On Mountains and the Inevitable Climb

So in the past weeks I have been up to just about nothing.  This means I’ve had time to reflect, and nothing says “reflection time” better than hiking up Mt. Sentinel to see the sunrise.  Especially on a Saturday.  Let’s be honest thought, would you say no if your friend asked you and it was her birthday?  Actually, you probably would, seeing as you are smarter than me.

On this hike there was a lot of huffing and puffing and quiet moans of the tired and out of shape.  Namely coming from me seeing as I decided the first half was a race.  It’s not a race, don’t let anyone ever talk you into that.  If they think it’s a race they’ve already lost.

Hiking up Mt. Sentinel seemed like a possible task.  We’d already hiked the backside of the mountain and that was 6 miles straight up, so 2 miles seemed more doable.  Well, at 6 a.m when its about 35 degrees outside and it’s pitch black, you might think differently.  Just three of us were crazy enough to get up at 5:30 to attempt this feat, but I’ve never seen the sunrise over the mountains so it seemed necessary.

Our first ascent was to get up to the M, after that, we knew it would be more of an adventure.  We made it to the M in record time, about a 1/2 hour.  The city was dark, but not just “before dawn dark”.  It was still night, and if you ever get a chance to see the light of a city from from other than a plane, you should do it.  I’ve never felt so small, so insignificant.  The lights twinkled and I thought of how it must of looked hundreds of years ago, when the first settlers came to the valley, and the Indians looked down and saw the twinkling lights.  Inhabiting the land their bison, deer, elk roamed on. We are an invasive species

We continued up, but stopped only five minutes in.  As we wound around the side of the mountain, we could see the river winding itself into the next valley.  The clouds were pink as they were sprinkled with the mornings rising sun.  A slew of pictures were taken and the usage of others heads as tripods became a necessity.  As we moved on up the incline I turned around to see the moon.  Glowing, as if a proud parent.  We never seem to celebrate the moonrise, just the sunrise.  The moon just appears.  It has never dawned on me that a moon could “rise”.  A couple of nights ago I saw half of the moon looking out over the mountains, three seconds later I look again (why we feel the need to make sure life still works I don’t know) and the moon was fully visible, lighting the trees on top into silhouettes.  The moon rises so quietly, without a disco ball of colors and we never stop to watch, but each and every day it goes about its business with the waxing and the waning, never once with complaint.

My attention is drawn back to climbing, at times on our hands and knees up the incline as the sunlight slowly starts to creep into our vision push the moonlight out and replace it with a glowing pathway.  I turn around again to see all of Missoula still in darkness, not yet enlightened and I feel as if I should run down and share my secret with all of them.  Yet that would waken the sleepy city filled with hunting equipment and I decided my energy is better focused on the ever increasing incline.

Left foot forward, right foot forward.  The Rocky Theme goes on in my head. Or is it outside?  I whirl around to defend my craziness only to find my friend has begun to play the song on her phone.  My climb has been set to music, I feel my life is complete.  Not yet though, we still have a 45 minute climb to the peak and I’m pretty sure my legs have decided to become bricks.  With our heads down and music silenced the birds start to sing.  I’m reminded of my advisor and how he studies birds songs, and a math teacher who liked to watch birds, and how both of them told me that bears would eat me.  I realized I meet the weirdest people.  Let’s face it, I chose a major and a sport with just the most diverse group of human beings.  Each who don’t really like to interact on a normal basis.  Just sayin’.

So, with that in mind, the sun rose between the mountains in the distance and as we reached out destination we crumbled to the ground as the sun reached it’s rays across the valley.  The sky went from black to blue, the clouds turned orange, then pink, then red.  I closed my eyes for a couple of seconds, and when I opened them I looked out into the valley, a valley who wouldn’t feel the suns warmth for a couple of hours yet.  The mountains liked to steal as much of the sun as they can.  The mountains on the other side of the valley captured most of it.  The moon was still high in the sky, but fading; it’s light not bright enough to overpower the sun’s colossal light show.  So the moon fades into the background, becoming a part of the hidden sky.  

We had the mountain to ourselves for a few minutes.  We could claim a spot where no one else was, and say no one else had seen what we had seen that morning.  The university was still in the shadows, but a quick glance at a watch told us our time up on the mountain was no longer ours.  As we made our way down, it quickly became apparent that going down was harder.  The world sucks, gravity made it that way.  So gravity decided to play games with us.  Rocks flew out from under our feet, it tripped us up as we shimmied down the incline.

Our descent was nothing less than an adventure.  While on the way up you are focused on what is ahead and care not of what is behind; on your way down you continue to think of what you left behind, then realize that the path gets steeper on your way down.  I fell no less than 4 times on the way down.  Each time it took more effort to get up as my legs flew out beneath me.  The third fall was a result of me proving I could fly only to fall on the gravel.  Falling hurts, it’s when you get back up and try the same stupid trick over again that it gets less painful.

