Wild Montana Sky and Mission Mountains - Approaching KMSO, Missoula, Montana

Always happy to return home to the wide and wild Montana skies - and gorgeous new snow on the Mission range this trip! (At least I'm pretty sure those are the Missions...please correct me if I'm wrong here!). 

Seven Thousand Flags - Never Forget - Rose Park, Missoula, Montana

A solemn sea of seven thousand USA flags at Missoula's Memorial Rose Garden to never forget each precious life forever tied to September 11, 2001.

Thank you to the many volunteers and the VFW and American Legion Auxiliaries for their faithful work and dedication ro this event for 24 years running.

Pop-Up Mission Mountains - Ravalli, Montana

Never gets old, whatever the season - that first pop-up view of the Mission range upon cresting Highway 93's winding hill just past Ravalli, Montana. 

"I think back to ... the dry summers when Father and George and the other homesteaders watched as cloud after cloud dragged across the Rockies and the tufts of rain would catch on the distant peaks and be of no help to their fields." - The Whistling Season by Ivan Doig (1939-2015), p. 46-47 (lg type)

Castle Museum Turret - White Sulpher Springs, Montana

Finally caught a tour at the charming Castle Museum and Carriage House in White Sulpher Springs, Montana - and glad we did! Built in 1892 by a westward-wandering cousin of Union General William Tecumseh Sherman, the Castle is also known in the National Historic Register as the Byron R. Sherman House. Check out its key feature described in this Waymarking article. 

Springing Up Sheriff Signs - Near St Regis, Montana

For the critical 'location, location, location', Banks for Sheriff picked a winner with this gorgeous green spring field along I-90 near St Regis, Montana - with bonus scenic mountain views! 

While I try my best to avoid politics, they do get my vote for Best Montana Campaign Signage! 

Drop of Hope Blooms - Missoula, Montana

"And even though I no longer really knew what it was, I felt it: a drop of hope. The fog surrounding my life rolled back another inch, and a sliver of blue sky peeked through." -When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi, p.135

Spring Cloud Wave Over Mount Sentinel - Missoula, Montana

"And so there we all were on a little wave of time lifting up to eternity, and none of us ever in time would know what to make of it. How could we? It is a mystery, for we are eternal beings living in time."  -Wendell Berry, from Jayber Crow, p. 205

Fall Throwback - Haystacked - W. US Hwy 12 Near Helena, Montana

"People who think it’s so hard to find a needle in a haystack are probably not quilters. Needles find you. Just walk on the haystack for a second. You’ll find the needle." -Jenny Lawson in Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things

New Year Blessing - West of Helena, Montana

"May the road rise up to meet you.

May the wind be always at your back. 

May the sun shine warm upon your face, 

the rains fall soft upon your fields and until we meet again, 

may God hold you in the palm of His hand." - Traditional Irish blessing

Bitterroot Mountains from Lee Metcalf Wildlife Refuge - Stevensville, Montana

Perfect pockets of sun and shadow - plus a lovely side of laughter among friends! -  made for a gorgeous fall ramble at the Lee Metcalf Wildlife Refuge. 

(I THINK that may be St. Mary's Peak in the background...  not as simple as I'd hoped to logic 

our this peak's location on a map.... please comment if you can confirm or deny.) 

Fall Game Day Besties - University of Montana, Missoula, Montana

Crisp fall views on a sunny University game day  - life is just better in Montana. 

Sound of Music Trail View - East Missoula, Montana

My advance apologies for the catchy ditty about to be stuck in your head, but this photo view point really IS called The Sound of Music Trail.... 

(And the surrounding Missoula hills were, indeed, alive with the sound of music as hundreds of people of many area churches united to pray and praise over our city at summer's end!) 

Ref Barn Blue Sky Calm - Near Avon, Montana

“Calm and inner peace…Yes, calm and inner peace were undoubtedly important, but did you need to practise yoga to achieve such things? Or was it enough just to be here….to walk along one of those paths…with the sky above you so wide and so understanding of all it witnessed? …Surely there was enough calm amd peace in this land to bring quiet and healing to every heart that was open to it?? Surely.”

- - The Joy & Light Bus Company by Alexander McCall Smith, p. 57

Not Earned - Echinacea / Coneflower - Missoula, Montana

"Grace is not opposed to effort, it is opposed to earning. Earning is an attitude. Effort is an action."

-—Dallas Willard (1935-2013), Hearing God: Developing a Conversational Relationship with God (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1984, 1993, 1999), 194.

Looking Through To Beyond - Missoula, Montana

“The sun filtered down through the canopy… Above its delicate, spreading branches was the sky, which went on forever, it seemed, into a thin, singing blue.”

-Mma Ramotswe in To the Land of Long Lost Friends, No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency Series, by Alexander McCall Smith, p. 90 (lg type)

May your new year be blessed with eyes to see through and beyond and more than just what seems in plain view, and to what the Holy Spirit is saying. 

Looking Up - Autumn - Leaves - Missoula, Montana

“She looked up. The sky was without cloud, a dome of lightest blue filled with air, great swirls and eddies of it, which you could see — just about — if you stared long enough. She breathed in deeply, and felt the fine dry air fill her with a buoyant optimism.”

-Mma Ramotswe, p. 85 in large type edition, The Saturday Big Tent Wedding Party, a No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency novel by Alexander McCall Smith

One Road In - Tally Lake, Near Whitefish, Montana

“[He] drove the threads of back roads and gravel lanes that knitted the farms and hamlets of Black Earth County together in a loose fabric of commerce and community. “ -The River We Remember by William Kent Krueger , p 103 (Lg Type)

—Click here for more about Tally Lake in Western Montana—-

Past And Present - Hilltop Above the Dearborn River, Montana

“My mother brought this up in the first week after my father passed away. In a time like that, the past meets you wherever you turn. The days do not use their own hours and minutes, they find ones you have lived through with the person you are missing.” - Jick McCaskill, in English Creek by Ivan Doig (1939-2015), p. 333

Mountain Layers, Aerial View - Somewhere Over Western Montana

“It still floors me, how the mountains are not the same any two days in a row. As if hundreds of copies of those mountains exist and each dawn brings in a fresh one, of new color, new prominence of some feature over the others, a different wrapping of cloud or rinse of sun for this day's version.” -Jick McCaskill, in English Creek by Ivan Doig (1939-2015), p. 77 

Lift Your Eyes - Absaroka Range, Livingston, Montana

Over the river (and Interstate-90, and miscellaneous mountains…) and through the woods …and you’ll eventually arrive at Yellowstone National Park. (In its early 1900’s heyday, you could gray trip to the Park on the tourist train direct from the Livingston, Montana depot.)