April Skies

Took one of my spontaneous drives today. They're becoming a weekly tradition.
This time, a first! Drove 45 minutes east on I-90 to stop in the tiny town of Drummond for a coffee + Milky Way bar before turning back.
Followed the Clark Fork and the railroad. Passed the entrance to a railroad tunnel and when I saw clear thru it, I saw a green light on the signal beyond, and the lamps of a BNSF locomotive approaching further down the line.

Passed by an old dilapidated homestead - tiny house, old dark wood, weathered + abandoned - in a high valley near the Sapphire Mountains. The river was across the Interstate from the house but it didn't used to be...
I let loose my imagination and luxuriated in the thought of a small family of frontierspeople, pushing west - west - West - West -West - West, and coming to that one little spot, and the pioneer husband, the pioneer father, he stops and puts his hands on his hips and absorbs his surroundings, says something like "House right there, barn over there," and nods slowly.
I pretended that I-90 wasn't there even though I was driving 75mph on it, and I tried to see the land as it was so recently virgin - even 150 years ago.
I had to reel my wandering perception in for the crazy weather as I approached Drummond - high cross-winds from the north, and blowing sleet.
The tiny town looked like a typical Montanan tiny-town. Hardware store, saloon, one or two little cafes, and anti-meth messages painted on old buildings.

Going back toward Missoula the weather over the pass had become more exciting. My iPod shuffled to "Life In A Northern Town" by the Dream Academy, one of my favorite guilty pleasures, and produced by David Gilmour so don't hate! Hard wind swirling bands of big snowflakes coming down, blowing horizontally, swooping diagonally. It was so beautiful to drive through such dramatic weather - temperature plummeting, a freak fast and short-lived April snowstorm up in the mountains somewhere northwest of Anaconda.. like Winter knows it's dying but has enough desperate energy to spasm and wreak havoc briefly over Granite County.
Jaw dropped, eyes opened wide, the fluttering flakes flew in a grey frenzy against the stark sky, obscuring the mountains all around my little car, rolling swiftly sideways, & my breath was taken, & I turned up the volume for that song, & today's braided pigtails were worn with pride.