Blackfoot Memories

I didn't finish the last part of my trip. I'm still dreaming of Montana. It's a place of dreams that has been inside of me for a long time. It speaks of wide spaces, freedom and Legends of the Fall (my favorite movie of all times).... and being in country that is bigger than myself.
We said goodbye to the the small creatures of Logan's Pass. the peaks of the Continental Divide and Grinnell Glacier. Coming down the east side of Glacier is different. It's stark, with it's rivers running east; which seems odd for someone who has always lived on the west side of any big mountain range. There was a fire a few years ago which gives the area an almost ghostly appearance. St. Mary's Lake is beautiful and then the land starts to stretch out. The distances become further and the roads longer.
We drove up to Babb and back into the park along the Swiftcurrent Creek (against the current). It was getting late and we were tired. We parked at the Many Glacier Hotel. This was were we had chosen to stay the night. It was so beautiful.
This is where I want to take a moment to tell you that my "friend "D" and I consider ourselves highly intelligent and capable women. As I said before, we decided not to make reservations because we believed that it wouldn't be necessary. The weather, the time of the year, lack of people in the park.... it seems like a reasonable decision. At dinnertime, with a storm moving in from the west and fatigue settling in faster than the storm, we realized that we MIGHT HAVE MADE A MISTAKE. The Many Glacier Hotel didn't have a room available. None. So we drove back out to Babb and back down to St Mary. NO ROOMS ANYWHERE. Someone at the St Mary Hotel said that there might be a room at some "motel" on the way to Browning. Since we didn't have any other choices we drove toward Browning. When we saw the "motel" we drove right on past it and kept going. We preferred a motel that had lights on and looked like someone owned the place. So we drove on into Browning.
Let me tell you a little bit about Browning. It's halfway to Cut Bank in the middle of the Blackfeet Indian Reservation. It may have all the conveniences that are needed on the eastern side of the Rocky Mountains and is home to the Museum of the Plains Indians but when you pull into town on a rainy, cold weeknight.... hungry and wiped out tired, you fail to see the beauty of a place.
We finally found the WARBONNET MOTEL on Highway 464( recommended by a lady on the cell phone that had recommended the motel on Cut Bank Creek that looked like we might not wake up alive in the morning. The one we drove right on by a few miles back.) and parked in front of a sign that said "OFFICE", next to four other cars. OK.... this is where you really have to put your "big girl panties" on and bite the bullet. We considered sleeping in the truck but what the heck.... we were there and we were tired. We walked into a small "office" surrounded by a big room filled with paintings and a hall way with more paintings. The counter loomed ahead. The place smelled like smoke. It was to say the least.... dreary.
We rang the bell and a man came out of a room behind the desk. We told him we needed a room. Why else would we be there this late at night? We smiled.
He was very nice and said he had a room. Good! Finally, there was a room available. It was only $89. I envisioned what this $89. room would look like and then said to myself....."Don't think. Stop. Take the key. Go back out to the car. Get your bag. Don't think."
We grabbed some things and walked through a glass door that was shattered.... into a hall way that, again, smelled like smoke. Turning left we found our door number. At one end of the hallway a very small dog was barking, ferociously, at us. At the other end a beautiful girl was sitting on the floor with her door open, listening to her itunes. She waved at us.
We opened the door to our room. Now.... you know what we were expecting. What a relief it was to find a clean room with a really nice, clean modern bathroom, comfortable beds, a TV, toilet paper, little wrapped soaps and a Gideon's bible. We almost knelt down and prayed together. Would have been a first since we were kids.
Someone tried to open our door and then said they were sorry. We hoped it was a guest. That's when "D" went back out to the car and got her revolver. Then we propped a chair under the door knob and went to bed. Sometimes you just have to have faith that everything will be OK..... but just to be safe "D" slept with her gun under her pillow and I slept with my wallet inside my pajama top. It was a little uncomfortable but very reassuring. I had strange dreams which I won't go into. Don't remember much else. We left early the next morning and drove to East Glacier where we ate a huge breakfast and then drove back to Columbia Falls along the Middle Fork of the Flathead River. Beautiful country.
When "D" husband found out that we had stayed overnight in Browning he almost had a heart attack. I heard him on the other end of the cell phone. Yep! He was upset. But, you know what? I saved at least $200. on the room we would have gotten in Many Glacier. and we learned a valuable lesson about making reservations no matter what time of the year it was.

