Montana - FCA and a Glacier

First a history lesson. Not your usual history lesson, but a lesson about how I learn.

When I first applied for the job I am doing now, the advice I got from my friend Marsan was to study the airline codes. And I did. I wrote them down on index cards and that stack was about six inches high. I needed to learn them all. A lot of them were pretty simple - some of them were pretty hard. Absolutely no way to reference why they were what they were. Most of them were international ones that I had trouble with and a few were domestic. I would go through that stack of cards every chance I got. Then I found a website on the internet, Quizlet, where someone had already done the work for me. It was computer based. It would test me on the codes. One of those codes was Kalispell, Montana. The code is FCA and I could not get it. So, finally I came up with an acronym for it: effing cold airport. You can make the effing whatever "F" word you want, I know the one I used. When I would go through these codes and I would miss that one, I would sit and chant, not just to myself, in my living room, Kalispell is effing cold airport, Kalispell is effing cold airport, Kalispell is effing cold airport. Then I would go through the codes again.

When I went in to my interview and was offered the position, the people there gave us a list of codes to learn. We were told to have these codes memorized before we started our first day. I had already been studying these codes for about three weeks!! The one woman said, "does anyone know what FCA is?" To myself I said, "Kalispell is effing cold airport" and then I said out loud, "Kalispell". She looked at me and said, pretty much in horror, "how did you know that??". I looked at her and sheepishly replied, "I can't tell you".

So after this whole process and the fact that Ted had heard me chant over and over again about "effing cold airport", he said that we needed to make sure that we made a trip to FCA. So - this was the weekend to do it. The weather was amazing and in the 80's. After getting some rest after our late night flight in our awesome first class seats, we spent the next day travelling to the Conrad Mansion and Glacier National Park. There was also a stop at the Hungry Horse Dam. Here is our picture journal:

The Conrad Mansion. Accidentally found out it existed.
Not sure if there is a relation, but it was a cool thing to find.

My guy in front of the explanation of the mansion. It's now a
museum. We didn't have time to wait for it to open and go inside.

Street named after us.

Pretty roadside artesian type fountain. It wasn't working. But,
there was a pipe bringing out clear spring water from the mountain.
Ted told me he wasn't going to kiss me for at least 24 hours because
I took a sip. I wish I dared to actually take a huge drink!

The river along the road.

Driving under a rock.

Awesome travel companion. And trophy husband. That's another
story

What an amazing sight.

Inside Glacier Nartional Park. The mountain peak behind us.

I was entranced by the fast moving water going through the park.
This was a small fall up from the viewing area.

Fast moving water

Love this sight. The mountain behind the trees with the
sun coming through the trees. So beautiful.

Me and my guy in front of the fast moving water. We live
amazing lives.

Ted insisted I get hugged by the tree. My eyes are closed in
this picture. I had to sit on the ground and make my way up
to get my hug. Getting down was just as fun. But, it was
still one of those things that are just fun.