me at Bubba Gump Shrimp in Breckenridge.

Once we got home from our trip, I had to work for a couple days. Then it was my weekend again and I took off to climb St. Marys peak just above the inlaws house. It’s one of the more popular peaks in the area and has a fire lookout on the top. It’s a pretty cool hike. Not too difficult but not too easy either. Relatively short though so I accomplished it pretty quickly.

This is the view from pretty close to the top. You’re in the trees for most of the hike. So once you pop out of the trees you get into some great views quickly. This one was one of the first ones I stopped to take a shot of. Then it was on to the top!

This is the actual peak. It’s got a post with a bunch of traditional prayer flags. It was pretty nice to see those though I don’t subscribe to the tibetan religions. It’s still something you don’t see every day when you’re out hiking. This is the first peak I’ve been on with them present.

Proof that I was on the peak. Also proof that I normally have sleeves. This was my first hike in a sleeveless shirt which made a big difference in the heat but also displayed my uber-white upper arms. Oh well, I was sunscreened up and escaped without any sunburns. My goal is just to escape skin cancer so if that means being white, I’m cool with that.

Here’s the fire lookout. It’s pretty cool. There’s actually a guy living in it this summer. His whole job is to sit there and watch for fires. Could be boring I guess but what a great way to spend a summer. Sitting on top of the valley and living peacefully. If it wasn’t seasonal, I’d definitely consider it.

I saw this lake on the way down. The trail is about half a mile away from it but I thought it’d be a cool place to camp out if you were willing to make the effort to get there. Since we don’t have any of the gear we’d need to do that, we won’t be doing it anytime soon, but it’d be cool nonetheless.

The trail rolls right through these trees. I just thought it looked pretty cool. You don’t notice it on the way up because it doesn’t look like anything from the other side. On the way down though you get to see the burned out, dead trees hanging over the trail. So I whipped out the camera and got a quick shot before continuing on.

Here’s the last one for this hike. This tree was pretty cool looking. It was big and (obviously) dead. It appears to have been burned in a forest fire at some point. That’s what all the bubbles on it are from. I liked the way the tree looked so I took a picture of it. Now you get to see it!

So that’s about it for now. I don’t know if I’ll get to take another big hike for a few weeks. We’ve got another trip coming up to go to my brother-in-law’s wedding. I’m trying to figure out a way to get over to Mount Hood for a day or two of skiing. That’d make for a cool blog post and will definitely do it if I pull it off.

I’ll try to get a post or two up before then though.

Standing on top

Last week I got Thursday off for the Fourth of July. Since we don’t get holidays really, I usually end up getting a weird day off somewhere around the holiday. But Thursday’s are a great day to have off because it makes it a long weekend and I avoid one of the biggest papers of the week.

This week, I decided I’d climb one of the peaks in the area instead of hiking around one of the canyons. I looked in the ol’ guide book and picked out Little Chief Joe peak. It was a pretty short hike at 2.6 miles each way. The tough part was that it was listed as “strenuous.” I figured, “How strenuous could it be, it’s only 2.6 miles!”

I was wrong. When they say strenuous, they’re not kidding. It took me almost 4 hours to get to the top… but I made it!

Views from the top…

First up is a view of the valley we live in. From way above it.  If you look close you can see small white boxes. Those are buildings. The peak is above a town called Florence which is about 25 minutes north of us.

I don’t know what peak that is across there… but it had plenty of snow and made me wish I had my skis. If it wasn’t a seriously LONG hike in to all that snow I’d consider it. It’d take multiple days though so it’s not going to happen. Can’t wait for winter.

That’s a really rocky peak over there… Looked cool though.

Then there’s Chief Joe peak. That’s the one right behind Little Chief Joe. It’s pretty big and looks like it’d be fun to climb. I’ll have to see how long of a hike it would be to get into it. I bet the view from the top would be killer.

On the way down I got a quick picture of this little guy. He was checking me out wondering what I was doing way up there.

It was a long hike but worth it. It’s been awhile since I’ve climbed a peak and it was pretty rewarding to get to the top. Not quite the same as climbing a 14′er but fun just the same.

On an unrelated note, I found out over the weekend that I’ve now gotten down to a size 32 pant. I’ve also hit the 35 pounds lost mark. I’m getting pretty skinny finally. I haven’t worn a 32 pant since… high school probably. I can’t really remember when I did. It’s pretty crazy. I’m thrilled though. Means all this work I’ve been doing has been paying off.

This weekend we head out to Colorado for a few days. Can’t wait to get there and spend some time  with my family. It’s going to be a great time.

