Mountain Time (MT) | Photo Diary

As we drove through the sleepy mountain town, it was hard to believe that any of it was real. The rushing creek. The icy peaks. The lakes, half frozen. I admired the skylines, jagged with mountain range. We appreciated the town’s rockin’ taste in music through their local station – join us in listening to ROCK music here on the ROCK as we ROCK ON.

While our first weekend was packed with driving and adventure, the rest of the week was slower. Working from home, the boundary between life and vacation, work and pleasure, blurred. We took team calls from the balcony, explored creeks on lunch break.

On my end, I lolligagged aggressively – lying on the couch, playing my new Switch game, editing photos. We set up the dinner table to face the balcony, where le beau worked, and where we had a clear view of the mountain: powdery on top, like a Turkish Delight. Every few days, it snowed.

Although I was on a blogging hiatus then, I still jotted down journal entries and took photos, which I’ve compiled below for memory’s sake.

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Journal Entries

Graduation Gown

This morning, we stopped by a local coffee shop, which played Noah and the Whale, an indie folk band I once listened to ad nauseum. They also played The Lumineers, whom I haven’t heard in ages, and I decided we’d be back soon.

We drove over to a scenic overlook, where we dodged tourists and families. The view was, as cliché as it is, breathtaking, although it felt less so with the crowds and narrow path. As I took le beau’s belated grad photos, we witnessed a wedding. Tiny mountain rodents swarmed the teary-eyed couple. A man in green congratulated le beau.

Skipping Rocks 

In the morning, it snowed. Four inches of powdered sugar on the balcony. It looked like Christmas.

By afternoon, it melted.

Quiet day working from home. After work, we skipped rocks at the marina, and ate takeout on an empty beach.

Empty 

We grabbed coffee in the morning, before his work call, at the quirky little cafe down the road. After work, we visited a nearby town, normally a tourist destination. This time, though, it was eerie, empty, off-season. A ghost town.

Panoramic

It snowed again.

During a work lull, we visited the coffeeshop. It’s been growing on me. We go almost every day. It has local artists’ work on display and a beautiful red-wood hutch I want to steal and a barista with rainbow hair.

We took a walk by the creek, this time, crossing the snowy bridge. Once it was too chilly, we returned to the Airbnb. Later, le beau found me sprawled in bed, listening to a Beirut song, scrolling Reddit.

What? I’m on vacation, I said defensively.

In the afternoon, we ordered takeout. Looking for a patch of nature, le beau parked off to the right. There was an opening to a forested area. Curious, I walked over. It opened to an empty, rocky beach, panoramic with mountains.

We took in the view, and then we took photos.

Walk on Main

In the afternoon, we grabbed ice cream in quiet, nondescript shopping center. Families were bowling and residents were loitering and friends were gathering.

We walked up and down Main Street, looking inside store windows. There were boarded up historic homes; log cabin studios; 3-storied antique malls. We bumbled around like the characters in my video game, with our usual inane dialogue.

You know how human beings on Earth talk about colonizing Mars? What if there were beings on Mars talking about colonizing Earth?

Look! A helicopter.

How’d it get up here?

What? What does that even mean?

For a place with lots of wildfires, they sure have a lot of fairy lights.

How do such tall trees survive in such a windy place?

They have each other to lean on.

What kind of high-level jokesterism is that?

Our Last Night

Last night, we sat on the Friheten IKEA couch, eating pizza goldfish and ruminating.

“But what is electricity?”

“I’ve been asking that for the longest time. Like, what is electricity? Really? Not “currents” or “fields.” What is electricity?”

Right now, we’re sitting on the balcony, gazing at the mountains and valley, watching two guys play Frisbee. The orange pizza bowl curves, glides like smooth pie. The downstairs main to our left slices wood on his patio, smell of sawdust drifting 3 stories up. There is a dog lying on his back, riding bicycles in the air.

We went to the marina after work – part II of graduation photos – and then to a quaint, sprawling, walkable Christmas town. It was a cute little “European” resort town. Santa drove the bus.

Hungry, we sailed on back, crawling over 1,000 feet in elevation.

We happened to pass by an empanada shop, where we ordered half a dozen empanadas. We  demolished them on the balcony, only pausing to down locally-brewed beer. I barely had time to catch my breath before realizing, with some regret, that I should have photographed the empanada, dripping in chilé oil and butter and chorizo, a doughy disaster in my hand.

Notes App

pack
cafe, ice
wendy’s spicy nuggets (hot honey???)
khalil gibran
hips and dips
cow piss stop
crooning indie and sandstorms nostalgic for summers
what was i talking about? it’s too late
decimate these suckas

houstonlantavegas
hippies
the fuckin best
singing on the drive home 🥺