Weather the Storm - Missoula, Montana

The Atlantic Hotel building has been an active locale in Missoula’s downtown business district since its construction in 1902. Designed by famed Missoula architect, A. J. Gibson, the ground floor originally housed a barber shop, saloon, and restaurant. Back in the day, a basic room on the upper floors would set you back seventy-five cents. Today, Circle Square 2nd Hand promises to buy anything - and they sell most everything, too.

Cool Cat - Missoula, Montana

"Whether they be the musician cats in my band or the real cats of the world, they all got style." – Ray Charles

(A special thanks to Maestro for tolerating me in his space, and to his people for sharing his coolness.)

'Antique' Tree - University Peak, Missoula, Montana

“Trees are your best antiques.” - Alexander Smith (1829 – 1867)

Into the Fog - Missoula, Montana

"...The reveries of ruins asked: “Will no  

one come?” The skeletons of trees inquired:  

“And who are you, forever on the go?”..."

- From 'In the Fog' by Giovanni Pascoli, as translated by Geoffrey Brock

Winter Courage - Missoula, Montana

"Get a bicycle. 
 
You will certainly not regret it.
 
If you live."  

– Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens), US writer and humorist (1835-1910)

Interestingly enough, this particular bicycle was parked outside that venerable Missoula beverage establishment, Charlie B's.

Foggy Winter Weeds - Missoula, Montana

“What would the world be, once bereft Of wet and wildness?

Let them be left, O let them be left, wildness and wet;

Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.”- Gerard Manley Hopkins: 1881  'Inversnaid'

December Charms - Missoula, Montana

"...How swift spring-summer-autumn drift

To epitaphs scrawled on a gift

Of moment-gold we cannot hold

For Time is insistent and bold

…and strips the bud that broke and thrilled

The limb where spring and summer spilled

To winds of phantom, freight-like train

That brings December once again

It rumbles from wide open skies

And showers silver sparkle-sighs

To eventide once dull and brown

December is November’s crown"

- From "December...again" by © Janet Martin

Ponder Janet's full poem here - your soul will thank you.

Lichen The Neighborhood - Missoula, Montana

"There are often inquiries about cultivating lichens...Alas, there's no reliable way anyone has found to keep lichens going once they've been relocated... We can't tame lichens; as Irwin Brodo has said, in Lichens of North America, "...lichens are the essence of wildness." " - Stephen Sharnoff, in his essay 'Lichens and Oaks: A Deep Partnership'