How can I be turning 65 years old in May 2023? I still feel like I'm trying to figure out what I want to do when I grow up, but I'm about to officially become elderly. In keeping with the tradition of old people blathering on about what they've learned

I take a lot of dog photos. After spending nearly 13 years documenting Jamie's life, since his passing I've been continuing to document the shenanigans of his pack in a similar manner. These activities have led me to publish tens of thousands of photographs on the Jamie Samoyed Facebook page,

Two striking landmarks come into view when you drive into Butte on I-90: the massive terraced walls of Berkeley Pit, and the rounded peak of Big Butte, the hill towering above the west side of town. Berkeley Pit is a relatively new phenomenon, an artifact of Butte's shift from underground

Thirteen years ago today, we picked up a 8 week old Jamie from Summerhill Samoyeds in Canada and drove him south across the border to his new home with two humans and three cats in Seattle. Megan named him Jamie. This post contains a few memories and thoughts about Jamie

Last night Isaac and I spent the night at Hells Canyon Guard Station in the Highland Mountains south of Butte. Originally built as a line cabin for local ranchers in 1906, the cabin has been owned by the Forest Service since 1910. It was first used as a guard station

We scattered Jamie's ashes today. It was fun to bring Isaac to this place that meant so much to Jamie and Alice, and it was also nice to bring Nancy back – she had only been there once as a pup. But most of all it was fun to see Alice's

After seeing the way Jamie welcomed and raised Alice as a pup in 2010, we were eager to see him welcome Nancy into the pack a decade later in 2020. It was everything we expected. Looking back over the photos of Nancy's early days with the pack, I'm struck by

I was always fascinated by Jamie's perspective. I wanted to see what he saw. In hindsight, it's now clear to me how posting on social media "as Jamie" became an outlet for my obsession with seeing the world through his eyes. Jamie and I spent a huge amount of time

Jamie raised Alice at first, but they're close enough together in age that after a year or two their relationship was more like siblings than a pack hierarchy. When Nancy came along, she was fiercely independent and looked up to Alice as the older female, so Jamie didn't really "raise"

During the last year of his life, Jamie and I spent a lot of time exploring the Highland Mountains (aka the Highlands), a small mountain range 20 miles south of Butte. Just as Jamie's pre-Alice road trips long ago helped prepare us for all the road trips the two of

Every time I walk down the little hallway to our main floor bathroom, this mirror reminds me of a Jamie story. One that seemed sad at first, but the more I've thought about it the more I take comfort in this memory of Jamie unflinchingly staring in the mirror, like

Jamie's death was sudden and unexpected. Just five days earlier, I had taken him to a cabin in the mountains, as we've done many times. Everything went smoothly and he seemed to be a happy and healthy old dog right up to the moment we got home, when everything started

Today is a day I have dreaded for years: Jamie is no more. For nearly 13 years, he's been my sidekick and the leader of our little canine pack, but those days are over now. What an amazing journey it has been, taking us all over North America and enjoying

Wordle took the Twitterverse by storm during the winter of 2021-2022. Within a month or two of the game's release in October 2021, millions of people were playing every day, or making fun of those who were. People post their Wordle scores every day, often to brag about how few

Diamond Butte Lookout is a fire lookout in southeast Montana, about 40 miles from Broadus. The structure was originally located at Yager Butte, but in 1958 it was moved 20 miles south to Diamond Butte, where it was an active fire lookout until 2001. It's available as a rental, and

Our Lady of the Rockies is a 90-foot statue along the Continental  Divide looking down on Butte, Montana from a few miles away and over 3000 feet above the Mining City. There is controversy around the statue because it's a religious symbol, and its position high on the East Ridge

This evening after dinner, Nancy and I went for a hike up to Maud S Canyon viewpoint. We started about an hour before sunset, so I knew we'd be coming down in the dark, but we've done that before. I brought a headlamp, trekking poles, and a big bottle of

My go-to telephoto lens is the Nikkor 70-200mm F/2.8 VR II. It's an amazing piece of equipment: sharp, fast, and sturdy enough to take a beating and keep on working. At $2400 it was (and still is) the most expensive lens I've ever bought, but after 11 years

In their first few years together, Jamie and Alice took road trips around Washington, Oregon, California, Idaho, Nevada, Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, South Dakota, North Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Nebraska, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Texas, as well as their homeland of British Columbia,