Happy Birthday "D". I'm home and all is well.

I have returned from my amazing trip to Montana. I need some time to assimilate the journey, the  perspective  and the depth of emotion that has become a part of me.
First of all I want to wish my friend "D" a very happy birthday. I wish I  had made my reservations to extend a few more days so we could have celebrated this day together but I think that we did CELEBRATE for 12 wonderful days and, after all, we did have to get back to our lives at some point so I guess Monday was as good as any day to return. My mind and heart are still in the Montana mountains and I can feel the magic of that beautiful country lingering all around me....and the dear friend that I didn't want to leave.
We have known each other for so long.....

 "D" gave me this photo when we spent some time looking through an album of pictures that dated back to our high school days. This one was taken about 1959 at an airport that we both worked at in Concord, CA. We are so young, about 15 maybe. "D" was home for the summer. She stayed for a year of high school and then she was off again to another foreign country until she came back to go to college. We were so young and filled with possibilities.
Now, we have shed the skin of youth...

and grown older....

We are fifty years from that charming, unbaked youth. We are in our "golden" years. Well "cooked", grayed and wrinkled, but more relaxed in our being....more warmth than blazing fire. This is a friendship of time and enduring comradeship, and now, new memories.
I have so much to tell....

This is Henny.... resident hen at "D"s home. She welcomed me the first morning as we sat on the edge of the porch and discussed life in this high Montana valley. She is a very educated chicken in the ways of country life and caretaker to an old rooster that shares her life.. here. She loves to sit on "D"s lap and so it began.... sitting in the sun, talking about our lives, enjoying the view. It was a "chicken in your lap" kind of vacation with spurts of amazing activity. Over the next week I will have stories to tell and pictures to post.
This is where the story radiates from....a hand built home in the northwest corner of Montana.

This is the pilgrimage I took. This is my dear friend's life and I'm so glad that we have made the effort to maintain this sisterhood of years.
Happy Birthday "D". I miss you... but I will come back soon... with the Prospector... and some Ben and Jerry's ice cream..... and we'll all go fishin'.