Turning the page

     This weekend has left me feeling refreshed, hopeful, joyful, and most of all, grateful! We came to Montana for a few days to look for a home base for the winter as we learn this new area. Our goal was to find something that would fit us all somewhere hopefully in the country. As we journey back to Cheyenne to wrap up the final details of our life there we are looking forward truly to a new adventure with lovely new faces who already seem to hold the promise of becoming quite dear.
    

Through these gates...

      The need for a peaceful landing spot after this last few months seems to have been met by someone who is by far a better planner than I. In July I was hospitalized briefly and ended up on oxygen. It turns out that my general lack of energy and pep has probably been an inability to breath throughout our entire time in Cheyenne. Six thousand feet in elevation is a dramatic change from the forty feet above sea level from our home in Maryland. After three months on oxygen the pulmonary specialist and Mountain Man and I had reached the conclusion that my lungs simply were not adapting to the change. Trips to locations a mere 1,000 feet lower relieved my need for supplemental oxygen entirely and my breathing became regular. Fortunately the Mountain Man had continued to look for a way back to Idaho and was already receiving requests for interviews on various job possibilities. This is where another's plans enter the picture. We received two offers for what seems to be an ideal job, one in Boise, ID and the other in Missoula, MT.

Nice view on the commute for Mountain Man?

     In all our travels since moving west we have spent time in Idaho, Utah, Colorado, Nebraska, Wyoming, and South Dakota... We had not yet ventured into Montana at all. Comparing the size of the two towns alone kind of indicated a better fit for us in the more sparsely populated Western Montana. We really are small town folks at heart. So with a surprising twist after a year of looking to return to Idaho we find ourselves moving to Montana. Driving into Missoula on Thursday we found ourselves in awe of the beauty all around us. Mountains and forests, rivers and creeks, this definitely seems the place for us. Which brings us to the need to find a temporary home while we look for property for our forever home.

     We started with a list of addresses for rentals that would allow our Bear. Many of the contacts provided never returned our call. There were also several who asked that we schedule appointments online rather than simply speak to us in person. Two had full voicemails and no other way to contact them. The very first person to return my call introduced herself as the lady with the log cabin in the mountains in Montana. I spoke to her for fifteen minutes learning in that time that she was a retired wildlife Biologist, a spinner, a weaver, a wilderness activist; a lovely lady who upon retirement began living out her dream in the Montana mountains. At this point in her life she finds she needs to go somewhere warmer for the winter and so she looks for people to share her home over the half of the year while she is away. A wonderful woman who is happy to share her Montana dream with us while we find our final home here in the mountains means we will spend our first several months here helping to care for a lovely log cabin with a creek running behind it at the bottom of a gentle slope... there are two horses, a Sicilian donkey named Odie, a lovely goat, and several fun little chickens. We haven't met them all but there are also between 7 and 9 cats. Best of all the neighbors who are also the property managers seem to be wonderful people with whom we share a great deal in common including the fact that we are all just starting into our Montana adventure. They moved sight unseen three months ago to their new Montana life... Sound like anyone else you might know?

Part of the new back yard just after the deer left.

    Gratitude and amazement at our good fortune just fill me. I cannot adequately express how wonderful the last two days have been and how much I am looking forward to the future. After meeting everyone and seeing the property on Friday it was decided that we would come back on Saturday and help set up a tipi. Painted by our new neighbor, based on artwork from a book called "Gifthorse", based on a Lakota legend, raising the tipi together as a group seemed like a lovely start to this new joint chapter in all our lives. I will share more in the months to come.

The owner of the Lazy Susan and her tipi.