Moonlight And Mountains - East Missoula, Montana

"...The moon hangs between the mountains like a searchlight, making a path through flimsy clouds. I breathe deeply...The mountains, knit together seamlessly, form a black velvet fortress around me. The dark sky lightens to a shimmer of silver on the mountaintop, like a window shade that can not reach the sash to keep out the light. The details are clean - bare branches with fluttery edges like curls, and strong black veins in the trunks and branches of the mighty pine trees. I am so small here...."

- from Big Cherry Holler by Adriana Trigiani, p. 43

 (BTW, seriously losing track of time in this book series - & I love it when I read something precisely perfect for a recent photo!)

High Lights, Missoula, Montana,

Celestial thoughts came to mind when I looked up at the swirling lights in the high arched lobby of the Missoula Children’s Theatre. During my early years in rural Alberta, Canada, we were far enough north that the Northern Lights would wow us with impromptu light shows far surpassing any major laser and fireworks production. Even sans aurora borealis, an un-citied night sky never fails to move me to awe and simple joy at the wonder that is our nightly ceiling. I recently stumbled upon a site featuring night sky images merged with photos of some major city skylines across the world. If the wilderness isn’t out your back door, grab a cup of cocoa and a s’more (to pretend you‘re at a campfire, silly!), turn out the lights, then click here to bask in the lesser lights that really are up there,