So we'll write about travels past with our third Musketeer, Leesha, and about our new journeys. Like, for instance -- we spent Christmas in Montana this year -- sort of. We made it to Bozeman with four hours left in Christmas Day. There was this ice storm in Rapid City through Christmas Eve that left a three-inch thick coating of crystal clear ice on everything, and unceremoniously splattered so many of our friends on their backsides that nearly everyone we knew took a fall.
C
hristmas Day Drive to Bozeman: It was black ice for the first 150 miles on I-90 west of Rapid City, then road conditions got better. We stopped at the first place we could get out of the car without falling down -- the great new Wyoming Welcome Center and rest area just inside the Wyoming border with South Dakota. They did a superb job with it. Just beyond the pull-off, an eagle sat on a low hill.
The sky was cold and frosty, and there were planes flying Christmas travelers everywhere.
Christmas day feather clouds painted patterns across the Wyoming plains, with the Big Horn mountains far off on the distant horizon.Late in the afternoon, we found an open restaurant in Sheridan WY -- the Country Kitchen was having a Christmas Day buffet. What a welcome sight; everything else in every small town had been closed, as one might expect on Christmas Day. The food was simple and delicious.
We got into Bozeman waaay late in the pitch dark, of course. We were very happy to have driven the last 350 miles on reasonably cooperative I-90. No semi-trucks tipped on their sides going through Livingston, as used to frequently be the case in winter before DOT put in the mandatory "wind detour" past the mouth of the Yellowstone River Canyon. The canyon acts as a venturi to accelerate the wind into a truck-tipping froth through Livingston. Very few good-hair days in that neo-artsy little town.
Hunkered in Bozeman: In typical fashion, Bozeman's weather was cold and foul most of the ten days we were there. We've lived elsewhere most of our adult lives, and we often ponder why anyone would find Bozeman so chic these days. Mostly, as we remember it, the weather is just cold and gray for a lot of the winter. The streets are packed narrow with snow and ice that doesn't melt until spring, causing people to pull into parking spots to let other cars pass by on a lot of the claustrophobia-inducing town streets.
We did get out for one or two short jaunts around Bozeman during the couple very brief "sun episodes" of the trip. We think it's these little sun spells that people remember about Bozeman winters -- like how the memory of the one glorious day at the zoo with balloons, monkeys, and cotton candy stands out clear and shining from an otherwise unhappy childhood.
The brief sun woke up the Gallatin Valley after days and days of gray and gloom.
Back in town, we walked around the neighborhood looking for interesting shapes and light in the snow in an attempt to stave off the "stir crazies" from the cold and gray that shrouded Bozeman for days at a stretch. We finished off that day on the same block, waiting for the crock pot to do its magic. Leesha wouldn't have liked being cooped up in the house in this weather. She loved to explore Allen's back yard, but she didn't like snow on her paws. Text by Louise and Brian, Photos by Brian. All Text and Photos Copyright 2010 Goin Mobyle LLC.
