Takeaway View - Missoula, Montana

Today’s perfect closer: Takeaway supper from Vietnamese Noodle  with this side of smoke-hazed crepuscular rays. In Montana, even a humble parking lot features beautiful views.

Rainy Days - Flathead Lake, Montana

They say western Montana’s getting rain this week…here’s hoping…!

 “I loved the rain as a child. I loved the sound of it on the leaves of trees and roofs and windowpanes and umbrellas and the feel of it on my face and bare legs. I loved the hiss of rubber tires on rainy streets and the flip-flop of windshield wipers. I loved the smell of wet grass and raincoats and shaggy coats of dogs. A rainy day was a special day for me in a sense that no other kind of day was—a day when the ordinariness of things was suspended with ragged skies drifting to the color of pearl and dark streets turning to dark rivers of reflected light and even people transformed somehow as the rain drew them closer by giving them something to think about together, to take common shelter from, to complain of and joke about in ways that made them more like friends than it seemed to me they were on ordinary sunny days. But more than anything, I think, I loved rain for the power it had to make indoors seem snugger and safer and a place to find refuge in from everything outdoors that was un-home, unsafe. I loved rain for making home seem home more deeply.“   -Frederick Buechner, The Sacred Journey

US Hwy 135 Sunset - Clark Fork River near Paradise, Montana

 #794 - Things I Love About Montana: 

Even on a no-stops-allowed schedule, Big Sky majesty meets you right along the well-beaten path. 

(Safety first, tho’ - the perfectly placed turnout allowed a quick smell-the-roses stop where maximum sunset reflection mirrored the thankfulness overflow in my heart.)

Present Grace (Poppy) - Missoula, Montana

“The present is the only time in which any duty can be done or any grace received.”

-C.S. Lewis (1898-1963), from  Learning In War-Time, 1939

Spring Greens and Mountains - Mission Mountains, Montana

Layers of so much greenness near Flathead Lake, Montana, from the ongoing spring rain! But further Southwest, persistent precipitation provoked state of emergency flooding - along with an outpouring of  Big Sky sized kindness to assist families in the flooded communities.  We live, at times, precariously on the fine edge between extravagant  beauty and the fear of too much.

Mission Mountains Marsh Melody - Near Ronan, Montana

“The marsh, to him who enters it in a receptive mood, holds, besides mosquitoes and stagnation, melody, the mystery of unknown waters, and the sweetness of Nature undisturbed by man.” - Charles William Beebe (1877-1962), The Log of the Sun

Nestled - Bitterroot Valley, Montana

“We do not want merely to see beauty, though, God knows, even that is bounty enough. We want something else which can hardly be put into words  - to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it.”

-C.S. Lewis (1898-1963), The Weight of Glory

Late Grape Hyacinth Beauty - Missoula, Montana

“The beauty of the world is Christ’s tender smile for us, coming through matter.”

-Simone Weil (1909-1943)