Mountains! Cats!

Unfortunately, not mountain cats... mountains and cats.  I stayed the weekend with my aunt, who lives in Missoula Montana.  I haven't seen her in years so it was a must.  I felt a little bad that I called her the day before I showed up, but I really couldn't judge ANY arrival times on this trip.  But driving through Montana is so so beautiful.  Such wide open skies, rolling valleys, and snow-capped mountains. 

 

Anyways, I spent the first morning with her cats while she was at work... one very sweet older grey cat with adorable eyes, and one very very strange, big black and white cat.  This black and white one also picks on the older cat while running wild through the house, across me, at 6am.  He will do weird things like jump up to your chest and head butt you or throw his toy weasel up in the air during the night of a full moon. 

Got some much needed photo-sorting done, as well as laundry, and then went to eat at a local sandwich shop.  This place makes "sandwiches" like I have never seen.  They baked the bread into a cup shape (hollow and all) and then stuff it with whatever ingredients you desire from the menu.  It's huge!

Went thrift store shopping and corn puff shopping before returning home to chat and so forth.

 Sunday my aunt took off of work and we went hiking on Rattlesnake Trail.  It follows along a river for a bit and wraps around a rocky area into the woods.  The snow really started to come down and it felt like a nice Christmas- wasn't too too cold and the flakes were nice and fat.  Along the way, we passed some remains of a small hut or shelter of some sort for the locals who would live in the middle of the woods (to work or build or whatever).

After the hike, we had lunch (tried elk for the first time!) and then headed to Philipsburg for candy shopping. The Sweet Palace is a giant candy shop, from jelly beans to taffy to bon bons to fudge to licorice to etc.  It was awesome! 

 

Next door, I bought a bag of dirt from the mountains and we poked through it for gems.  We found about 5cts of good sapphire, and also other chips but they weren't able to be treated.  Across the street, there is an old soda shoppe where I tried huckleberry ice cream.

This little town is cute and nestled right in the mountains.  I guess there is also a ghost town up a ways from there, but the snow was too heavy to make it that day.

Got back with enough daylight to rearrange my car (fuller and fuller) and finish up with these never ending photos!

It was such a nice visit with my aunt- I don't see her too often.  But since most of the parks in the area were closed due to snow (Glacier National Park and Teton), I will of course have to return soon!