we're home--transition time

Before I was even finished grading my students' exams and papers, we were on the road out west (I finished the grading in the car and entered the grades in at our hotel). We headed to Bozeman to scout out some housing for next year.

Here are some pictures of the trip, although somewhat lacking in the appearance of human beings. This is the first spot we stopped in western South Dakota:

Western South Dakota means that we are starting to see some hills! Even just little ones:

Once we're past Billings, we start to see.... are those mountains??!

They are!

I don't have any good pictures of Bozeman, but here's the view. Bozeman is in a valley, so the town itself is flat, but surrounded on 3 sides by mountains.

Unfortunately, a lot of people seem to want to live in Bozeman. Finding housing was both stressful and disappointing. We don't have the money to get what we really wanted. We had to lower our standards. We even looked at this place, but decided our mothers would have a heart attack...

We finally settled on a small, older, 2-bedroom apartment. But in a great part of town with a view of the mountains out the living room window. It will work. Here it is:

More mountains... We couldn't get enough of them.

Rain followed us all the way home, and occasionally it felt like we were in a movie:

We're back in South Dakota. Can you tell?

We're excited to move later this summer--Bozeman seems like a great little city with a lot going on. Before then, though, there are some huge tasks to tackle, and I should start working on those. But now it's the first time that I'm actually taking a deep breath since the end of the semester, so I want to enjoy this a little longer--it's hardly sunk in that the semester is actually over! Soon enough will come the weird time when I feel guilty for not following a stressful school schedule. Balance is hard, you know?

Coming soon, pictures from the zoo with the Bakkers.