Montana

Montana. To me the name conjures up images of horses, Cowboys, and snow covered mountains. I didn't see any Cowboys yet, but I did see a lot of cows, horses, and mountains. The little hills and peaks I've seen in Eastern Montana reminded me of the Appalachians, but with flat spaces in between.

Before I get too far ahead of myself let me explain this trip. At the beginning of this year I set out to finish visiting the 48 connected US states. I took one of those Facebook quizzes and discovered I was only 12 states away from visiting all the states. (Hawaii is going to be my last one, because its so expensive.) I was never really interested in this before, but this Facebook quiz frustrated me with all the states I hadn't seen. My friend Keri also inspired me a lot too, she's been trying to get them all as well, that's where I got the idea to take a selfie at the state sign.  It seems kind of impressive, after all, we are a pretty big country so seeing all fifty states seems pretty cool. 

I landed in Billings and rented a car. Billings looks bumpy. This is the best way I can describe it. Bumpy. All these mounds pretending to be mountains, rolling hills.  I drove to the North Dakota boarder, took a selfie at the sign and drove back to Miles City. This is where I spent my first night. There were a lot of interesting things around me. The landscape, for one, is pretty amazing. There are cows (Yes I've seen cows before) and large rock formations everywhere. The cows wander around the rocks and the rocks look like the ones in old Disney cartoons of the old west. Just piles of odd shaped rock. They are huge and sometimes far off in the distance, the cows, and what appear to occasionally be Buffalo, dot the green and brown countryside. There are fences and grate in the ground at the entrances of the highways, this must be to keep the cows out.

There are dozens of scattered little cities and villages. I drove around one because I was going to stop at the state park and take pictures. It looked like it had a major economic down turn. I walked the streets a little. I didn't feel terribly unsafe, but it was pretty obvious that I did not belong. 

There are dinosaurs and dinosaur museums everywhere. I saw several spots to stop and visit small gift shop type museums. Prairie museums pop up every couple of exits. 

Miles City was loaded with Casinos. There were two on every block and the City Brew Coffee place seemed like an obvious knock off of a Starbucks. This particular coffee house is in many places in Montana. I had a white chocolate mocha and it was very tasty. 

The light shining off the top of the rocks and the large, long stretches of highway gives great viewing of  weather miles away. It was astounding. I drove through a wall of rain, it was incredible knowing it was coming, seeing it ahead of me and driving through to the other side, almost like a tunnel. Billings is loaded with stuff to see, I did not have time to see much, but I did get to visit Pictograph Caves and stop and see some historical points (there are many out here). I stopped in Bozeman to have lunch one day and it was a lovely little city. There are so many lovely little places. 

Alpaca Shaving Day! A visit to Via Verde Farm

I love Alpacas. In a nutshell, Alpacas are like Llamas, Llamas are a lot like Camels, but they are from South America. Peruvians have used them as beasts of burden in the Andes Mountains for a very long time.  I'm not a complete stranger to Alpacas as there was an alpaca farm my family would drive by occasionally when I was a child. After I graduated high school some of my friends and I stopped by to ask the farmer if we could feed them. It was delightful. They pranced around, they had little babies, they were friendly, occasionally spitting and making strange noises. When I got to go to Peru I was lucky enough to book a visit to an Alpaca farm and I learned a lot about them that day. So, needless to say, I love these furry, bouncy, little weirdos.




Fast forward to yesterday. One of my very cool Facebook friends, Natasha, sent me an invite to "Alpaca Spa Day". If you are like me you get tons of Facebook invites to events and rarely notice. This one caught my eye. I immediately checked my schedule and clicked "Going".  Someone on the thread asked if kids were welcome, the reply was "yes", so of course I knew this meant I could bring Randy. He was curious about what this would be like and what we could possibly do at an alpaca farm. When we arrived they had already started. There were these tiny little shrieking noises coming from the barn. Some of the Alpacas were already out in the yard, bouncing around, freshly sheared.

Restrained to protect people and themselves

When we entered they were tied down to the floor and the scene looked pretty graphic. It is completely necessary. They were tied by their feet. Alpacas are very long and skinny when tied up like that, it is for every one's protection. It would be impossible to shear them without doing this and because they are domesticated they really need to be sheared, it gets really hot. While the Alpaca is tied up they check their teeth and trim their nails. So technically it is "Spa Day".

