Canoe Trip 
We went for a 4.7 mile canoe paddle in Ashley Lake today. The lake was gorgeous and the day was perfect. There were lots of birds all over. We saw a number of baby ducks and we got out at one spot and walked around a little. There were songbirds all over, but it was just slightly too dark to get any good photos and they were all moving around so fast. :) There was also an eagle we kept running into. We spotted it while we were paddling, then I all of a sudden noticed it sitting in a snag above us (photo below) and when we got out to walk around apparently we weren't that far from the eagle's nest. Which I spotted once between trees just because the eagle landed there, but I couldn't find it again without going closer, which we weren't going to do. The eagle seemed to be watching us. It flew to a few different trees around us and awhile after left it flew over top of us, circled back and flew right over us again, relatively close (by this time we weren't far from the landing and no where even near the nest).
Oh, there was also a loon family that we saw. I saw the one first and got a bunch of pics (look on DA for that one) and then I noticed the other one farther away and it looked like it probably had chicks with it, so we left them alone.
All-in-all, a fun canoe trip.

-Miranda


I believe this is a Golden Eye and its chicks. (click on it for a larger image)

The canoe and our stuff before we got back in after our walk.

The eagle sitting in the snag, and we were that close before I even spotted it.

The eagle's second pass, apparently checking us out.

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Horse Isle! 
So, as most know by now, Horse Isle has been live for almost 2 months now. Woohoo. We just added a second server to accommodate the players. I don't remember if I put this pic up or not before it we lost our entries. Some of the beta testers did this in one of the drawing rooms on the game the very first day when we went live and I thought it was very cute.

-Miranda



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Biking 
Well, we've been doing some biking around town. We basically never take the car and we bike everywhere. We bike to the grocery store for groceries (yes, bringing a gallon of milk home can be interesting), to the car store (joe's been working on the RV) and bunches of other places. We've gone on a few random bike rides, just for exercise. Just like today. Went on a 10 mile ride today. A hot, hard 10 miles.. Well, on the way back was a lot of downhill, which helped, but that sun was a bit toasty today. :)
Don't know when we're heading out yet...

-Miranda

Oh, and I have photos on Deviant Art on Joe's account. :) You should check them out. The link is jdurbin.deviantart.com

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Kalispell 
Well, we make it to Kalispell after some fun events on the road... Sara had just had her oil changed in her car but her car has been burning through oil for some reason. So, we were driving and after about 50 miles the oil light comes on. This is at about 4:30am in the pouring rain.. of course. So, they look at the dipstick as best they could using the headlight and it looks like it's low, so they put a quart in. Well, after 20 more miles, the oil light comes on again. So we get to the next exit and look at it, and the oil looks actually too full... Anyway, it turned out that it probably wasn't low the first time, but they couldn't really tell in the dark/rain. We just dealt with seeing the oil light flash, flicker or stay on steady for most of the trip. Sara and I did a little shopping yesterday so she took her car in to the Honda dealer and it turned out that the sender that tells the light to go on, was bad. She had just had that replaced in April, so they replaced it for free. Yay.
Well, now Joe and I are in Kalispell, back at Pat and Nancy's and we'll see what we do from here. :)

-Miranda

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On the Road Again 
So, we left 8am Tuesday morning for the Twin Cities and had an 8 hour lay over down there. Then, we got on the bus to Billings, MT. We arrived here at 11:30am Wed. We are now in Billings at Joe's sister's (Sara) place where we will nap and such until we leave to go to Kalispell at 2am tonight. :) How exciting. Sara works until 2, hence the leaving in the middle of the night.
We're not really sure what's going on after that....

-Miranda

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