Weekly Update for June 19, 2022


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Weekly Update at Introverted Reader

Welcome to my weekly update for June 19, 2022!

Well. I assume all of you have seen the catastrophic flooding in Yellowstone National Park and the communities just north of it. Yellowstone is the biggest reason we chose to spend the summer in Montana with my husband’s job. As I write this on Thursday, park officials aren’t sure when or if any sections of the park will reopen this summer. It’s disappointing, but we’re just glad that the flooding here in Billings was at manageable levels. My thoughts are with the residents of Gardiner, where the flooding was devastating, and the small business owners in the surrounding communities who rely heavily on tourism dollars. I’m also glad that no injuries have been reported thus far.

We spent last weekend in Bozeman, MT. It was a nice little town. On Saturday, we did an easy hike to Palisade Falls and then took a longer hike up to the “College M” on the hillside above town. The rain started Saturday afternoon (as we were hiking, of course) so we spent Sunday morning at the Museum of the Rockies. Montana has a lot of fossils so we really had a good time in the museum’s dinosaur hall. When we got back home, looking askance at the high rivers in the distance along the way, we had to re-watch the original Jurassic Park for the umpteenth time. It’s always a fun movie!

Slideshow:

  • Flowers in Storm
  • Overlooking Bozeman
  • Palisade Falls
  • T rex at the Museum of the Rockies

All images © Jennifer G. at Introverted Reader 2022

  1. Wildflowers and stormy skies on the “College M” trail
  2. Looking over Bozeman from the “College M.” It kind of looks like there’s a lake on the right, but there isn’t; that’s just the rain falling on the town.
  3. Palisade Falls. We’ve seen a lot of waterfalls in our hikes but I don’t think we’ve ever seen one flowing over basalt rock.
  4. A T. rex at the Museum of the Rockies. I believe the reddish bones are real fossils and the white parts are reconstructions. This skeleton is remarkably complete.

Posted:

Books I Wish Had Epilogues

Ten Books I Wish Had an Epilogue

Read:

I have an affiliate relationship with Malaprop’s Bookstore/Cafe in beautiful Asheville, NC. I will earn a small commission at no additional cost to you if you purchase merchandise through links on my site. 

Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys, read by a cast 🌟🌟🌟🌟 (Link to my GR review)

Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison 🌟🌟 (Link to my GR review)

Currently Reading:

Book Lovers by Emily Henry

Supernova (Renegades #3) by Marissa Meyer, read by Rebecca Soler and Dan Bittner

Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming, edited by Paul Hawken

Up Next:

I think I’m in the mood to continue some light series books now. I just glanced through my woefully-incomplete “series-to-continue” shelf on GoodReads and most of them sound good to me. If you have time to look, do you have any recommendations from that shelf?

What did your week look like?

Deb Nance at Readerbuzz hosts The Sunday Salon and Kimberly at Caffeinated Book Reviewer hosts Sunday Post. Kathryn at Book Date hosts It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?


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50 Comments

  1. The flood news out of Yellowstone is so sad. I do hope you are able to enjoy your time there anyway.

    I haven’t read any of the series on your Goodreads list so won’t be much help. I am glad you liked Salt to Sea though!

  2. I’ve been reading about all the flooding. Horrible for so many reasons and so many people. Your “series to continue” list shows me just how many series I haven’t started yet. Come see my week here. Happy reading!

  3. Was saddened to read about the flooding on the news. I will be keeping all those residents and small business owners up in prayer. Things are tough enough as it is without this loss.

    There are so many books on your list that I want to read: Nothing to See Here, The House on the Cerulean Sea, Bookish and the Beast, and The Christmas Bookshop to name some.

    Hope you have a wonderful week.

    https://thebookconnectionccm.blogspot.com/2022/06/its-monday-what-are-you-reading-and_01005786182.html

  4. I’m sorry to hear about the flooding, I can empathise given the multiple incidents here in the last few years.
    I loved Book Lovers, of your series options I’d probably pick The Rosie Result or some Stephanie Plum always makes me laugh.
    Nance from ReaderBuzz in in Montana this week, did you two make plans to meet?

    Wishing you a great reading week

    1. I know you guys had those terrifying fires a few years ago. And didn’t you have flooding yourself somewhat recently? There’s so much weird weather everywhere, it’s hard to keep up.

      Deb mentioned that she’ll be a couple of hours away from me but we have a LOT going on starting this week. I don’t think I’ll have time to meet. 🙁

      I should finish up the Rosie series since I only have one book left. Thanks for taking the time to recommend something!

    1. Thanks for thinking of us. It truly was devastating for a lot of communities. We are downstream from Yellowstone (the river flows north), but our flooding here was manageable. I guess we’re far enough away that a lot of the water had dissipated by the time it got here.

  5. Jen, I’m glad you and your husband were safe during the flooding. We are in Livingston for the next couple of days. We’d planned to go to Yellowstone, but sadly we won’t be doing that this time. I feel bad for all the towns around Yellowstone that rely on summer tourism so much.

    Thanks for sharing your photos. The host of our Airbnb told us she thinks some of the local hikes might be closed (our house is only a couple of blocks from the Yellowstone River). We tried to go to Pompeys Pillar but it was closed due to flooding, too.

    1. I saw your comment on your blog that you’re in Livingston. I wish we could meet but we have a LOT of visitors and traveling planned, starting on Thursday. I’ll be packing and cleaning. Did you see that the park is re-opening the west, south, and east entrances on Wednesday morning? I think the west entrance is about two hours away from you. I don’t know how long you’ll be around, but you might be able to visit.

