#2. From Dawn to Dusk: Chasing Memories. To Montana

The clinking of the drapes. A sunrise.  Five mesmerized eyes.

A socially distant vacation

Life’s a big fat experiment. Though no future plans would involve driving through the night, if we hadn’t ever done so, missing from our lives would be spectacular dusk and dawn, badlands, mountain goats, endless deserts, and cramped mountain passes. So I am fuller because of my folly.

After a full night’s sleep in a hotel, we rose in time for another spectacular sunrise through the parking lot. Hello, new day!

Today, we planned to head further west, deeper into the Rockies to a quaint valley town named Anaconda, Montana, about eight hours away—a smidgen of what we’d already driven.

We skipped the hotel’s “buffet breakfast” despite it being included in our stay. In the tiny town, only McDonald’s drive-through beamed with cars, offering coffee and breakfast.

The Rockies had reckoned my oldest, and when Buffalo, Wyoming, ended and the Big Horns began, it not only silenced his questions: “Is this mound, this hill, the Rockies?”! but also gave him a sense of a destination. While the journey fascinates, also necessary is the fulfillment of a goal. The delightfully beautiful Big Horns rewarded us with solitude amongst photogenic vistas and the Meadowlark lake. I found myself steepling my hands in gratitude, thankful to be able to enjoy outdoors quietly and safely given the current times. We had stolen these precious moments from the bosom of a powerful pandemic. And when the flowing rivers comforted my spirit, I wondered why. Why did the gushing water’s gurgle that never ebbed, never slept, never tired, deliver tranquility? Is it the security it stays where you leave it, the way you leave it? Or is it because I don’t live next to its roar?

Whatever the case, I stopped editing Land of Dreams, my forthcoming book, that had troubled me plenty. I had brought two books, but I gawked out of my window today. Within an hour, the Big Horns came and passed. We entered a small town named Ten Sleep, Wyoming. One tale suggested it got its name because it took ten sleeps/moons to get here from Fort Laramie.

Had we stayed on US-16 W, we would have hit Lake Yellowstone. But we avoided the popular national park’s concentrated crowds today. Deep country surrounded us north before we stopped at Big Horn Lake by Shoshone river. There, you could hold a conversation with your echo amidst the remote, endless, and scorching landscape. The children succumbed to their iPads before we invested moments of nothingness, just plain old peaceful idleness—a commodity missing from modern life.

When we crossed Joliet, Montana, a small hub of 656 people, a distinct purpose hung in the air. Stalls of Trump souvenirs lined the highway. Home after home pledged their allegiance. Through Montana, South Dakota, and Wisconsin, Trump-labeled roadside trucks, shops appeared without fail. An early indication of momentum and energy?

Post Joliet, the heat climbed to one hundred degrees when I drove the last segment, accompanied by Yellowstone River and freight trains.

We loaded on quick-fix meals from Safeway inside the Historic town in Butte before hitting Hwy 1-N, beginning our final stretch.

Anaconda ranks tenth largest town in the state at 9K population with Butte at number five and Billings at number one. So relatively, we escaped living in a twenty-bodied village. Around the highway, old buildings jutted from the ground—coffee kiosks, gas stations, large grocery stores, pharmacies, etc. Then the newer residential zone began. Crossing Anaconda hurled us into the Lake country, reminding us of last August when we had cut through the Scottish Lochs. A hut perched in the shimmering Silver Lake. Further removed, the Georgetown Lake glittered, and our condo arrived, too. At the ripe hour of seven-thirty, we entered our tiny rental, studded with glass patio doors on all three sides, overlooking Dentons Point at the lake.

After disinfecting and showering, we popped frozen food into the microwave. And when I crashed on bed, fatigue drowned me in its embrace without permission.

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Exhausted, yes. But I was alive, I was here, and I was me on a mission called recuperation and rejuvenation.

Ah the blissful coat of deep, dark sleep.

Trivia:

Georgetown Lake is a manmade reservoir created in 1885 to power Phillipsburg and area mining. It got its name when it flooded an area named Georgetown flats.
Shoreline: 17.36 miles. Average depth: 16 feet. Surface area: 2,818.1 acres.

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