On our drive back around the park on highway 2,we had to stop for some perilous situations that kind of tied up traffic...

and to take pictures of amazingly beautiful scenery....
But nothing will ever seem as much an adventure as driving into Browning, Montana on a cold and stormy night.... and living to tell about it.

Bear Cub has a Bad Day... and other Glacial thoughts.

updated 7/27/2010 8:06:22 PM ET
COLUMBUS, Ohio — TV host and zookeeper Jack Hanna says he took his own advice and used pepper spray on a grizzly bear headed toward him.
The Columbus Zoo keeper and frequent David Letterman guest said he was with his wife and other hikers in Montana's Glacier National Park on Saturday when a bear cub, weighing about 125 pounds, charged them. Hanna told The Columbus Dispatch that he held up a canister of pepper spray, which he takes routinely on hikes.
"At about 30 feet, I unload my pepper spray, and the wind takes it," he told the newspaper.
But the bear kept coming. Hanna sprayed toward the animal again, but still it kept coming.
"Then the third time I unload that pepper spray right in his face," Hanna said.
The bear turned around and fled.
Hanna said he's been carrying pepper spray on hikes for 15 years, but Saturday was the first time he's used it.
The group was returning from Grinnell Glacier by way of a narrow trail with a cliff on one side and a steep drop-off on the other. They rounded a corner and saw a mother bear and two large cubs about 30-feet away coming toward them, the newspaper reported Tuesday.
"We thought of letting them go by, but the trail was cut into the rock and was too narrow," Hanna said. "So I said, 'Everybody talk loud and we'll back up until we can get off the trail.'"
They moved slowly back up the trail to a clearing.
"I said, 'Crawl up the hill and put your backs against the wall,'" he said.
Then they stood still while the mother and one cub passed by. The other cub, instead, charged toward them.
Hanna had recently filmed a message for the National Park Service encouraging hikers to carry pepper spray. ~associated press story~

The bear CUB attacked them.... the bear CUB. Not the mom, but the baby.
This was only weeks before we drove into the park and if it could happen to Jack Hanna, it could happen to anyone. Obviously, the bear cub didn't know who this man was. Children have no respect for their elders these days.
So.... we decided that we would NOT be going on any long hikes with or without a guide, with or without other people. We also went into a store in Apgar Village, at the west entrance, and these spray cans of what they call Bear Spray were $50.00 a can and it's recommended that you take two of them with you. That was the clincher.
The problem is that something happens to you when you get into this park. I think it's some kind of hypnosis. All of sudden you see this....










...and this.







You forget everything else that made sense before you drove into the park. This is a magical place. The view sweeps you into another world. Lake McDonald's Rorschach like reflections ink-blot impressions on your emotions that eliminate any reservations you had about not being safe.


You stand on the edge of astounding beauty and the Grizzly bear becomes one small part of the wilderness before you. The Black Bear, Elk, Mountain Goats and the Bighorn Sheep exist only as a part of the whole and therefore seem far less ominous.

This is the first psychological test that greets you as you step onto the edge of this great preserve. It is a deceptive loveliness that takes away your safety net and makes you vulnerable.
Standing on the edge of this lake I think I could hear the earth breathing....

