Montana Musings
So I'm starting to think I should rename this blog Really Bad Nostalgia Trip.
Today it started with an Oregon chai. It's been lovely chilly and rainy here in the mornings which is inexplicably the best time for both getting up early and sleeping late. Today I succumbed to the latter, failing to eat breakfast before I left home. I'm not much of a Starbucks person, but today stopping in for a hot, milky beverage seemed the right thing to do.
I was instantly transported to the fall of 2000, when I was living in Missoula, Montana, and working at a very successful, locally-owned natural foods store, the quality and integrity of which I haven't yet found an equal to. Although I didn't much like working at the store - I didn't really fit in with my hipster coworkers, and I was understandably struggling to adjust to a drastically different environment - the vaguely bubblegummy flavor of my Oregon chai stirred up a few pleasant, semi-forgotten memories.
Once at my desk I began working on a project about the Plateau Indians - familiar names like Salish-Kootenai, Ravalli, the Clark Fork River started coming up, and I was lost in remembering.
Huckleberries. Salmon. Cardamon ice cream cones at the Big Dipper, which was auspiciously placed at the halfway mark of my walk from work to home. Being able to walk to the farmers market on Saturday mornings or better yet, Wednesday evenings, when you could enjoy your huckleberry pastry and espresso in the gathering dark. Except being on the edge of Mountain Time, it often didn't get dark until 10 pm in the summer.
Driving up Highway 93 ("Pray for me, I drive Highway 93") toward Flathead Lake, a road which has morphed into a semi-mythical landscape in my dreams. (I learned to drive, at a rather late age, in Montana. )
Going to Lolo Hot Springs, lying in the warm water and smelling the cold, pine-redolent air. Driving back in the rain and seeing rainbow after rainbow after rainbow arcing over the mountains.
There was one fall day, too, that involved standing in line forever to get a s'more. I don't know where this was. And then later in the day...a haunted house (no, a haunted forest) up in the hills that was only accessible via this creepily decked out old school bus that now makes me think of Fairbanks 142 but then just seemed kitschy and nostalgic and good Halloween fun.
Today it started with an Oregon chai. It's been lovely chilly and rainy here in the mornings which is inexplicably the best time for both getting up early and sleeping late. Today I succumbed to the latter, failing to eat breakfast before I left home. I'm not much of a Starbucks person, but today stopping in for a hot, milky beverage seemed the right thing to do.
I was instantly transported to the fall of 2000, when I was living in Missoula, Montana, and working at a very successful, locally-owned natural foods store, the quality and integrity of which I haven't yet found an equal to. Although I didn't much like working at the store - I didn't really fit in with my hipster coworkers, and I was understandably struggling to adjust to a drastically different environment - the vaguely bubblegummy flavor of my Oregon chai stirred up a few pleasant, semi-forgotten memories.
Once at my desk I began working on a project about the Plateau Indians - familiar names like Salish-Kootenai, Ravalli, the Clark Fork River started coming up, and I was lost in remembering.
Huckleberries. Salmon. Cardamon ice cream cones at the Big Dipper, which was auspiciously placed at the halfway mark of my walk from work to home. Being able to walk to the farmers market on Saturday mornings or better yet, Wednesday evenings, when you could enjoy your huckleberry pastry and espresso in the gathering dark. Except being on the edge of Mountain Time, it often didn't get dark until 10 pm in the summer.
Driving up Highway 93 ("Pray for me, I drive Highway 93") toward Flathead Lake, a road which has morphed into a semi-mythical landscape in my dreams. (I learned to drive, at a rather late age, in Montana. )
Going to Lolo Hot Springs, lying in the warm water and smelling the cold, pine-redolent air. Driving back in the rain and seeing rainbow after rainbow after rainbow arcing over the mountains.
There was one fall day, too, that involved standing in line forever to get a s'more. I don't know where this was. And then later in the day...a haunted house (no, a haunted forest) up in the hills that was only accessible via this creepily decked out old school bus that now makes me think of Fairbanks 142 but then just seemed kitschy and nostalgic and good Halloween fun.
posted by Christine Borne at 9:45 PM
5 Comments:
not enough Scott Rodas
there's *never* enough scott rodas....
i LOVE the book into the wild. just found your blog and am enjoying reading it. i cracked up at the title. i'm from cleveland too. well, not really but close enough (mentor). i also live in queens.
-jackie:)
if you are from mentor you probably have a cleveland accent too. i like queens because it's the only borough that even remotely reminds me of cleve-o.
i totally have a bad cleveland accent. and, of course, i call mentor "menner."
where do you live in queens? i'm in jackson heights--the indian part.
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