I just got back from a trip to Montana.
I don't think I have ever been anywhere this remote in my life.
They call Montana 'Big Sky Country' and that is one of the things I noticed first when I stepped of that plane in Billings. The only other time I have been so amazed by how vast and blue the sky can be was in Texas a few years ago but I forgot about all about that when I stepped of a tiny plane.
We had been planning that trip for the better part of three year. At some point it had involved going to watch the 4th of July parades and see some real-life cowboys. Over the years the ideas changed and at some point January was suggested. I think that was the best idea any one could have had.
We got to see Yellowstone National Park in the winter. Rather than being stuck amidst hoards of other tourists we drove through a deserted park.
We saw bison and elk, Annie even saw some wolves taking a nap after having eaten who-knows-what (we met this group of people who were tracking the wolves in the park).
We got to see way more dinosaur skeletons than I had ever seen in one place,
we went ice-skating behind the Mamoth Hot Springs Hotel which reminded everybody else in our group of The Shining (since I am too much of a chicken to even watch that movie I was less creeped out by the hallways at night); I couldn't help but think of the place the original Dirty Dancing was set at.
We got to sit in a hot spring pool at night and stare at more stars than I had ever seen before.
And then there was the hubbard squash.
Don't judge the outfit or the mess...this is what cooking with Ashley and Katharina has always looked like :)
Since the squash 'obviously' had to go because it was going to go off (in like a month or so), we decided to try and cook as many things involving squash as possible. We got quite creative.
Think squash, potato, and chicken stew, squash quick-bread, squash pancakes, and squash studded meatballs. You'll hear more about those when I get around to writing them up (i.e. when I stop listening to country music on youtube)
I don't think I have had that much fun cooking since I moved out of the apartment I was living in back in St Andrews. Fittingly, the lovely girls I got to cook with were both fellow St Andrews alumnae and more importantly, one of them was my room-mate from that apartment back in St Andrews.
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