Al and Natalie

Al and Natalie’s place near Missoula, MT

What a lovely, peaceful setting!

Western Montana, with its broad valleys and mountain ranges, has always appealed to me.  I’ve driven through it numerous times and it’s always been a ‘wow’ experience.  We are parked near Missoula, at the home of Al and Natalie.  Al is a college friend who taught school here, as did his wife, Natalie.  Their home is on a 5-acre parcel, surrounded by mountains, quite close on one side, many miles distant on the others.

The view to the north

Al working on Natalie’s honey-do chores

A and N live on Big Flat Road.  The road itself is neither big nor flat, but the area it serves is very much so.  Near the end of the last ice age, 13-16,000 years ago, Glacial Lake Missoula broke through the ice dam on the Clark Fork River and resulted in cataclysmic flooding.  This occurred over and over, 25 times or more.  The floods waters, with a volume 13 times that of the Amazon, and moving at 80 MPH, headed westward to the Pacific.  En route, they carved the Columbia Gorge, flooded the Willamette Valley down to Eugene, OR and beyond – and, of course, created A and N’s Big Flat.  Surfers, imagine hopping on your board in Montana and riding that massive wave all the way to the Pacific!  Wear your life jacket and pack a lunch.

 I’m a sucker for funny labels on beer and wine.  

Saw this one in a store in Butte, had to buy it.