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! 

Moody Blues Snow Sky (& haiku!) - Missoula, Montana

Moody blues storm sky

swirls, twirls out drowsy pale stars.

Snoozed snow shovels cheer.

--cj hull, 3/17/2026

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

Summer Throwback - Kayaker Duo - Placid Lake, Montana

Another summer shot I didn't post at the time....Lingering wildfire haze delineates mountain layers and adds an other-world-liness to Montana lake outings.

Summer Throwback - Paddleboard Pup - Placid Lake, Montana

A peaceful Placid Lake, Montana, moment from this summer. Kind of a nice winter reprieve when longing for sunnier skies. (Also totally vicarious, by the way...not my people, OR our pup...just serendiptous strangers drifted into the hazy view i was sizing up!) 

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.) 

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

Flathead River below SKQ Dam - Polson, Montana

Last weekend’s stunning end-of-summer Montana days were perfect for the short hike above Se¿lis¿ Ksanka Ql¿ispe¿  fka Kerr Dam. (…to offset scrumptious waffles at Good Coffee Roasting Co / Whistle Bake Shop in Polson, MT - yummm!)

Balanced Camping - Big Arm, Montana

The rightness of grasses not mowed to conformity, shrubs and willows allowed to spread within mostly natural inclination ...there’s something about the ...mmmm...I hate to say ‘balance’ but maybe more at ‘compromise’ of this cheek-to-jowl coexistence between accessible wildness and the minimal human constraints in the best kind of campground.

It feeds something in me. Perhaps it mirrors my own inner seeking - like water seeks its level - to be simultaneously unfettered yet at rest within this life season’s constraints. 

Ponderosa Pine-ing For Good Vanilla - The Teller Trail, Bitterroot River, Corvallis, Montana

 Sister Three did not believe (read: she snorted a laugh) when I declared: "Some ponderosa pines smell like really, really good vanilla." The gauntlet thrown, I immediately spied a turnout near a likely specimen - and converted her by truth evidenced (amidst continued giggling because  other laid-back drivers passed by and we did, indeed, look silly leaning in close to sniff the craggy, russet bark). Hurrah for random weird and happy things worth knowing!

 

Mountain Medicine - Anaconda-Pintler Scenic Highway, Montana

”The doctor pressed her hand once more and hurried on his way. But Heidi remained standing in the same spot, waving until he seemed like a mere speck in the distance. When he turned around for the last time to look at her , he said softly to himself, 'It is good to be on the mountain. Body and soul get well, and life is happy again.'”  - from Heidi, page 199, by Johanna Spyri (1827-1901)

(Dive into the Anaconda-Pintler Scenic Highway here, and with more history here.)

Chosen Road Behind - Hwy 200 Near Lincoln, Montana

"It is our choices...that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities."
- J.K. Rowling (as quoted on p. 46 of Measure What Matters by John Doerr)

Wishing you wise choices in the things that matter most. 

Somewhere Time and Being - Paradise, Montana

"...Because in afternoon sunshine, time's there...
So when it's taken, with our words and seeing,
Let these words stand: now that was time and being.”

--From "Always Somewhere" by David Rothman

Singing Pines, Perhaps - Missoula, Montana

"Born like the pines to sing,

   The harp and song in m’ breast,

Though far and near,

There’s none to hear,

I’ll sing as th’ winds request."

- from Born Like the Pines by James Ephraim McGirt  (1874–1930)

Waiting Winter Trees - Corvallis, Montana

"Oh, they are lovely trees that wait

    In the still hall of winter,
    Silent and good where the Good Planter
Fixed the root, wove the branch delicate.

...And here, too, silent by their side
I stand in the woods, listening, upright,

Hearing in the cold of the long pause
    Of the full year
    What trees intend that I should hear…

~ from Trees of Winter by E.B. White

Awakening Snow - Missoula, Montana

"You wake up on a winter morning and pull up the shade, and what lay there the evening before is no longer there - the sodden gray yard, the dog droppings, the tire tracks in the frozen mud, the broken lawn chair you forgot to take in last fall. All this has disappeared overnight, and what you look out on is not the snow of Narnia but the snow of home, which is no less shimmering and white as it falls. 
The earth is covered with it, and it is falling still in silence so deep that you can hear its silence. It is snow to be shoveled, to make driving even worse than usual, snow to be joked about and cursed at, but unless the child in you is entirely dead, 
it is snow, too, that can make the heart beat faster when it catches you by surprise that way, before your defenses are up. It is snow that can awaken memories of things more wonderful than anything you ever knew or dreamed."

-Frederick Buechner, Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy, and Fairy Tale

March Madness - East Missoula, Montana

"It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade." - from Great Expectations (ch. 54) by Charles Dickens (1812-1870)

Long Shadows And Light - Bonner, Montana

"There are dark shadows on the earth, but its lights are stronger in the contrast." - Charles Dickens (1812-1870)

Wide River, No Hurry - Missoula, Montana

"Rivers know this: there is no hurry. We shall get there some day." – A. A. Milne (1882-1956), Pooh’s Little Instruction Book 

Shadows Stretch To Shore - Clark Fork River, Missoula, Montana

"Who hears the rippling of rivers will not utterly despair of anything." - Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)