You got to put one foot in front of the other foot…

Another weekend, another hiking trip. Jess got off work a little early so we took off for an afternoon hiking trip to Glen Lake just outside of Victor, MT. The drive up to the trailhead was kind of a long one. It’s 10 miles off the main road. You have to take old logging roads up to it. Along the way we saw a bear! It was a little bear. It jumped out in front of my truck and ran across the road. It was awesome!

The hike itself was pretty fun. It wound through the mountainside through a bunch of old forest fire area. All the trees were burned up and charred. It was a weird look but I found it pretty interesting. Jess hated it. She likes the green. I was fascinated by it. The trail was steep in a few places and we got a good workout on the way in. After a little over 2.7 miles we reached the lake.

I had forgotten to grab the camera on our way out of the house so we had to settle on using the camera on my phone… so the pics aren’t that great… but here they are.

We walked a bit around the lake when we first got there to find a good place to sit down. The place was loaded with pointy rocks. We preferred not to sit on pointy rocks. It was also pretty cold. Since it’s summer, I hadn’t brought anything warm with me so I was feeling a bit of a chill.

Here’s the lovely Mrs. Burson, smiling and resting after a physically demanding hike up to the lake. That’s my hotty right there folks.

And here’s one of the two of us before we headed back down to get out of the cold. Sorry it kind of sucks. The sun was right behind us so everything was getting back lit. You can’t tell it but there’s a really pretty mountain on the other side of the lake. We tried waiting for the sun to go behind a cloud but since the phone sucks as a camera… well, it didn’t work out too well.

We bailed right after the photo was taken because the wind really picked up. I was freezing. On the way back down we got to see a doe. A deer. A female deer.

And now that I’ve gotten an annoying song stuck in your head… I bid you adieu.

Wedded bliss

Since the last post, we’ve managed to surpass the 7 year mark in our marriage. Monday we celebrated the big day by going out to lunch together and taking a picture at the same spot we said our vows 7 years prior. Since we live in the town we got married in it’s become a bit of a tradition, this being the second year we’ve done it.

The place looks pretty much exactly the same. Except when we got married there were more people there.

Last weekend though, we managed to get out for a quick hike before the bad weather rolled in. We took a local trail called the Blodgett Overlook. We did the same hike last year. First one we did last summer. What a difference a year makes. It took us about half the time and was barely a workout. We took pictures in the same spot as last year and it’s interesting to see the change in weight over the last year.

Last year I was pretty chunky, as you can tell from this photo.

This year I’m looking much better. Not the same pose but you can see pretty clearly I’m in better shape and I’ve lost a lot of weight. I prefer this year’s photo.

There were a lot of these flowers along the trail so I figured I should take a picture of them. I didn’t do much to compose the picture, just thought I’d get a quick shot to share on the blog. So there it is. They’re a nice color though and like I said, they were all over. Made for a pretty hike.

This isn’t Blodgett Canyon, it’s Canyon Creek. Along the Blodgett Overlook hike there’s a bench that overlooks this canyon. It shares a wall with Blodgett canyon. I’ve hiked both so far this year. It’s a nice looking canyon. Blodgett is a bit more open so you can see more. This one you hike through the woods for as far as I’ve gone so you don’t get to see a whole lot. I’ve gone about 4 miles in and I don’t know how far you have to go before it opens up a bit. Maybe later this summer I’ll go farther. It’s a hard hike though because the trail isn’t very well maintained.

Anyway, I’m pretty happy to get to the 7 year mark. Though it’s known for the “7-year itch”, most studies say 5 is the new 7. Either way, we’re pretty happy in our marriage so there’s not going to be any need for itching. Since moving to Montana we’ve been able to put a lot more focus on each other. That makes the move one of the best things we’ve ever done. Except maybe get married in the first place! Here’s to another 63 years of marrital bliss! (Jess says we got married for 70 years and then I’ll have the option to get out… I don’t think I’ll even make it to 70 years… I’d be 97… who wants to start dating at 97?)

Trying to catch up

OK, I’ve been away from the blog for a while. Life is just… busy. And stressful. And I keep trying to get back into some kind of routine. I’ve been unsuccessful so far but at least I’m taking care of the blog now.

So a couple weeks ago I managed to get out on a Friday and go for a hike. Jess and I had hiked it the week before on Memorial Day but I had to go to work so we didn’t get very far. I went out and hiked several more miles of the trail cause I wanted to see the waterfall a few miles in.

After a couple miles you get to this point where you cross a bridge and go over the river. Looking back down the valley is this unbelievable view. Absolutely gorgeous. I spent a minute just looking at it. It’s hard to take it all in at once so you kind of have to just pause and appreciate it.

