Solitaire - Missoula, Montana

“How terribly sad it was that people are made in such a way that they get used to something as extraordinary as living.”

― Jostein Gaarder, The Solitaire Mystery

Downtown, Windowscape - Missoula, Montana

“Shortly before school started, I moved into a studio apartment on a quiet street near the bustle of the downtown in one of the most self-conscious bends of the world. …The streets were like fine necklaces and strung together were the brownstone houses and tall condominiums and tiny mansions like pearls, and when the day broke and the sun faded away, their lights burned like jewels shining gaudily in the night.” – From “Minor Snobs” by Daniel Amory
 

Snow Limbed - Missoula, Montana

"the years pile up gently
as snow upon snow pile up
on snow laden ground.
you wake up one morning
still with sleepy eyes
to see the view from your window
still the same
yet somewhat changed..."

- from "On Your Birthday" by Romeo Balingcongan

Freight Train Into Fog - Missoula, Montana

"....Well every time I fell behind, I could not get ahead.
I wish someone would pull the lever and give me a little sand.
 
And every time I slip behind, even further back,
I wish some switch man would come out of the fog and change my track..."
 
- From "Freight Train" by Alan Jackson

Wintry Walking Bridge Over Rattlesnake Creek - Missoula, Montana

With a variety of national forest trailheads within 15 - or less - minutes drive, I find myself trekking yet again on a select few nearer paths that have become dearly familiar. Sometimes, a bossy little inner voice with ringlets provokes me to venture out further and higher - but there are times I tell her, hush, today requires the comfort of a well-known route. Henry D. Thoreau understood and voiced this feeling well: “Give me the old familiar walk, post office and all, with this ever new self, with this infinite expectation and faith, which does not know when it is beaten.… I will take another walk to the Cliff, another row on the river, another skate on the meadow, be out in the first snow, and associate with the winter birds. Here I am at home. In the bare and bleached crust of the earth I recognize my friend.“ -Journal, 1 November 1858

Winter Swale - Missoula, Montana

"With windy haste and wild halloo 
 the sheeting snow comes down
And drives itself through bush and swale
 and leagues of stubble brown...."
- From  "Snow-Storm", in the collection "Wind and Weather" by Liberty Hyde Bailey

Snowfall Over Rattlesnake Creek - Missoula, Montana

"...In tiny spherule traced with lines

Of Nature’s geometric signs,

In starry flake, and pellicle,

All day the hoary meteor fell;..."

 

- from "Snow-Bound: A Winter Idyl" by John Greenleaf Whittier 

 

Some of my best winter memories are bounded by snow days. Pity the forever warm-clime dwellers who know no such frosty delight!