I’m watching the sunrise over aspens beginning to turn gold in the morning chill. A black bear and her two cubs bumble across the grass clearing. Two golden eagles seem to be stalling before heading south.
I’m stalling too, reluctant to leave this special place.
I watch from the window in the cabin of my dreams. My son-in-law, Mark, built it about seven years ago with a local architect who specializes in salvaging old barn wood.
My daughters find it a little too rustic for the babies; “Not child friendly,” they say.
I could move in here and happily stay forever. Of course, it’s autumn and the days are still warm, the nights just cold enough to turn Northwood maples crimson. Against a backdrop of pine and spruce, this is spectacular. I love snow, but I’ve never lived through anything as harsh as a Montana winter.
Still, I’m sad to be leaving. It took only seven days to adopt the Montana mindset. People are genuinely friendly and courteous, probably because there’s so little stress. In Bozeman, six cars waiting at a stoplight is a traffic jam. We went to the airport at 4 p.m. and at 10 a.m. in about 20 minutes. The terminal, a one-story, stone, wood and glass beauty, has only 20 flights a day. Parking is about 100 feet from the entrance. The rental return lot about 50 feet. Subaru Outbacks are the vehicle of choice.
The good news is drivers are courteous. The guy passing you at 75 mph in his pickup will smile and raise his hand (with no fingers extended). The bad news is he’s likely to have a beer can in it. And maybe a cell phone in the other. All perfectly legal. Personal freedom is prized here.
Still, the crime reports are a joke by California standards. On an average day, the Bozeman Daily Chronicle lists about eight incidents. Typically, bears in backyards, DUIs, petty thefts and guns missing or showing up in odd places. On a Sunday, the Bozeman Police reported: A man on East Main Street said that a police officer had stolen his ID. He then found his ID on the ground. Shocking! At 3:30 a.m. the same day, someone broke out a police car window with a beer bottle. No word if the bottle was full or empty. Gallatin County sheriffs reported an arrest for drunken driving: the suspect was cited and released because the jail was full. The same night, a 30-year-old man was arrested for drunken driving after skidding 180 degrees on a public road. He also was cited and released because the jail was full.
The obvious question is, who is filling those jail cells? The bear caught eating from a trashcan on Sourdough Road? Or maybe the driver who was stopped for going the wrong way on Babcock Street and was arrested on an outstanding warrant. On Thursday, the jail must have been empty because a man pulled over for failure to yield at an intersection was arrested for driving under the influence. Also, a man who was urinating in a parking lot, and another who had an open container of beer. He was arrested, not for the beer, but on an outstanding warrant. Probably one of those cited and released Sunday. The worst things reported that day were mailbox vandalism, a vicious dog at large and a caller who said, “some kind of animal” was stuck under his house.
You also can tell a lot about a town by its telephone book. Bozeman’s lists 20 pages of attorneys (many specializing in DUI defense), but only one page of burglar alarm/security and locksmiths; 25 pages of physicians plus 16 listed psychotherapists and 11 listings for help with alcoholism.
I think I get the picture.
The main reason for this trip is my daughters’ desire to relocate to Bozeman. At some point they might convince me to move there. Of course, I had reservations. I mean, it’s so, well, Republican.
Gov. Judy Martz, reportedly the “lapdog” of the extraction industry, the state’s biggest polluters, actually said: People who produce oil, wood and minerals are the true environmentalists, while people who sit in trees or tie themselves to logging trucks should “get a job.”
Extractors are those folks who suck coal bed methane from federal lands (national parks and forests) and in the process pump water from the ground so salty it pollutes streams, rivers, wells and irrigation water.
It’s ruined many Wyoming ranches, where whole groves of trees have died and pastures no longer will grow grass to feed livestock. The ranchers seem to have no recourse.
Compassionate conservatism at its ugliest.
The Realtor who drove us around wouldn’t even show us his listings in Bridger Canyon because CBM extractors hold leases there that are tied up in lawsuits. A beautiful area, just a few miles northeast of town near the Bridger Bowl ski area, is apparently no longer salable. What a shame.
Still, the whole time I was there, I was never honked at or flipped off, even though I almost went the wrong way on a one-way street and often stopped at intersections wondering which way to go.
That said, California isn’t what it used to be. And our two gubernatorial contenders aren’t so hot either. And while our canyon is lovely, it backs up to the Los Padres National Forest, where the Bush administration is handing out drilling leases.
So that’s the trade-off. A beautiful, pleasant, lily-white, Republican town with average snowfall of 73 inches and little crime (save drunks and marauding bears), or a balmy, traffic-clogged, gang-plagued, stressed-out city, with a vibrant, energetic and diverse culture.
I may get to choose.