Smokey Mountain Canyon - Sharrott Creek Fire, Stevensville, Montana

“Break-through sunlight 

filters through wildfire smoke, and suddenly you see the depth of what you didn’t know existed - there is a canyon and a whole other hill where you thought it was just one big tree-covered mountain. And so it often is under the shining light of truth paired with love - you see what you could not see before, your perception widens.” -Cyndy Hull

Into The Gap - Jocko Falls, near Arlee, Montana

“There's this gap, Jack. This opening between the story it is and the story I had wanted it to be - that's where the pain is, and that's where God came in and where I now hope transformation can happen.”

“For too long we avoided that gap, didn’t we?”

“Yes. I turned way from it with every preoccupation known to man. But no more.“

Jack donned his tattered grey fisherman’s hat… “Whenever you’d like to talk about it, you know, our friendship is big enough even for the sorrow.”

 

—Patti Callahan in Becoming Mrs. Lewis (the audiobook is quite lovely!)

7 Degrees F - Corvallis, Montana

 As we drove down the Bitterroot Valley this morning to a special church service at The Place, The Best Husband Ever commented how bizarre that a mere month ago we were riding bikes in 80 degree F. 
But then he countered that you only see the mountain edges so crisply cut when it’s this cold and clear. Brrrrrr-eautiful!

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.)

Gibbon Falls - Yellowstone National Park

"Rainy hugged her and said, 'Love is the only river I know whose current flows both ways.' " 

- William Kent Krueger, Northwest Angle, p. 272

(Unlike this roaring one-way segment of the Gibbon River cascading over Gibbon Falls in Yellowstone National Park.)

Canyon Clouds, Mill Creek Canyon, Corvallis, Montana

Spring in the Rockies basically means winter’s not yet over.

The ritual first mowing of our lawn in Hamilton, Montana, was blessed with sunshine and blue sky peppered with fluffy white clouds - which contributed intermittent flurries of pellet-y snow! After late March weather in the balmy 60s F, our daytime forecast this week dips back below freezing. Good thing I procrastinated tucking any sweaters up on the top shelf.

Blodgett Overlook Trail, View to the West, Hamilton, Montana

“Every view from up here was mighty.”
 - “Dancing At the Rascal Fair” by Ivan Doig,  p. 278