4 days left in montana!!!!!

i can't believe it, but it's august 6 already!! friday was the last day of classes here.. they lasted for 8 weeks.. so yesterday i drove a few people to the glacier park airport to head on home. we took advantage of having to be up in kalispell (the nearest 'city' to us at 60 miles away) and had some yummy mexican food ( i wish we had some good mexican restaurants near us in ny..) and stopped at the 'mega thrift store' run by salvation army. i pretty much could've stayed there forever, but i had to leave sometime and so i left with some nice 50 cent stoneware dishes for my apt and some awesome shirts :) we were going to take one last good day hike today in the mission mtns just south of us, but all this smoke is settling into our valley from the various forest fires around us. it's actually pretty creepy looking... the moon and sun have eerie orange colors behind the haze and i feel like we're living on the ocean now because we can't see the other side anymore. the sunset's have been pretty cool looking too.. i can't believe the sun is setting at 8:30pm now already when it was setting at 10:30 when we first got here in june!! we actually took a nice hike last weekend up in the east side of glacier np. we had a moose run right across the trail in front of us and while i sat down by this lake while everyone else was taking a quick climb up the cliff behind us.. it was just my luck that a grizzly cub came lumbering around the side of the lake and fortunately went running into the woods, and then a marmot came scampering over to me! crazy! lotsssss of fresh huckleberries on the trail on the way back. last sunday, we went and picked cherries at the orchard across the street from the bio station. 5 lbs. for 3 bucks!!! wooo :) and sooo good! the east shore of our lake is seriously lined up and down with cherry orchards and so we have all the cherries we could possibly want. the area's kind of obsessed with cherries.. the brewery in town actually makes a seasonal cherry ale too. right now i'm basically just trying to finish up my paper and presentation, because i'm supposed to go out rafting for tuesday and wednesday to help my mentor collect some water samples and such. the time's just a flyin'! i'll be heading out on thursday afternoon after our presentations, caravaning with nate and robert again via yellowstone and teton, so i'll hopefully be home next wednesday (the 16?)