It's not the heat

This entry comes to you, once again, from the great western frontier of Montana. Well, perhaps not as much of a frontier as it once was, but stepping out the front door of my in-laws' house reveals a view of such majesty that the pioneers, were they to behold it, would still be in awe. It's mighty pretty out here, and mighty nice overall. The weather has been warm but the humidity is much lower than Minnesota, so things feel much more pleasant overall.

We arrived late on Saturday and have spent the last few days relaxing with the relatives and their little puppy* Maggie. The nice thing about being on vacation is the distinct lack of an agenda, in that when we come up here we are usually not beholden to a schedule or routine, and are free to sleep in, laze about in the day, run errands, eat, watch movies, and stay up, all with relative impunity, though at a slight cost to our own natural sense of biological rhythm. Sunday we went to see one of the coolest (adjectives fail me) movies I have seen in a long time, Wall-E. Sure the animation is peerless, but Pixar's ability to tell a story is second to none. They rely not on cheap scatological humor and pratfalls such as some other movies out there, but instead create characters that are so real and entrancing that they need no cheap crutches to be entertaining. This time, though, with much of the story being told sans dialog...good gravy. These guys are animation wizards, I tell you.

Anyway, platitudes about Pixar aside, it's been a great couple of days. Tomorrow we might take a boat trip down the Madison river, but other than that it's just nice to be out here with relatives.

*she's about 15 years old, but small, so we still call her a puppy. Don't tell her, though...