Post #2- A Very Special Life

I wonder, now that I'm home and have had time to chew and swallow my whole vacation experience, how many folks really make a conscious choice to live their dreams. I think that my friend "D" and her husband do this more than anyone I know and it's not an easy thing.
You make choices in life. The reality is not always what the dream was. There are all the little things that you don't anticipate... the fact that you have to go where the work is and leave your home a lot. There's the constant effort to live simply and maintain a lifestyle that makes you and your partner happy. There are compromises, fears and that unsettling feeling that life will make things change and that, as you get older, it will be harder to make this lifestyle work.
You start holding onto things but also want to let go. What you say you want to do and the pull of "making a living" start to grate on each other. Then you think about the accumulation of material things that make life more comfortable but become logs caught in the roots of boggy, snagging permanence. Freedom is calling..... the elk of the high country are bugling your name and the quaking Aspen are whispering " come to us". It's not an easy thing when you have always been a free spirit but have a longing for "place"

This is a very special "place". This home reminds me of my grandmother's home in the hills of Napa.... only cleaner and with a flair for creativity. Henny, the chicken, knows. She has made her wishes clear. She wants breakfast every morning and to be tucked in at night. It's what all chickens want in life.

Last year when my mother died, "D" was there. She didn't get there in time to be with Mom but sometimes things don't work exactly the way you anticipate and Mom couldn't wait. So it is with life and death. But "D" came and she was present in that great time of need . She helped us so much with so many things. She helped us grieve and wrapped her arms around our sadness. When she was ready to leave I asked her to, please, take something, anything, that she wanted to remember Mom . She took some little bird statues, some glass eggs and a few other small things and then said that if we sold any of the furniture she would like to buy the kitchen table because she remembered so many wonderful times there and that table had always been in that place. It had so many memories for her. We didn't sell it to her. My sister and I gave it to her and helped her load the table into her truck. We gave her the one thing that she really wanted. It seems the most perfect person for it to go to.
She took that oak table home to Montana and during my visit I found the table in the upstairs bedroom, in a quilt making area, close to the bed. Every morning I would wake up and see the table. What a wonderful gift.... to know that this table is in my friend's house. I could hear my mother's voice saying " Yes, this is a good place for this table. It's found a new home. I'm so happy it's here." ...and so it goes. Sometimes we make choices that seem so right. Sometimes happiness is just there in the reflection of an old oak table and life is what it is.

I don't really have a 3rd post now that I condensed the photos into collages. I'm done for the day. Tomorrow "D" and I will be off for Glacier National Park.

Post #1- My Luxurious Accomodations

This is the view from the upstairs room I was sleeping in at "D"s house. I had the penthouse suite with another king size bed and views as far as the eye could see. This is looking west to Lake Koocanusa and the Percell Mountains in the Kootenai National Forest; home of the Yaak. This is where Rick Bass(one of my favorite writers) writes his wonderful books about his life, his dog Colter and the vanishing wilderness. In the days to come we will drive through the Yaak and experienced the isolated area first hand but at the time I took this picture the only things that I could see to the West was a dark range of mountains with a storm coming in our direction....one of the distant vistas of Big Sky country.
Below is the same window as above. I backed away so I could take a picture of "D"s beautiful window coverings. All her curtains are from beautiful quilts that she makes and uses for her windows and interior doors. They are unique and beautifully transparent with the light coming through them. They also insulate from the cold in winter.


(I'm having trouble with the uploading of my photos so bear with me.)

When the sun shines through these quilted curtains they look like stained glass.
Very lovely.






I made myself at home, throwing my shoes on the floor next to the bed and leaving my bags all over the place. They gave me a place to relax and unwind and that I did.
The first day at "D"s home I met her husband, the mountain man himself, and again they slept in their trailer so I could have the comforts of home upstairs.
The mountain man built this house and all the outbuildings by himself. He mills the logs that he harvested from the forest. He and "D" went to the rivers and brought back all the stones that built the foundation. The windows are recycled from other old homes. This house is a labor of love for both of them and still, when I arrived, they slept in their trailer so I could sleep inside the house. Is that not Montana hospitality?
This home is so beautiful. It's a natural and ecologically fitting home that doesn't make a scar on the environment like some of it's neighbors... who brought the "bigger is better" philosophy with them from some other place and even have gardeners to mow their lawns. Yep!