The way down I took more and more pictures, but I kept looking up at the moon.  It wanted to stay with us, but knew it had to move over for the sun.  I took pictures of the moon with the university underneath, and I felt protected knowing that it was watching over us as we crept down the side of the mountain.  We rounded that corner towards the M and the sun disappeared, but the light had made into the valley now, and touched the houses as the twinkling lights disappeared.  The marching band made it out onto the field and practiced as we climbed down the M.  The university waking up and getting ready for homecoming.  I doubt anyone was aware of what us three walking back to our dorms had seen that morning.  Would they care? It was just another sunrise.  There will be another one tomorrow.  All I know is I want to see it again.  I want to see the Moon at its’ highest point of glory and the Sun’s light show and listen to the birds celebrate.

On Ninjas and Quidditch

If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em

I hate that line.  It’s almost like giving up.  However, after spending a week and two days in a dorm I REALLY wanted to get back at everyone for being so loud.  Even when campus is a ghost town on Labor Day weekend night time was, and will never be, quiet.   I feel like my dorm is loudest, with our window overlooking the backdoor entrance and right next to the stairs I here everything.  The loud, obnoxious, wasted college students exist solely for the purpose of keeping me up (yes, I’m that special) ‘till midnight and then, just as I’ve drifted off, they come again in packs at 2:30, 3:00, and the last at 4:55 a.m.  Brilliant college tuition scholarships paying off.  Now, I really don’t give a rat’s behind what they do, so long as they don’t bring it back loud and smelly into my hall, which of course they do oh so willingly.  Again, brilliant.

The idea came during movie night two days ago.  We were watching Galaxy Quest (classic by the way) and I remembered playing spies/ninjas in the halls of my high school.  I didn’t remember all the odd looks or giggles from the underage beach blonde teens (which I’m sure were plentiful); I remembered Mission Impossible blasting on the speakers and spy mode commenced.

It needed to be done.

So, Ninja Night was born.  We wore black and some of us had hoods.  The night began with jumping on benches and scaling the walls and fences of dorms.  The chase was on.  Operation Alligator Matrix was in full swing.  Somersaulting across the quad and doing the worm under windows, spy jumping when window shades were open, crawling on our bellies when shut (not productive I know but we weren’t trained to be skilled).  We had our first injury at the lighted stairs, a gracefull leap turned into a plummet onto concrete and Agent Ninja E was found sprawled, laughing, oblivious to the pain.  Good Goin.

The thunder and rain came after we escaped the Ambush.  Us ninjas moved swiftly from the cover of Pine and Grass to open oval.  We saw others coming across, the need for cartwheels arose and off we went across the newly slick, black grass of the oval.  Full speed ahead across the oval were unknown assailants headed our direction.  A few of us split off to investigate and we were separated!  Creating a diversion, one division headed off toward the giant clock and the other half lay in the grass, taking a well deserved ninja nap...in the rain.

Ninja team 1 did not return after chased by male assailants around University Hall so Ninja team 2 ran after their nap to rescue them, but the missing were nowhere to be found.  A few assailants were suspiciously lit on the pavement, so the Ninjas, under cover of disguise, began the approach.

Our assailants turned out to be Quidditch players. YES!

They wanted to know where Dumbledore was and what we were doing on their field.  Our young naive ninjas replied with the truth “NINJAS!!” they wanted to join in after learning the rules, but we ninjas stay tight and do not allow friend, foe, nor wizard to intervene.  They directed us to our team of ninjas and we were united again.  The Quidditch players blew their vuvuzela as we went off cartwheeling and somersaulting once more, yelling out “GRYFINNDOR!!!!” whenever the vuvuzela was blown across the oval.

Beat that.

On Wizards and Zoos

It has now been officially 1 week and 1 day since my arrival upon the wonderful Big Sky state of Montana.  My mom left Saturday afternoon, which of course led me to explore with new found friends.  My explorations took me to the Missoula River City Roots Festival which is a folk music festival held in downtown Missoula.  After learning how to dance to folk music and meeting people who, let's just say had a little too much fun,  I made it home at 1:00 am.  I also happened to walk home alone at that time, I felt a little stupid doing it but it was literally right around the corner.  At this point I would like to mention I have gone to bed by 10:30 every night since then.  I like to think I'm still on Madison time and I am up an hour later. Ha.

First day of classes went by without a hitch.  My Philosophy and Film class is very interesting and my professor reminds me of a certain english teacher I had four years ago.  The poor professor has to live up to those standards.  Then we move on to Math; I have very little hope for any professors to entertain me as well as my high school teachers.  Channeling their mindset helped somewhat, but we still only learned what the rate of change was and I nearly spontaneously combusted.  At least, I think it's still spontaneous if you nearly do something, probably not though.  He kept hinting to things we will learn "later, or maybe not even get to" and I kept wanting to raise my hand and say "I KNOW I KNOW".  That however would not have been appreciated; x and y were still a mystery to some.

