Bare Trees, Missoula, Montana

A sunny, tree-lined winter meadow is explicit invitation to run wildly across the open expanse - or as wildly as possible in big winter boots!  From the tracks visible here, quite a few park visitors heeded the irresistable. 

Rising Rocks, Missoula, Montana

Montana offers such varied scenery, even within the same city park.
This is a trail I've mentally listed under the heading "Take sisters here next time they visit."

River Rocks, Missoula, Montana

Makes me think of hide-and-seek. Well, maybe more at peek-a-boo, since I don't like playing hide-and-seek, because I worry about being forgotten, or worse, ditched, while everyone else is found and then goes to get ice cream, and I'm still waiting, in the dark, all alone. Hmmm...I wonder if this is an irrational fear, or did it really happened to me? I mean, it is possible, given that I'm the baby of seven siblings. Back to the games: much preferred is sardines, in which "it" hides and everyone else has to find him - and upon finding, squeezes in with "it". Which leads to much giggling, and more togetherness.

Snow Bug, Hamilton, Montana

Family lore tells the tale of all nine of us - 2 parents, 7 kids - making our twice-weekly jaunt to church in a VW bug. Granted, I was at most a toddler, which put my oldest three siblings between 11 and 14 years old. I’m sure it helped that none of us were above average height for our age. And child car seats weren’t yet invented. Actually, I’m not even sure seatbelts were de riguer features at that point in history; there certainly wasn’t a buckle-up law. But, stacked in as tight as we were, it was pretty unlikely we could shift much in any direction. Odds were higher that any potential injury would come from a secretive outbreak of sibling spite - say, a discreet pinch to the nearest leg, leaving the perpetrator undetected by parental eyes and the victim unwilling to rock the boat over a mere pinch. Obviously, the Rolling Stones were long past such childhood pettiness when they sang of getting no satisfaction.

Window Shopping Chandelier, Missoula, Montana

We had a chandelier in the piano room - probably intended as a dining room - of our childhood home. On a sunny day, I would amuse myself by dragging a chair beneath it, then climb up and carefully turn the pendants to catch the light, throwing rainbows willy-nilly on whatever was in their path. It was important to keep an ear alert for my mum's approach because, if she found me thus, it was obvious to her that I had too little to do, and perhaps I should be dusting the intricate chandelier pieces? Yeesh, always with the dusting. But we survived.
Wishing you a bright and happy 2013, from our house - & inhabitants - to yours.

Ice, Ice, Baby, Missoula, Montana

Thanks to N., whose little eye did espy this sculptural ice floe.
And the same did then bid me follow her alongst a veritable rabbit trail through Greenough Park's winter-bare shrubbery, so as to gain a better perspective.
(Sorry, I just finished Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter". The language lingereth.)

River Crossing, Missoula, Montana

All that's missing is a little seasonal kitsch - perhaps a tour group of penguins crossing the fallen log.