The Alpacas weighed a lot, they can be 150-300 pounds. Some of them were able to be walked out with a harness, some of them were small enough to be carried out. I asked about the babies,  the breeding. They are only bred once a year because the gestation period is about 11 months. They look a lot bigger than they are with all that fur.

The shearing process 

The shearing team was amazing. They worked so quickly and efficiently.  It took about 3 minutes for each of them to get their nails done and be sheared.  The fur is beautiful when it comes off them. It is sent away and made into yarn. Alpaca yarn is so soft.

The farm was amazing. The people who run the farm are so great. This is a family owned farm. Tamara Miller, runs this farm with her family and she was very informative throughout the entire process. She answered our questions and was extremely hospitable. It's amazing to me she opens up her farm every year to let people see this exciting process.   From now on, I will always check my Facebook invites carefully, because this was a great experience I could have easily missed.


This is where we went:

http://www.viaverdefarm.com/

The bags of fiber

After they were shaved

Parasailing

We recently visited the Bahamas. It was nice. Warm. Lots of sun. I was actually horribly sun burnt and I'm still itchy from it. (Pro-tip: Wear lots sunscreen if you are down there) Anyway, one of the excursions on our cruise was Parasailing. I had never been Parasailing and I kind of always wanted to do it, and Randy had done it before so he was on board.

When our ship stopped at Coco Cay we met up with the men running the Parasail. The were nice, but they didn't talk much. They started suiting up the first people as soon as the boat was moving. We had already filled out our waiver, but we were given little to no instruction, but how hard could it be, right? We were going to sail in the air at about four hundred feet being dragged by a boat. No problem, right?

The boat was moving and we went up two by two. The first couple sat on the head of the boat with the wind blowing into the parachute behind them. They had on life vests (for flotation if they fell into the sea) and harnesses attached to a bar. The boat sped up and they slowly lifted from the boat. It looked like fun.


Randy and I finally went after three other people went up and down safely. It was moving very quickly despite the lack of information being given to us. We were attached to the bar and before I knew it, the wind was lifting us off the boat and into the air. It was an interesting feeling dangling in the air that high and being able to see the reefs and clear blue water below.

The entire flight lasted about 5 minutes. It was a little boring at times, because you are literally just hanging there. I wanted to cut us loose and float off, but that probably would have been a bad idea.

We made a video. It was an excursion during our trip on the Royal Caribbean cruise and I highly recommend it for anyone, the lack of instruction isn't that big of a deal. Really it's just up and down, you stand when you land, don't try to do any flips or tricks while you are up there, and enjoy the ride.

Ice Magic: Ice sculpting in Lake Lousie

The reason we went to Alberta Canada is Randy was chosen as a judge in an ice sculpting contest in Canada. The contest consisted of 10 competitors from all over the world. There were competitors from Thailand, Russia, Canada, USA, Netherlands, Philippines, and New Zealand.  The diversity of the competitors was pretty awesome.

To be chosen for the competition the sculptors must submit a drawing of what they wish to create then a committee picks ten of them. Each of them is a team of two and they have 34 hours to create their piece. They go from 8am to 10pm for two days, then 8am to 2pm the last day.





The sculptors were all given a location based on a drawing the first night. Each location has exactly the same amounts of ice blocks, scaffolding, and tables. The water they use, as a way of fusing the pieces they cut, is taken from the lake.

These are long cold days. The temperature went between 18-30 degrees Fahrenheit.  In the middle of these three days there is additional judging event, the contestants get one block of ice and one hour to construct them into what ever they choose. Only one from the team can participate in this and there is also a people's choice award.

The weather is pretty good here though, there has been new snow just about everyday. It really does look like a snow globe, it's picturesque. 

The competitors all have a picture of the ice they intend to make outside of their ice area. So as the days go by people viewing can see what the ice is intended to look like. 