Honest story here..... when "D" and the mountain man arrived on their property a few years ago with their sheep wagon and all their worldly belonging in a truck, they were confronted by this neighbor( with the manicured lawn) and the first thing he asked them was if they were going to build a house or live like a "typical" Montanan. Wow! how's that for neighborly chit chat? Now I don't know what a typical Montana native is suppose to live like but that's just rude and the mountain man took offense. It was not pretty and they haven't talked to each other since. I would imagine that, now, when this "neighbor" sees this beautiful house that was built and the sheep wagon next to the most amazing barn/workshop ever.... and the lovely chicken house... that he is eating his words. But, we'll never know because the mountain man built a new road into their property and avoids the "neighbor" like the plague.
(Because I'm having trouble with the posting of photos I will do three posts today. I'm back to the old blogger photo upload and until I figure out what is wrong with the new one and why it won't let me upload photos from my files, I will have to limit my photos to three per post. I wish they wouldn't change what doesn't need fixing.)

First two days in the Flathead

I have decided that flying can be FUN. There, I said it.... That wasn't hard. It almost convinces me that it really is fun and that, somehow, makes it easier. Mostly, it's getting my mind into a different place where I can find interest in something besides how high I'm am. At the same time, looking down at the landscape below is so interesting that I find myself forgetting where I am and focusing on seeing the country in a different way....

Of course I checked the wing to be sure that it didn't have a crack in it or gasoline leaking out. Everything was fine. Then I looked down at the landscape of Nevada...

I would imagine that when the pioneers came across this land, from the great Salt Lake in Utah, to the deserts and plains of Nevada and then came up against the Sierra Nevada Mountains that they probably figured they were pretty much going in the wrong direction. This is desolate territory. It must have been slow and miserable in a wagon train. It made my hour and a half airplane ride even more appealing.
Nevada is beautiful in it's own way. It's starkness has a beauty that is so different than California. Once you leave the farms that make colorful patchwork quilts of the great central valley, the mountains with their many shades of greens and the blue water of Lake Tahoe and fly east, the landscape becomes a flat terrain of simple contrast... light and dark, that is only broken by clouds darkening the already binary terrain. The contrast of light flat ravines and dark spare mountains is startling.
As we came into Salt Lake City we experienced a small amount of turbulence. I heard a child a few seats in front of me say, " Oh daddy, this is just like a roller coaster." This gave me pause for thought. I've never been on a roller coaster, never will, but it did make me feel better that we landed safely and that a little girl thought it was fun.
We changed planes and were off for Kalispell.

And within an hour and a half we flew into the Flathead Valley of Northwest Montana. This was what I had been waiting for....
My friend, "D", was waiting with a big smile and a hug. No stiff drink, but that's OK because I was so glad to be there and have my feet on the ground, that I didn't even need to alter my state of mind. Montana IS a state of mind all by itself. We retrieved my bags and left the airport.
"D" is working in Kalispell but lives about 70 miles north so during the week she rents an apartment in Big Fork and then heads home for the weekends. When we pulled up to this huge utility building I was beginning to wonder what kind of accommodations I was going to sleep in that night. I wondered what was inside this big, huge building and was I going to find some clean hay in a corner with a horse for warmth.

Not to worry. This was a wonderful "apartment" with a big living area, a bathroom and a bedroom. Once inside we had all the conveniences of home....AND a king size bed. "D" said she would be sleeping in the trailer so I got the whole bed to myself. It was a luxury I didn't expect. No amount of arguing about it did any good. "D" wanted to sleep in the trailer which she is very use to because she and he husband live in it sometimes up to 4 or 5 months out of the year. So Farmlady got the royal treatment on her first night in Montana. She slept like a dead person.
The next morning I woke up at 5:30, raring to go. Must have been the one hour time difference. When "D" came in we fixed some coffee and breakfast, talked about what we were going to do all week and the fact that we were finally together again.
Later in the morning we drove into Kalispell. We went to a coffee shop on Main Street. Will you look at that beautiful foam leaf on top of my latte? This place is awesome....

Looked up places we wanted to go on the Internet....

And made plans for the remainder of the day, enjoying our coffee with the foam leaf on top and watching all the people come and go...

It was so relaxing....

right down to the last foamy leaf in the cup. I wrote down all the places we were going to consider staying overnight in after we drove over the "Going to the Sun" road in Glacier National Park and phone numbers for reservations.
Then, we decided not to make reservations because the rush of tourists were gone....families would not be vacationing because most children were back in school ....and it was September....and we just didn't think we needed to call ahead. BIG MISTAKE!!!
We took a walk down to a yarn store called Camas Creek Yarn.