After a little over a mile later, I got to…

I sat down on those rocks in the foreground and ate my sandwich. It was nice and cool thanks to the mist coming off the waterfall. It was really loud though. I didn’t mind because it was so pretty. I spent about 20 minutes hanging out here before heading back down. It took me about 2.5 hours to get here so I didn’t have a ton of time.

Later that day, after getting home, I got started on my weekly chores. Laundry is the big one. Fortunately I had some help this time.

For some reason AJ is absolutely fascinated by the washing machine. Every time I open it up he’s right there trying to crawl in. So this time I let him while I ran and got the camera. He would have stayed in there for hours had I not pulled him out and filled it with dirty clothes. He climbed in there again tonight so I just turned it on and let him get wet.

Two weeks ago we went on another hike. We took Jess’ brother Jeremy along this time. We headed up to Camas Lake which is a couple miles outside of Hamilton. The hike in is about 2 miles and pretty easy. Jess and Jeremy chatted the whole way up while I just enjoyed the woods.

The last quarter mile or so was all packed snow so it was kind of fun. Once we got to the lake we broke out sandwiches and the bags of M&M’s I secretly packed. Then Jess busted out the camera and took a picture of herself.

Pretty huh? The lake is too.

On the way down I stopped to have my own fun. I really miss the snow with it being summer instead of the best time of year. (Ski season) I plopped down in the snow and made myself a snow angel.

I had a good time.

Now I’m busy pondering whether I should run for mayor of our small town. I haven’t decided yet. I’ve gotten approval from my bosses to pursue it if I want to but I’m still not sure. Part of me really wants to. Part of me fears spending the money and not getting elected. After all, I’ve only been here a couple years. It’s a tough decision. Hopefully I’ll get a feeling one way or the other soon. Gotta decide by July 2.

Anyway, that’s what’s going on… Fun stuff.

I’m back

What a month. As I’m sure everyone that reads this blog will know, I haven’t posted in a LONG time. Well, that’s because my world blew up a month ago. Since then I’ve been trying to get things back in order and get back to some semblance of a normal life.

A little over a month ago, my grandmother started going in and out of the hospital for various reasons. She wasn’t in good health and had a leaky heart valve as well as some irrgular heart rhythms. To make a long story short, she passed away at the end of April.

At the same time, my uncle Kenny was in the hospital for another open heart surgery. He coded on the table and a few times after the surgery as well. He and my dad are super close and I was stressing out not just for my uncle but for my dad as well.

After grandma passed away, I threw some stuff in a bag and headed for Arkansas for the funeral. The flight down took almost 24 hours and we got there about an hour before the funeral started. It was a nightmare. We missed our connection in Denver by 5 minutes. The plane was still at the gate but they had “closed the door” so they wouldn’t let us on. We’d had our flight attendent on the first flight ask them to hold the plane for us but they didn’t… at all. Our first flight left 45 minutes late and made up no time in the air. We had to walk literally 15 feet to make the connection.

So after that, the next weekend was my mom’s graduation from college. So we loaded up once again and made the trip. It was so great to see mom finally graduate from college. This is the third time she’s gone BACK to college and this time she finally completed it. I was/am so proud of her for finishing. Now the whole family is college educated. I don’t know why that’s a big deal to me, cause my mom’s always been super smart without a degree, but I’m proud to know we’ve all gotten our degrees.

When I got back from that trip I had a special publication thing at work I had to work on. I spent so many extra hours during the four days I had to work on it that I ended up getting a vacation day back. So now I’m planning my vacations for the summer cause I need some time off work. The week wore me down physically and emotionally. I was exhausted from work and then trying to deal with the passing of my grandmother, the daily possibility of my uncle dying (he’s now got a DNR so it’s pretty real) and how that affects my family as a whole. Tough times.

Last weekend was the first one that was fairly normal. Jess and I went to Missoula and had a nice dinner and spent money on our anniversary presents to each other. Nothing excitinig from a guy’s point of view. We got some new silverware, which we’d been needing and some new plates and stuff. Woo.

Yesterday, Jess had the day off but I had to go to work in the afternoon. We got up and went hiking in the morning though. We took a short hike up Blodgett Canyon. It was a really easy hike and we didn’t go too far thanks to the time limits. Here’s a few photos of our hike though.

So things are slowly getting back to normal. It’s not easy but we’re doing our best. Sorry I haven’t updated the blog in a while but as you can tell, there have been other things a little more important in life that I’ve needed to deal with before getting to the blog.