Back in our motor home home.

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We are back at Victory Ranch, for part two of our project. I want to tell you about the changes here, but first let me describe the trip to Montana.

We took a gambler’s flight from Las Vegas to Billings…now if you live a sheltered life(!) and don’t know what that is, it’s a cheap flight that gets you from one place to Vegas…only. No frills, and the flight attendants don’t waste a lot of their time on niceties, but did I mention that they’re cheap flights? The National Rodeo Finals was going on in Vegas at that time, and our flight was an hour and a half late leaving (they had to do a scheduled check on the plane~~I'm not opposed to aircraft checks, but wouldn’t you think they’d schedule it when they don’t have a flight?) The many cowboys that were flying back to Billings used that extra time to “hydrate” themselves…you know how drying that airplane air can be! They were quite happy when we finally took off. And then beer was only $6.00 a can, and apparently that was too good a deal to turn down, because they certainly worked on staying hydrated during the flight. And they were Happy. Not obnoxious or rude, but Happy. They sang Happy Birthday to the guy in row seven. That lead to Frosty the Snowman, which was followed by Jingle Bells. I feared for Twelve Days of Christmas, but the flight attendant brought around the rolling grocery store again, so the singing quit! (When we got to the Billings airport, there was a bar full of cowboys waiting to fly back to Vegas, and they too were concerned about the hydration problem!) We were flying back on new year’s eve, so you can imagine how excited we were about that flight….turns out the whole planeload was calm, and not in a singing mood!

But we had a wonderful wonderful Christmas, visiting with our girls, family and friends. And we managed to do a little eating too!

We were gone just over three weeks, and during that time it rained here twice; once a slow drizzling rain that soaked in, and once a rain that gushed downhill. And the hills are turning green!! Really!! There is a fine ground cover that is green, and there are plants that are green. If you look back over my entries from November, you’ll find that I didn’t mention the word green very often: and now it is! The fields around the dairy, across the road, are green also. I’ll get a picture of the valley from the highway behind the camp, and you’ll be surprised at the colors. And the trees are leafing out. And new flowers are blooming. All that in only three weeks! WHO KNEW????

We have two new couples coming in today or tomorrow, and then one more couple will be here later. I’ll introduce them later. For right now, I just wanted to let you know we’re home safe. It’s supposed to rain this weekend, and the whole state seems to be hunkering down for it.

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Photos

Green grass?
Yep, green grass! This is right here at Victory Ranch.

The rocks aren't new, but
the green between them is!

I like this picture because it
shows the green grass, and the bare hills, and the snow on the mountains behind us. Quite a long way behind us. No shoveling here!

Look at the bark on these trees.
And they're as white as they look. Interesting, I thought.

See the green?
I was curious how these trees would leaf out after being trimmed like they were! These are at the dairy.

This is the last tree picture.
For today at least!