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)

I spent only six minutes in Montana. I crossed the border and exited the first chance I got, in order to turn around. I had seen a creepy looking ruin at the last exit in Idaho, listed as Humphrey. I went back into Idaho and exited Humphrey — there was nothing there. The road was roped off, and only this massive ruin remained — notable for its sheer size. I had to walk seventy yards up the off-ramp to get near it. I started to walk across the snowy field to it, and whoomp I went in up to my waist in crunchy snow. Undaunted I kept going, but after a while I came to the barbed wire barrier — which was made extra threatening due to the deep snow. Snow already starting to melt into my sneakers and jeans, I gave up at that point and got this picture with the Rollei Automat. Kodak 400NC has been good to me in the past, but this image came out rather strange. It may have been x-rayed at the airport, or perhaps Humphrey is just haunted.

Play “Hollow Hills” – Bauhaus

For unspecified but very valid reasons, my roadtrip actually started in Salt Lake City. Ascending north on the 15, it wasn’t long before my first unscheduled detour. I saw signs for Syracuse, UT. Thing is, I didn’t know there was a Syracuse, UT. But, I began life as a human in Syracuse, New York so I figured there must be something interesting there in Utah. Syracuse surely a place of auspice in any state. I saw signs, brown signs, suggesting a “Syracuse Museum” right this way. Following the signs, however, led me down and around and past a roundabout. Abruptly I was on a gravel road as rural and unhistoric as can be. I stopped to turn around when I noticed a rusted truck in a quiet field with some horses milling about, so I got out to see if there was a picture there. There, out in the middle of silent, sunny nowhere Syracuse, UT. As soon as I did, the horses all came over to me. Perhaps they were bored. They mugged and jostled for position, like I was the attraction there. The quietude and beauty of the horses overwhelmed me then, and I fully expected my car to explode. But, somehow it didn’t explode at all, so I checked the light, took some pictures, and got back on my way. Found my way back to the 15 and beyond.

Song of the day is “Can You Tell” by Ra Ra Riot, a band also from Syracuse — the one I’m from.