Down Home in Montana

On our way to see my sister in Philipsburg Montana (Knitting Mania) we traveled for miles and miles and miles….to find a place to pee! Some suggested this Boston raised gal use a tree. Uhhh nooooooooo…. it wasn’t going to happen. I think we finally hit a proper rest room 15 minutes outside of Missoula. Seriously… they had signs for parking & fishing stops every little bit. But no flush toilets. My goodness! This was on a major freeway I -90 right through the middle of the state.
You know it just never occurred to me that if you were traveling in the U.S.A. you would have to plan to use a rest room or hold it for three hours. Okay, okay enough already about Montana’s lack of modern day conveniences. It was rather astounding, but what also has grabbed my attention just like it did the last time I was here 2002 is how strikingly gorgeous this country is. Big Sky Country does not even begin to tell the story.

On top of the hillside/mountain where my sister’s home is I took a few snap shots. The day was a little over cast and threatening to rain. After a wonderful lunch of hot tortilla soup and corn bread Chris and I went to town to do a little shopping. We had a wonderful time chit chatting it up with the town folks, and bought a few do dahs. It was so funny when I was rummaging around in this one shop and I kept eyeballing this funny little wired bird thing…just as I was deciding whether to buy it or not, my sister tells me she bought two of them one in each size. That did it; I had to have one too. I have no idea where I am going to put it? We tend to like similar things, and if one of has it, well…it is just a sister thing: D

Anyways the big moment of the trip was this. We were heading back up to the house. The boys were barbecuing dinner. We ran into this dark heavy low cloud of rain, but we could see that right in front of us the sun was shining. I was thinking how strange it seemed to have such an obvious weather change right in the middle of the road. In one car length the pouring rain turned into sunshine. We were so amazed. Then we saw it, a big bright rainbow, no it was a double rainbow, and we could see where it started and where it ended. We popped out of the car, and started dancing back and forth across the road freaking out just a bit like a couple of little kids. Then I got out my crummy snap and shoot camera and tried my best to capture the moment. I could see the whole rainbow, but could not fit the whole rainbow in my picture. We snapped away twirling around and round. We had a bunch of pathetic cows mooing all around us. They had just had their babies taken away from them that very morning, and it was a very sad day on the cattle ranch. But what a Montana hootenanny moment that was!!! It lasted maybe 5 minutes before the weather moved on and the rainbow dissipated. I was so wishing Megan could have been there with her fancy camera to have captured the moment. But you know it was a special moment for just my sister and me to have witnessed. It felt like a foretaste of glory divine. Thank you Jesus!

I have got to admit I can see how this country can get a hold of you and kind of grab you by the throat. Everything about this place is slow and easy. There is only one spot on a bend of one road on the way up to my sisters that we can make a cell connection for our phones. Internet…well I have to sit in one particular spot of the coffee house to get on line. I can see myself coming here for weeks in the summer just to sit on my sister’s deck and paint. I can’t wait till they get this place done so I can come home for some Montana reprieve from the real world where my life seems to be spinning in constant motion. Who knows I might get to see one of those double rainbows again touching down on either side of me , a place where God smiles over His creation.

Well we had a few more adventures today, but I will let my sister tell....the rest of the story :D