In contrast to May, when I spent about three weeks away from home and destroyed some pretty pricey possessions, June has been pretty calm. Mr. Karen and I continue to unpack and organize, a process that’s going slower than it might as we aren’t devoting full time to it, what with there being no hard deadline for emptying the boxes and many other distractions, such as having a mountain out our front door. We’ve been going on a lot of hikes, for instance. I consider our walk to and from the mailbox a short hike, what with the elevation changes involved, but we’ve also been getting out on the proper hiking trails around the mountain. I’ve been enjoying all the wildflowers, though I don’t yet know what they’re all called. We’ve seen some wildlife, too; I know what more of that is called, though there are some small furry creatures that aren’t squirrels and aren’t pikas that I still need to figure out.

 
The resort opened up for summer season this past weekend; we rode the chairlift up and hiked across the ridge to make a snowman in the last patch of snow. That’s all since melted, and soon it will be huckleberry picking season up top; the berries are already coming in at lower elevations, and we’ve been out there picking a few times already.

In between unpacking and hiking and all the other things we’ve gotten up to, we decided on and bought a new vehicle, a 2016 Ford Escape, which is nice now and will be nicer in winter because it has all wheel drive. I do miss my Fusion Hybrid, and still berate myself sometimes for the accident and get nervous making left turns, but done is done. All I can do is try and pay better attention going forward.

My June photos on Flickr are here.