Bolt And Bricks - Polson, Montana

"If I could only remember that the days were, not bricks to be laid row on row, to be built into a solid house, where one might dwell in safety and peace, but only food for the fires of the heart."

- Edmund Wilson (1895-1972)

Inside The Open Door - Old Faithful Inn, Yellowstone National Park

"Maybe there is more of the magical

in the idea of a door than in the door
itself. It’s always a matter of going
through into something else. But

while some doors lead to cathedrals
arching up overhead like stormy skies
and some to sumptuous auditoriums
and some to caves of nuclear monsters

most just yield a bathroom or a closet.
Still, the image of a door is liminal..."

- from Doors opening, closing on us by Marge Piercy, b.1936

(Read the full poem here.)

Hard Used, Missoula, Montana

“…They blend along small-town streets
Like a race of giants that have faded into mere mythology.
Our eyes, washed clean of belief,
Lift incredulous to their fearsome crowns of bolts, trusses, 

struts, nuts, insulators, and such
Barnacles as compose
These weathered encrustations of electrical debris…”

From "Telephone Poles" 
by John Updike

(Click on the author's name, above, to read an insightful article on Updike's mother, also a writer.) 

Railbed Backstage, Missoula, Montana

Abandoned homestead buildings always raise to my mind, “Oh, the stories, if walls could speak…”. But until recent Fort Missoula wanders, I hadn’t considered the longevity perspective of a railbed, even with trains being on my "favourite things“ list. 
A reliable source informed me that a railroad spike can stay on the job 35 to 50 years, and sometimes more with exemplary track maintenance. But the routes have stayed basically the same since the first spikes were driven to lay the original rails. Just think of the history that has rolled over the backstage of North American railbeds - troops off to war, adventurers headed west, Mr. Lincoln’s train…. Please add your insight to this list via a Comment below!