July 24, 2009
We left on our road trip on Tuesday morning, Alpie in mourning because he is staying at Sanctuary in the care of a Concordia student who has agreed to live at our house looking after him as well as the birds, fish and flowers. The first day’s drive ended at a little cabin in the Badlands National Park in South Dakota. In this place, there were jagged, white other-worldly formations of ancient volcanic ash with only a few plants struggling to live at their bases, and where the signs saying “Beware the Rattlesnakes” were prominently displayed. These depicted a large, ready to strike snake, and we were very inclined to stay on the center part of the path. At a trailhead called “The Window”, a woman with three teens wished to have herself and two of them standing next to one of the signs, with the rock formations in the background. She seemed tired, shrill, and impatient as she instructed the boy with the camera just how he had to include the sign and peaks in back of them in the photo; it was easy to imagine that she was crafting the story that she would tell when she returned home, about how they went on anyway, in spite of the snakes that were everywhere – how one of the boys nearly stepped on one, etc., etc. On another path we met a family from Italy. It is always a surprise to meet people from other countries in these very remote places so many miles from anywhere at all.
After driving over a thousand miles, we arrived at our destination yesterday afternoon, and within the first several hours, we experienced high winds, a wonderful wild storm, then calm, and sightings of bald eagles and osprey with their young out over the river. A stand of very tall cottonwood trees is nearby, and many yellow and purple finch, black-headed grosbeak and Brewer’s blackbirds appear to make their homes there. Our friends have wren houses everywhere, and all of them are occupied, so the river sounds and the bird sounds are wonderful.
This morning I look out the window to view the Madison River in the foreground and the Madison mountain range beyond. A man is fishing in the river, and it looks as though he is coaxing something into his net to remove the hook and line. People come to fish for trout, however, it is “catch and release” at this time. There are white faced angus cattle grazing on the water’s edge on the near side – our hosts tell us the cows and calves come across from their ranch home to munch for the day. The old saw “The grass is always greener on the other side” is alive and operational on this splendid July day in Montana.