redfishingboat

Wait, was that a rifle shot?

Another booming crack echoed arced over the foggy hilltop.

Yes, those are rifle shots! I realized, and decided leave this anonymous roadside scene I had stopped to take a picture of.  As, I quick-stepped it back to my rental car, I had visions of explaining bullet holes to a spectacled Hertz agent.  I suppose I should have also considered what a bullet would do to my knee or skull, but I’m a photographer! I dodge bullets by default.

Welcome to Montana.

I’d never been to Big Sky Country before, and when a Flickr friend announced a unique exhibition of his work, I figured there was no real reason not to journey to Missoula. So, I’d plotted a trip starting five hundred and twenty-seven miles away at the Salt Lake International airport. A lot of driving and a few hotels later, I got to spend a solid three days in Montana.  It turned out to be quite a task convincing my pal I’d really made the trip. It’s not like we’re old friends, so this was admittedly a little random. My posting of a mobile photo showing a flyer for the photography show that had been stapled to a pole in the neighborhood finally cemented the reality.

So, being out here on a rural highway in intense fog was a microcosm for all that. After going to the show, and having dinner with some wonderful people, and sampling some unique Missoula nightlife, my friend suggested I check out Lake Arrowhead, a fun drive north of Missoula. A great suggestion, despite some stubbornly intense fog.  It got so gnarly that I really wanted a photo of a scene of the sun losing a battle against the icy blanket. I stopped along the side of the road by a snowed in path with a little pastoral fencepost, and took some photos before the shots rang out, eerie and completely insane in the frosty silence. Balancing the best case scenario — that someone was shooting a rifle in the fog not knowing I was there shooting with a camera — against the worst case — that someone didn’t like me nosing around their property takin’ pictures– I felt a quick exit was the best policy in either case.  I get in the car and accellerate smoothly, thankfully, shiveringly away.

Where do I really begin about the place Missoula, Montana though? Love at first sight with a town? This never happens to me. I felt a mesh while strolling the streets and talking with people, and I felt a part of that mesh, intertwined with the strands of community. There was something human there that I hadn’t felt in a very long time. I wish I had the craft to describe the warmth of a collective of buildings, streets, roads, and wonderful people. I don’t know what the future has in store for me, but I know that it would be profoundly tragic if I never do create new footprints in Missoula again.

I did so much driving on the trip, over sixteen hundred miles in all. I listened to a ton of country music on the radio. I saw more horses in one week than the rest of my life combined. I got drunk with new friends, I got sober in strange motels.

Also, I took pictures. I got only a sliver of the full experience recorded in images. The rest is stuck in my head waiting to be written. For now, here’s a slideshow from the one week adventure: (and, a song to go with it)