August Already - St. Regis, Montana

“The first week of August hangs at the very top of summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning. The weeks that come before are only a climb from balmy spring, and those that follow a drop to the chill of autumn, but the first week of August is motionless, and hot. It is curiously silent, too, with blank white dawns and glaring noons, and sunsets smeared with too much color.” - Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting

First Blush - Missoula, Montana

“The poet believed that 'Beauty' first entered the world not at its creation, nor with the first garden, the first sunrise, the birth of the first man and woman and their first sexual act. The poet believed that 'Beauty' entered the world the day the first child blushed.” - Roman Payne

Summer Gold - Hamilton, Montana

The meadow view fronted by brilliant common tansy in Hamilton's semi-hidden gem, Hieronymous Park, provokes me to agree with Henry James:

“Summer afternoon - summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.” - Henry James (1843-1916)

Me & My Shadow - Missoula, Montana

"Like the wallpaper sticks to the wall

Like the seashore clings to the sea

Like you'll never get rid of your shadow

Frank, you'll never get rid of me

Let all the others fight and fuss

Whatever happens, we've got us..." 

- Sammy Davis, Jr., & Frank Sinatra, performing

"Me & My Shadow" written by Billy Rose, Dave Dreyer, Al Jolson

 

Watch these two legends in action here.

Quiet Waters - Hamilton, Montana

I don't think still waters running deep applies in the pictured section of the Bitterroot River, but I do have it on good authority that it's a leisurely float stretch - just add sunscreen and inner tubes!

Bright And Shadow - Missoula, Montana

"I am quite likely to re-act to the opposite extreme - to feel rapturously that the world is beautiful and mere existence something to thank God for. I suppose our 'blues' are the price we have to pay for our temperament. 'The gods don't allow us to be in their debt.' They give us sensitiveness to beauty in all its forms but  the shadow of the gift goes with it." - L.M. Montgomery, My Dear Mr. M: Letters to G.B. Macmillan from L.M. Montgomery

Purple Stalk - Missoula, Montana

"An attractive smell came from it - what Lucy calle 'a dim, purple kind of smell,' which Edmund said (and Rhince thought) was rot, but Caspian said, 'I know what you mean.' " - C.S.Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader