320/365/Place

Montana is spring creeks.* It’s sleeping in a house-shaped tent on a cot and peeing outside in the middle of the night, for once thanking the gods for a midsize bladder because there have never been stars like this anywhere, ever. It’s an outdoor shower. Montana is watching storms from way across the valley. It’s Tim painting watercolors by the river. It’s a B&B, run by a couple of fabulous women, where we can dip toes into the Yellowstone River before dipping down into Yellowstone Park. Montana is floating and fishing the Missouri and, when mayflies rise at dusk, being surrounded by feeding nighthawks swooping in as close as prayer.

Montana is that scrape on my wrist, deep and diagonal enough to become a tiny scar, my souvenir.

*A state revisit for Bridgett.