The best class I have is with a certain professor named Garon Smith who lectures Chemistry.  Our first introduction was through email, where he asked us to take part in a survey about our chemistry experience.  He signed the email "G.Wiz".  Our first class was Tuesday and as we walked into our lecture hall of 300 students there was wizard, robes, hat, beard and all standing down at the center stage of the hall.  On the screen above him there was an image of the Harry Potter quidditch field and the title "Potions 101".  At exactly 4:10 the lights went down and with his face illuminated by the computer screen in front of him, the microphones picking up his booming voice, he announced "I am G.Wiz and you are now enrolled in Potions 101."  It is needless to say half were laughing and the other half were whispering to their neighbor about what a nutjob he was.  I was proudly laughing so hard I cried.  Professor Smith, or "G.Wiz", puts on chemistry shows for the local schools and dresses up as a wizard at every start to the semester.  It's been a blast.  Who knew chemistry could provide a Harry Potter fix?

Our most famous feature here at UM, besides the hike to the "M", is the Food Zoo.  An all you can eat buffet of food for around $4; the Food Zoo is a campus hot spot.  Now, we do have a University Center with burritos (though there is no chipotle here in missoula, that is another rant for another time however) and pizza hut, but the Food Zoo is what our meal plan is based off of.  There are four main lines, the first being the vegetarian line, the second the "meat" line where there are sandwiches and burgers, and the last two are salad and fruit buffets.  I hate lines, especially waiting for food, so since there is hardly ever a line at the vegetarian section I make a bee line right for it and usually there is some tasty thing along with some interesting concoction of beans and veggies in a broth of, well, not meat.  It makes it very easy to avoid fattening foods when the only time you have a free moment for lunch is during prime eating hours of the day when the lines go out of the food zoo and into the chilly air.

I miss my chipotle :(

Speaking of chilly, I have a little side note as to the weather.  It is bipolar, and not in a "haha that's funny" way.  A week ago we almost reached 100 degrees, and yesterday I don't think it got above 60.  "What is up Montana?" I ask.  Every morning these past four days I looked at the online weather and it would say "rainy, cold, 50 degrees.....in two days sunshine and warmth".  Well, it took three days for it to actually rain here (it's mostly desert), and four for the sun to come out.  I'm still not sure it's above 65 or that the sun will stay unmasked by clouds and mist.  It's made some pretty cool views of the mountains though.  The weather is different of each side and from my window it could be sunny over the the pass and cloudy and dark right above me.  We even got a double rainbow right by the oval last night.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQSNhk5ICTI 

sorry, couldn't help myself ;)

So, hopefully the next blog will be more entertaining, this one was written right before class

tut tut looks like rain!

On Stuffed Animals and Geography

Being the ever increasing optimist that I am (can you increase your optimism exponentially? infinitively?) I write these blogs from a Midwesterners' point of view.  I was raised by east coast parents in a very nice town just outside of Madison Wisconsin, so bear (that will be funnier soon) with my rather narrow perspective on life in the West.  Plane trips are boring, lets admit it.  There's all this hype going in and then you get there and you're like, "oh,  plane goes up, plane goes down, and there's turbulence in between".  Whooo!  So, fast forward from our way-to-early departure from Madison, on through our 45 min stop in Minneapolis and voila, we have arrived in Missoula Montana to the lovely Missoula Airport.  It has an official title, I don't know it.  Missoula is home to the University of Montana which has an amazing Wildlife Biology program, which I will be majoring in along with hopefully either Journalism or English. Anywho, there are four gates, and stairs going down to the main lobby of the airport...where the elevator escaped to is still an ongoing question for me.  Down those stairs we were immediately greeted by a welcoming party, who strangely wasn't for us.  We should have ordered one, I'm putting that on my to-do list.  Coming out of the stairwell we were greeted by none other than a 10ft high stuffed grizzly, encased on all four sides by a glass box.  Now, I have seen Night at The Museum, so the glass does not comfort me any.  Moving down the hall past grizzly A we come upon baggage claim, above baggage claim would of course be stuffed grizzly B, an elk staring at his new visitors (us) and in true Montana fashion, a cougar biting the jugular of a mountain goat, sheep, thing (my wildlife bio classes have not begun).  None of these are cased in mind you; if Ben Stiller had been there I might have run screaming from the building.  Well, if I saw Ben Stiller anywhere I might run away, but that's another story for another time.

Now, having made it to the hotel without getting lost, I was given a wonderful tour of the town and surrounding trails by some old neighbors.  He grew up here and is the son of the Sheriff, he's my new best friend.  On our way back into the hotel we began to talk about Starbucks.  It was inevitable, my addiction to coffee and the access to a Starbucks is not very simple.  We met a group of ladies in the elevator who were explaining how out on the east coast, there are no Starbucks.  Now, I was born on the east coast and have spent many a summer months there, and there are more Starbucks than I can count.  Well, after further probing of where this lack of Starbucks was in order to black it out on my U.S. map it was revealed that it was in Cleveland Ohio....on the east coast.  Yes ladies and gentlemen, Ohio is now the east coast.  I didn't know whether to laugh or ask them if they saw the ocean and if it was as big as they thought.  Luckily they had to get off the elevator before we could crack up, and crack up we did.

Montana has been very welcoming, I'm proud to say I am a part of this community now.  I will have more to come next week (and maybe sooner!) about the first week of classes, a football game, and a new roommate after mine decided not to attend college. OH! and doing laundry, which I hear is free, a word I intend to be on the lookout for in the next four years.
Have a wonderful week and enjoy the last of the warm summer days!