SSH #24 — Intermission IV

Hello! It's not Saturday anymore, except here at Second Half Games. Writing these blog posts resets the calendar back to Saturday here. It's how we make time for everything.

Eryn and I have been visiting my family back in my home state of Montana. As such, neither of us have been working on the game for the last week.

I have not kept in touch with the rest of the team. They're probably working on our awesome upcoming game, MEANWHILE IN SECTOR 80. I hope they're doing okay.

Last week, we had a wonderful playtest on a playground.

This week, the team is probably up to some stuff, but because I've hijacked the blog, you get to hear about our trip instead.

Montana as Home

I grew up in Missoula, Montana. The western part of the state is full of snowcapped mountains, winding rivers, and beautiful lakes.

I've lived in Ohio for the last few years. There are no mountains there — only cornfields — and the rivers are muddy and full of snakes. I prefer the mountains.

A couple times a year, I go back home to visit my family in western Montana. This time we brought some of Eryn's family with us, which spurred us to do more sightseeing than normal.

Flathead Lake

Most of my family lives near Flathead Lake, but it's a very big lake! It takes more than an hour to drive the north-south highways on either side, US 93 or MT 35.

We spent time swimming, kayaking, and even went on a music cruise on the lake!

Glacier National Park

Despite growing up in Montana and spending most of my life there, I had never visited Glacier National Park. Fixing that was easy: it turns out you can just go places.

This year, the western entrance to the park has congestion limits starting early in the morning on most days. We opted to drive around the park and enter via the eastern entrance. The drive there was worth it alone!

We drove the length of Going-to-the-Sun Road, stretching from Two Medicine Lake to Lake McDonald. Both lakes were clear, freezing cold, and gorgeous.

The snowpack is light this year across the state. Still, it was interesting to hike in snow in 80°F weather!

On our last stop on our way out of the park, we waded into Lake McDonald and cooled off. After some pretty big crowds around Logan Pass, I was surprised that there was nobody at the lake.

After the long day, everyone in the car was exhausted and fell asleep before we even made it out of the park.

We also visited some other minor landmarks in the area.

Two Dams and a Buffalo

A lot of the power in the Flathead lake area is generated via the Seli’š Ksanka Qlispe’ Dam, a hydroelectric dam owned by the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes. There's a nice short hike down to an overlook with wonderful views.

The gates to the dam were closed on our visit on account of extremely low snowpack levels in the mountains this year.

We also visited Hungry Horse Dam on this trip. It's one of the largest dams in the US and was the second tallest concrete dam in the world when it was built.

Another spot we visited was the CSKT Bison Range.

Millions of bison used to roam North America. These days, the population is in the tens of thousands after facing near-extinction in the 19th century. A few hundred of those bison live in this range.

Looking Ahead

Eryn and I will be out for one more week. The sightseeing phase of the trip is over and now we get to relax. If you join us on Discord, I'll be around all week incorrectly answering questions about bison.

Next week, you'll hear from Harry and the rest of the team about how the game is going! I'm interested to know how it's going as well.

See y'all later!