And . . .

Yes - it was a good trip - the trip to Fort Benton with our friends.  We found lot of new information about her grandfather.  We stopped in Great Falls to order a stone for her grandfather's grave and saw mom's stone that is ready to be transported to Fort Benton and set in a week or two.

Our dinner was great experience - slow, good food, great wine, wonderful conversation - far away. The old hotel is beautiful but very crooked from years of slowly sinking.

Tonight I watched the Bruce Jenner special on his transition.  The main thing I came away with was his courage to make this massive life change at 65.  I will be 70 in 2 days.  I was inspired to really refocus on getting on with some of my dreams.  There is time.  The time is always right to be who we are.  I commend him and appreciate that he shared his journey.

While in Fort Benton, we went to the courthouse.  For years I thought it a shame that someone had "redone" the windows to accommodate a dropped ceiling inside.  They blocked out the upper part of the window.  It just looked awful.  Today I noticed the windows had all been redone - sometime - not sure when in the past decade or so - and those ugly blocked windows were gone.  Good news.

Here is what I remembered. . .

This is what I noticed today - looks much better . . . The brick color is actually closer to the picture above.  

We also had a question about the old bridge and whether or not it had a pivot for the boats to go under.  I didn't remember that it ever did.  It is a walk bridge now.  I found that the pivot section was damaged in a flood in the 1920's and was replaced with a non-moving piece.  

I learned a lot about my birthplace.  Good trip.