I had originally planned to spend only one night in Kalispell.  The movers were scheduled to deliver my furniture and things early on Friday, so I needed to get to Seattle on Thursday night.  BUT THEN a vast right-wing conspiracy forced the movers to change the delivery date to next Tuesday, leaving me with no real incentive to get to Seattle until the last possible minute on Friday (I still needed to pick up the keys before the leasing office closed).

The upshot is that I got to spend a full second day in Kalispell.  Talk about a silver lining!

The weather was even better than the day before — about 70 degrees, perfectly sunny and clear.  None of us was interested in staying inside, so Ashley offered to show me around town.  We saw “downtown” Kalispell, a buffalo and elk ranch . . .

. . . and lots of real estate.  Ashley and Ammon have been  looking to buy a place for a while now, so pretty much everywhere we went we passed a house they had looked at.  Eventually we came to a 5 acre plot of undeveloped land that had a “for sale” sign.  Because none of the existing houses they had visited had matched their needs and/or budget, Ashley and Ammon had decided to buy this plot of land and build a house to their own specifications.  It was a pretty and secluded spot, way out of town, and it seemed like a great place to be an adventurous kid.  So many sticks and rocks and places to explore!

By the time we had climbed on the plot’s biggest boulder and selected which stick each person would be allowed to bring home in the back of the truck, everyone was ready for lunch.  The plan all along had been to have a picnic outside, but then we passed Five Guys and suddenly had a dilemma on our hands:  do we have a picnic, or do we eat hamburgers at Five Guys?  This one stumped Teya for a minute, but fortunately this is a world when “or” can sometimes be “and” — we ordered our burgers and fries to go and then found a nearby baseball field that was perfect for our impromptu picnic.