Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Back in Big Sky

We slacked and we know it. When we got to Glacier in mid-October, the weather was cold, windy, and rainy. Needless to say, any pictures we might have taken would have turned out like crap anyway. We spent almost a week just outside of the park visiting with Zach's awesome sister Anna and then headed back to Big Sky. We totaled 26 days on the road, $771 in fuel, and visited four states, two national parks, and lots of state parks. We covered a lot of ground, traversed many different bioregions, and had a wonderful time! We hope that you enjoyed our pictures and will continue to update through the upcoming winter.

Since we've been back in town, we've had a little weather shock ... it snowed four out of seven days in the first week! We experienced some frigid night temperatures (19-20F might be the coldest so far with the worst-try negative 30!-on its way!) and realized that we were seriously unprepared. So on that note, we bought some insulating fabic that is NOT messing around (Warm Window is what it's called) and made curtains for all the uninsulated windows, got some firewood from some of our friends, and busted out the fleece pants. A 40,000 BTU Atwood RV propane furnace was quickly ordered, insulated piping and floor registers quickly bought, and Zach installed the whole shebang in two days. And guess what? IT WAS 50-SOMETHING DREGREES TODAY! We were in T-SHIRTS! Haha. It turned out for the best, though, because we could then open the windows and let the furnace get it's new&funky smells out. So it's "Mud Season" here in our little mountain world ... and we are anxiously awaiting it all to freeze over and SNOW so we can go SKIING!

Here are a few random shots since we've been in town ...


Four inches of snow in the canyon! More on the mountain!


Taking care of business


BD has to wear booties outside when there's powder or mud


Moose!


CENTRAL HEAT! The only way we're going to make it through a MT winter in the bus!


Ducting under the bus ... super insulated piping, ya know?


Sunny afternoon ...


... which means no more clean cars ...


... and DEFINITELY no more clean boots.

Can we go skiiiiiiiiiiiing yet?!?!?!?!

Kelly and Zach

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey there! I have been waiting for you guys to post something FOREVER!! It was so great to spend time with you guys while you were here! You are more than welcome anytime! It is good to see that you guys are well insulated for the winter down there. I saw that Zach was chopping some wood...did he get that splitter thing that Chris told him about? We choped an entire cord of wood the other day in like and hour..with a machine :) thought about him the whole time and giggled! Well keep in touch! Stay well and warm!
Anna

Liz and Aj Nance said...

I love you guys. Your pics are awesome. Glad you are both well. Stay warm. We love you!
Liz and Aj

Anonymous said...

hi kelly and zach. it's bryan the pepsi guy from kfalls again. kelly, your pictures are beautiful! enjoy reading the commentary too! i was thinking, after reading about the snow and cold, that if i had a bus for a home i would spend the winter in FLORIDA! take care, and God bless. bryan

Anonymous said...

I live in a converted bus too, between Jackson, WY and Baja, MX. If the central heater ends up drawing too much battery power, check out a catalytic heater. I have both now and only ever use the catalytic heater. Keep your eyes out for my buddy Nate up at Big Sky, he's one of the patrollers, good dude.