New avenues

K.J. HASCALL / Hungry Horse News

Somewhere in between huffing and puffing my way up the Park Street hill toward the Montana Tech campus, I realized that Butte is a lot higher in elevation than Columbia Falls and I need to climb higher mountains.

Spent a day this past weekend in Butte with my fiance, where he will be relocating to in August. He's enrolled in the geological engineering program. It's tough to find a job these days even with a bachelor's degree, so why not get another one?

Shawn's program of study sounds rather complicated and more importantly, it seems to require a lot of math. Have I ever mentioned how terrible I am at math? I stopped getting along with the subject about the time I hit fractions. Algebra was OK, but that's only because story problems involve reading. Geometry had me in a complete tizzy. Enjoyed physics though. Probably because of the story problems.

Without the math component on the ACT test, I probably could have gotten accepted to Harvard (OK, maybe not quite). At university, I majored in "not math." Only an inordinate amount of time getting extra tutoring from my teacher allowed me to pass statistics, my one required college math class.

Anyway, while Shawn attended orientation (feeling a little out of place surrounded by students nearly six years his junior), yours truly gave herself a walking tour of uptown Butte.

Shawn and I both love walking around and looking at beautiful old houses. We spent an entire day last year wearing out our shoes on the streets of Charleston, S.C., gawking at homes. So naturally Butte afforded me some time well-spent, ogling at the well-tended facades of a number of historical register houses.

But again, it looks like I need to climb higher mountains. I can't help but wonder what Shawn's wintry excursions to and from campus will be like. Icy and bitterly cold, no doubt. He and I will need to redouble our efforts in Glacier National Park this summer. Having family in the area for three weeks in July and August will surely help. We do enjoy playing tour guides in the Park to our visitors.

And we still hope to make it to Logging Lake without running into that dang unmovable black bear again.

This summer will no doubt march right by.

If it ever stops raining, that is.