Infectious summer.

Summer in western Montana is short, at least by my midwestern standards. I think of summer as the sweltering, endless days and warm muggy nights of my youth. Summer here means gorgeous, long sunny days, but the heat isn't the same. The month of July generally provides the only truly sizzling temperatures of our summer - frenzied, jam-packed days of sunshine and hiking and rivers and cheap beer and good friends, trying to drink it all in before summer burns out. Somewhere around the first week of August the fever of summer breaks - the temperatures are still warm, but the sun feels weaker, as though it's winding down for the season. The crisp alpine air rolls in nightly, bringing with it faint smells of autumn, even while the calendar attests summer.
Once again the feverish summer days are drawing to a close, and fall is just around the corner.