Vacations and Catching Up

I've been more or less on vacation the last 2-3 weeks while my parents were here visiting. I say more or less because I worked while they were here (more on that later) and they left for a few days to go visit my sister in another town....and with them went my car. So I worked while they were gone those few days too.

But more or less they were here and we did fun vacationy stuff.

There was swimming for the dogs...yup, after 3 years of convincing her that monsters from the deep were not going to come and grab her, Holly finally swims.

It was hot and my parents are water people, so we visited lots of lakes and rivers...

  

There was also huckleberry picking...I LOVE it when my family visits when the hucks are ripe. It means that we all go picking and then I get to keep all that was picked. I have over 2 gallons in the freezer now, and I didn't have to do all the picking myself!

We also visited some of their favorite places, like this old growth western cedar forest...they are so old and so large that they rival California's redwoods.

And lastly, because no vacation at my house is complete without a bear (seriously, ask my mom!), here is a picture of my parents with a grizzly bear that, for research purposes, I handled while they were here. They were lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time to come down and see the bear.

Please note that when this picture was taken this bear was humanely and safely sedated. The bear was sedated in order to place a tracking collar on it and to collect physiological data necessary for research. This picture was taken after all monitoring devices and oxygen were removed, and just prior to placing the bear back inside a culvert trap to safely wake up. The green bandage on his forearm is covering an IV line that is giving the bear fluids while he's sedated.

You can find out more about this bear and this grizzly bear population program at the Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks Facebook page.