#3. From Dawn to Dusk: Chasing Memories. Our Socially Distant Getaway

Happiness, define it? It’s in the wetness my children’s kisses leave on my face, in their smiles, in a book, in a meadow . . . When I canvased Montana’s vast expanse, a question tugged on my heart. What would it be like to live in a solitary home on a hill or by a stream or on a prairie? Would that be happier than happiest my children make me? I don’t know because a lucky person like me mustn’t ask for more. I cherish what each day gives me.

Today, Montana gave us its rural beauty through a gravel-filled scenic byway.

Children had had just enough time for breakfast and “rock climbing,” which is a fancy word for maneuvering around the rental lined by boulders, small in reality but large in imagination. When children imagine, a three-dimensional play unfolds.

And they had had just enough time for one other important act. That day was Rakhi. During India’s Rakhi festival, a brother and sister celebrate their bond by exchanging bracelets and prayers. Our morning began with this wonderful, tender act. My boys are lucky to have a bubbling, happy sister like Dua, which also means a blessing.

Then my littlest said to me, “Mamma, I want a superhero adventure and climb a mountain.”

Now that’s not an average four-year-old request. I’d to deliver.

We left our rental’s embrace and wandered into the wild, losing ourselves. Literally speaking.

So we entered Fuse Lake into our phones moments before we lost signal on an unpaved byway. Preloaded GPS directed us deeper into a narrower gravel road. And although it stretched a meager two miles, we drove for almost a half hour. The tiny road took a solid commitment because turning around was impossible. At the end, no parking lot, no sign flashed us a welcome, a sure clue that we were lost. Coated with mosquito repellents, we embarked on foot, feeling robbed of a destination to not be able to consummate the fling after risking our car through the big boulders. Hundred feet in, the trail split three ways without a trail sign. I pointed my cell and picked one based on the lake’s location on the map and did so on every split from there on then until we hit a mountain.

Then, I widened my eyes at my youngest. “Look, superhero adventure!”

That was it. He swung his arms, bobbed around branches, and led us up until my husband put down his foot. Separated from us by miles, Fuse Lake could be two mountains away. So I wish I could edit my story and say, we did it. But no, we suspended our heads and considered ourselves lucky to find our car. When we hit the main gravel road, a car zipped past us and into a clearing with a big sign, “Fuse Lake Trailhead”! Truth be told, our superhero adventure had tired me a little. We shook our heads and skipped the hike.

Still holding signal-less phones, we reached the roadside Skalkaho Falls, also the scenic byway’s name. We spent moments here, children climbing and rolling on the muddy hillside, the water slamming against the rocks, the cool, fresh water droplets coating joy on my face.

Next, we visited Montana’s Lake Como. From the car when we canvased the mask-less crowd on the beach and in the water, we delivered disappointment to our children. Away from the beach, we walked to an edge to snap a picture. For the little hearts who wanted to swim and splash, the photo-op was like leering a coffee addict with hot, bubbling beverage but disallowing a sip. They got over it.

The drive back to our rental on the scenic loop was beyond words. With lunch packed from home and drive-through coffee from a town named Sula, we crossed the Big Hole National Battlefield. Acres and acres expanded until wrinkly mountains carved the horizon. Countless cows grazed in the open land, ranch after ranch. As if dropped from the sky, giant-size paintings forming an unreal amalgamation of images, an unbelievable three-dimensional dream, we gawked and clicked photos for proof. But pictures are deceptively two-dimensional. At one point, we stopped the car and sat outside on the grass. Nothing but a river meandered nearby. Cows ran in the pastures like Dolphins hooped in the ocean. Tall, brown grass whistled and rustled. While our clothes slapped against our bodies, an awareness of time and space gripped our conscious. Questions pounded on our soul: Who are we? What does it mean to exist in that moment?

We made it home in time for us to walk across the street to the Lake that shined at us, leered at us through our rental’s glass walls. Carefree vacations should last long and be frequent. That’s all my light and happy heart thought as we wrapped another day in a neat little ball of bliss and allowed dusk to soak us in peace (even if short-lived).

Trivia:

Big Hole National Battlefield marks the location where the Nez Perce fought their largest battle with the US government over a period of five months in 1877.

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