Christmas in Big Sky

This is a first for us. Christmas in Big Sky, MT. As one of our favorite wintertime destinations, we were bound to one day relocate Christmas to this Christmasy place. Here, we can count on a white Christmas, and perhaps finally live the motto "Spend Christmas Skiing" from the front of Jethro Tull's famous Aqualung album.

Thus it was that Dec. 17, Trevor, Caitlin, Ann and I set out late in the day from Pittsburgh on our Yuletide adventure. Ming and Ian are planning to join us Saturday, while Kevin and family will converge on Sunday.

Weather required us to de-ice the plane after an interminable runway taxi (Trevor said "What is this? Are we driving to Montana?) We took off 35 minutes late and knew we had a 25 minute connection between scheduled landing and boarding of the flight to Bozeman (argh). To make a long story short, Trevor and I ran (sprinted) a mile in about 4 minutes to the other side of the airport and laid down under the wheels (Trevor in front, me behind), telling the authorities we wouldn't move until our family arrived. Finally, 20 or 30 minutes later, Caitlin and Ann caught up to us, and we all boarded the plane, knowing full well our luggage would not be so fast and we would arrive to subzero temperatures with short sleeved shirts and sandals.

Amazingly, we arrived near midnight with our baggage, go the vehicle with no problem and drove without incident to Big Sky Dream our home away from home.

Today, somewhat tired from the previous night's adventure, we hung around the ranch, bought a Christmas tree, rented skate skis, took naps, and kept our finger on the pulse of happenings in Tennessee.

Here's a picture of our beautiful, wonderful-smelling fir tree.



We are all assigned to bring ornaments for the tree. Here is Trevor's!