The winners of the competition:

First Place: Chris Foltz and Victor Dagan (USA and Philippines) 

Second Place: Chan Kitburi and Kla Kitburi (Thailand and USA)

Third Place tie: Dean Murray and Michael Stoddart  (USA)

Third Place Tie: (Siberia)

This is where we were:

http://www.banfflakelouise.com/Area-Events/Festivals/Winter/SnowDays/Ice-Magic-Festival

One block, one hour.... Ice competition

During our time at the ice sculpting competition in Lake Louise there was one hour set aside for brief competition within the competition during the second day. Basically, the sculptors are given one block of ice and one hour in which they can make anything they want. One person from the two person team attends. It was a fascinating display to watch. I'm pretty lucky because I see people carve ice all the time, but I've never seen it done on a competitive level. The new "twist" this year was that they judges did not know who made the ice sculptures. They did blind judging on them.  So all ten contestants had an area designated for them and they began sculpting for one hour. I stayed outside to watch and even made a video. Randy and the two other judges were sequestered inside at the bar. Upon completion of the sculptures, they came out and inspected them. All of the competitors went inside to wait. (I went inside too because it was so very very cold outside, I really don't know how the sculptors can stand being in the cold that long.)

This competition was held at Lake Louise Inn, which was very close to the Fairmount where the 3 day competition was being held. 

It never ceases to amaze me how tall an ice sculptor can make a block of ice. Of course ice is always melting and getting smaller, but it's almost like magic how they make it grow. Also, the artistry involved blows my mind, I can barely color in the lines, much less create a spectacular work of art.  They cut the pieces and fuse them together making one block of ice appear like many blocks of ice. 

Basically, I'm just going to post pictures in this particular blog and you can see for yourself the amazing things people can make out of ice and given they only had an hour, it's pretty incredible. 

 The finished pieces are below.

This was the winner and it also won the people's choice award

This came in 2nd

This was 3rd 

This one was one of my favorites, basically a close 4th.

Lake Louise: The Fairmount Chateau

Once again Randy has taken me to an interesting event. My husband was picked to judge a major ice sculpting competition in Lake Louise, Alberta, Canada. Let me begin by saying I love Canada. I love the flag, the national anthem, maple syrup, hockey, the one and two dollar coins, and of course the Tim Horton's. There are a lot of things to love about our neighbors to the north but the temperature is not one of them.  They obviously can't help their climate, however it does create an opportunity for fantastic winter sports, which in my opinion are the best kind of sports.

Lake Louise is nestled in the Canadian Rockies. It has powerful views of the mountains and the lake is basically all glacial run off. I hear in the summer it is a beautiful aqua blue color, but while we were here it was obviously frozen and becoming a polar bear's dream. There was ice skating, cross country skiing, snow shoeing, horse drawn sleighs, dog sled tours, and at the end of a 2 km on a path there is a frozen waterfall. I don't know how a place gets much better for winter excitement, that is until you see the inside of the hotel Fairmount.

The Fairmount, has an amazing spa, great food, friendly people, and lots of lovely indoor views of the mountains if you don't want to venture out into it. It is a very relaxing place.  The  spa offers a great deal of services, manicures, pedicures, facials, hydrotherapy, aqua jets, and massage. There is also high tea everyday from noon to four. The menu looked extraordinary, including a "flight of strawberries" but sadly I did not get to experience this.  If you would like to go outside, but are not a huge fan of sports or exercise they also have a sleigh drawn by horses to take you around the lake.

The Chateau is in the midst of Canada's first national park, Banff, this is why it's an ideal location for housing all of the outdoor winter activities. Everyday there was fresh powder. When the sun peaks out the glacier becomes visible on the mountain.

When booking your vacation line your activities up in advance, especially the dog sled. It was completely booked up. The sleigh ride occurs at various times throughout the day, it goes around part of the lake. The ice skating has a really cool ice castle built in the middle of it. 

You can rent skis, ice skates, snow shoes, from the hotel, but it's always good if you can pack your own. The 2km walk included an amazing frozen waterfall, it was massive. There were several off path trails to take that scaled the side of the mountain. Using snow shoes you can go pretty far out into the park. There are bears though, they mostly sleep in the winter, but bear bells are a good idea. 

The finished ice sculptures stay up for about two months every year. So, if you vist the Fairmount the ice will still be viewable for a while. 

This is where we went: 

http://www.fairmont.com/lake-louise/ 

http://www.banfflakelouise.com/Area-Events/Festivals/Winter/SnowDays/Ice-Magic-Festival