Full Promise, Central Montana Rainbow

Reason # 41: Why I Love Montana Road Trips

High Wired, Missoula, Montana

"Clouds on clouds, in volumes driven,
Curtain round the vault of heaven."
~Thomas Love Peacock, English novelist, poet, and official of the East India Company (1785-1866)

Boundary Stones, Missoula, Montana

"I realized I couldn't be a journalist because I like to take a side, to have an opinion and a point a view; I liked to step across the imaginary boundary of the objective view that the journalist is supposed to have and be involved." 
- Annie Leibovitz, Photographer

Distant Hills, Florence, Montana

Ruminating on today’s photo for a quote idea, I vaguely recollected that something somewhere including “distant hills.”
Enter Google to the rescue.

Six results down I read, “The distant hills call to me. Their rolling waves seduce my heart.” and thought, “Aha! That’s it - perfect!”. 

So, I clicked the link - and busted out laughing as I continued to read:

“...Oh, how I want to graze in their lush valleys. 
Oh, how I want to run down their green slopes.
Alas, I cannot.
Damn the electric fence! Damn the electric fence!
Oh, how we long to run with a wilder herd.
Alas, we cannot.”

If you’ve lived in farm or ranch country, I’m betting you laughed, too.

A little deeper digging revealed the true source of that Far Side-esque quote: none other than that wry genius, Gary Larson. Check out his cartoon here and the pieces will all come together.

On a serious note, the "...rolling waves seduce my heart..." is pretty close to what I feel as we drive toward these velvety undulating hills south of Missoula, Montana.

Look Again, Missoula, Montana

I spy with my little eye, something that is … graceful and wary.

Yet another reason why Missoula's downtown river  walk is among my very favourites.

Springfall, Missoula, Montana

“I thought I had forgotten,
But it all came back again
To-night with the first spring thunder
In a rush of rain…

Thunder gripping the earth
And lightning scrawled on the sky…”

From “Spring Rain” by Sara Teasdale (1884-1933)
Read more about this author, the entire poem, and more of her poetry
here.

Late Spring Snowcap, Bitterroot Valley, Montana

Recent spring rains = new snow in the mountains, to cap off the lingering snow pack.

We’re glad for any extra precipitation that soaked in deep, and hope it makes a difference come August forest fire season.

Zoom in to better see the cottonwood fluff wafted above the meadow in echo to snowflakes higher up.