      Oh, wow, I hadn’t heard that Pompey’s Pillar was closed! There were some trails close by the river that were already closed from past flooding when we visited. I’m sure this current round made it even worse. It was a great place to visit. I’m disappointed for you that you didn’t get to go.

      Book Lovers was really good! I just wrote my review on GR.

      I hope you find some hiking the rest of your time here! The College M hike in Bozeman was beautiful and not too far away from you. There’s either a vertical trail or a winding path up to the M. The winding path isn’t bad at all. Palisade Falls might be too far from Livingston and it might be flooded too. It’s worth a look at the conditions at least.

  6. Stay safe from the flooding. Though we will be able to use that water a little later in the summer here in California once the fires start. 🙁 As to books… Tristan Strong was a pretty fast read for me, so that might be a good way to finish up a series quickly. Though it’s a bit heavier on subject-matter than you might be looking for. And the 4th Small Spaces book is coming out in… August I think? so you might want to get caught up on that one, too.

    1. I thought about California needing rain while we’re here getting way too much at once. *sigh*

      Good point about finishing up a series that I’m mostly done with. I’d been thinking about Small Spaces anyway. I guess Dark Waters is set in the spring? Maybe I can read it before the weather here gets too hot and stays there (We hit the 90s on Friday and Saturday but yesterday we were in the low 60s.) I forgot the last one is coming out soon. Thanks for the reminder!

      1. Yup, Dark Waters is set in the spring. Though for me it didn’t have nearly as strong a tie to the season as the first two did. Autumn and Winter were much more present to me than Spring was… the lake setting kinda overrode the season.

          1. Agreed, lake trips sound more like summer to me as well. However, this is definitely set in the spring… I don’t remember if it’s related to the end of the school year or not?

  7. I love the first pic with those stormy skies! And Jurassic PArk never gets old. Those first two… amazing. I know not everyone likes the second one as much but it has its moments. Now I want to watch them. 🙂

    That is awful about the floods. Be safe!

  8. The Yellowstone flooding is horribly tragic. I feel for all those small businesses and workers. You got some great photos! We considered going to Yellowstone and the Tetons after our visit to Glacier, but we’ll skip that this time around. We’ll find something else to see (maybe in Idaho or Washington) on our return trip, which will help save on the fuel costs. Silver linings, right?

    From your list of series-to-continue, I’ve read Career of Evil (4/5) and Night of Miracles (5/5). I stopped reading the Janet Evanovich books after #9. Too predictable and tiresome. You have a lot to read. Good luck!

    1. We’ve been weighing the idea of trips to Glacier and the Tetons but the reported crowds at Glacier and the reservation system turned me off of Glacier (as I’ve mentioned to you a few times! :-D) We’ve been to Banff and Jasper National Parks in Canada, which are basically an extension of Glacier, so we aren’t too disappointed. Now that Yellowstone is going to be weird, we’re worried about crowds in the Tetons too. We’ll see what happens.

      I’ve seen a mention that the Bitterroot Mountains in Idaho are supposed to be beautiful but I don’t know where to go specifically. I also wanted to see Hells Canyon between Oregon and Idaho while we were in Oregon but it was just too far. Several of my husband’s co-workers recommended that we visit the Wallowas but again, we never got that far east. Saving on fuel costs this year can only be a good thing, and all these states are so beautiful, you can’t go wrong.

      I go back and forth on Stephanie Plum. With one book I’ll be irritated and think she doesn’t deserve Morelli or Ranger and then I inhale the next book. They’re like junk food I guess.

      Thanks for weighing in on my series books!

  9. I love Jurassic Park too. The flooding in Yellowstone is so sad. I hope it lets up soon and that none of the people or animals drown because of it. Did you see the freak hail storm in Mexico City? 2 feet or more of hail. So crazy!

    1. I hadn’t heard anything about Mexico City! I just did a search for it and it’s so weird that I have to dig to find mentions of it in big media outlets. It’s like, if it doesn’t happen in the US, it doesn’t matter. Grrr… Such crazy weather everywhere!

    1. I do keep meaning to read books set in Montana or Wyoming (I try to do that for every state we’re in) but haven’t gotten around to starting yet. I didn’t realize CJ Box wrote books set here. Thanks for the recommendations!

  10. I glanced through your series list on GR and have read the first of several of those but haven’t finished any of these either. Put all the titles in a bowl, close your eyes and choose one! 🙂 I gave Invisible Man the same rating – not my cup of tea at all. Happy Reading this week!

  11. The flooding sounds awful. Glad that no injuries have been reported.

    I love anything dinosaur as does my 3 year old son.

    Have a great week ahead and I hope the flooding sorts itself out.

    Emily @ Budget Tales Book Blog
    My post:

  12. The flooding is crazy! I’m glad no one was hurt. Seeing whole roads washed away is just surreal. Glad you were still able to find some interesting things to do without Yosemite.

  13. Montana sounds like an amzing place to be. The flooding is terrible and feel for those in the community. I liked Eleanor Olyphant and agree with you, an epilogue would be great. Haven’;t read the other books on your list.

  14. The floods are shocking — so much damage to the park! I hope your summer plans can be remade in a satisfactory way. We spent two summers in Bozeman a long time ago, and it was beautiful. I don’t think it ever rained.

    best… mae at maefood.blogspot.com

    1. We loved Bozeman. We’re in Billings for the summer but Bozeman is more our kind of town. It felt like our hometown of Asheville, NC. Kind of artsy, nestled among the mountains, close to lots of hiking, etc.

  15. Sorry the flooding is impacting your summer. Things like that are disappointing even if not really causing any serious issues for you. Glad you are having a good time anyway.

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