Yes,, that sign has been completely covered with knitted yarn and the bee must have been confused about what this pole was. He was looking for pollen on a blue flower that was never going to satisfy him. Poor little guy.
This store was amazing. There was so much yarn and every conceivable item that you would need for any project that you might want to take on. Lots of beautiful hand spun yarn that was hand dyed, lots of classes to take and very knowledgeable women working in the shop. Plus, look at the store, it's just charming.
We went to the Hockaday Museum and looked at some beautiful paintings of the wild animals and countryside done by famous painters including Charles Russell.

We drove back to Big Fork and collapsed. This was just the beginning....

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'.

Tomorrow's the Big Day

Remember.... wherever you go, there you are. ~Earl MacRauch~ The Adventures of Buckaroo Bonzi Across the Eighth Dimension (film), 1984

Got my boots....  (Yes, I will double tie my shoestrings.)  Do you like the socks? Had to add a little "California" to the Montana landscape.
 And, as John Denver wrote..."All my bags are packed. I'm ready to go".
See you in a couple of weeks.

Montana.... here I come.

"Cause I'm leaving on a jet plane
I don't know when I'll be back again..." ~John Denver~

Well, I actually do know when I'm going and when I will be back, but Thursday....  I'm going to Montana.

I will fly to Salt Lake City and then take a "2 seat Cessna prop" to Kalispell. Nope, I'm kidding. That's what the Prospector said because he knows I'm not comfortable flying in airplanes. He isn't either but I'm the one that's getting in the airplane so he thinks it's OK to give me a bad time. I'm sure that the flight to Kalispell will be in a good sized Jet with plenty of fuel and why would a terrorist want to mess with a little trip to north west Montana anyway. What would they fly the plane into? a grizzle bear? I'm sure that the flight will be fast and uneventful. Right? Right?
I'm so excited about this trip. I wanted to take a train... but that would have cut into my time up there with my friend and that's a trip that the Prospector and I want to take in a few years...together. So, I have to put my "big girl" pants on and just get into the airplane and GO.

Just look at what awaits me....

This is the view from my friend "D"s property. This is "Big Sky" country. She and her husband built their own home and live a life style that most of you can only dream of. I have lived her life vicariously for years. Even when we were teenagers I would see her off at the airport as she flew, with her parents, to every part of the world. I always wanted to go with her but I would stand at the airport window and wave goodbye as she flew to Europe, Africa and the Middle East to be with her family. She was the first "jet setter" that I knew. She was my world traveling friend. She would come home every summer and we would continue being best friends. She became a part of our family and well...I wrote a post about it some time back. Take a look here.

She came back to California in her 20's to go to college and then she finally settled in the northwest.. then Idaho and then Montana. She has been up there for many years now and says that she will never leave.
She lives in the middle of nowhere... but it's the most beautiful "middle of nowhere" I have ever seen. I've only seen photos. Now I will get to see all of this... in person. For the first time in ours lives I will be the one stepping off the airplane while she waves from the terminal building. She said it was "my turn" and that's true. It is.

A few years ago they built a chicken house on their property. She has two grandchildren that live in the Seattle area and come to visit every now and then. This photo was taken  of "D" and her granddaughter sitting in the almost completed chicken house. I love it. It reminds me of how long we have known each other 

and how far we have come in our lives.

And yet.... how much things stay the same. When the little girl, came busting out of her grandmother's car in the 1950's, snapping pictures with her little Brownie camera and running around in circles.... I knew that we would be friends for a long time. This was "D". She was my hero and still is.

But... she better be standing there in the airport terminal with a stiff drink in her hand and a big "Atta girl" look on her face. I don't fly for just anyone. I can't wait to get my feet on the ground and then , as the song goes...." I don't know when I'll be back again..."

P.S. Please do not comment about your BAD experiences on airplanes. Only "atta girl" comments will be allowed. Thank you.