Miles and Miles of Miles

Some highways in Montana have miles and miles of miles.   Highway 89 between White Sulphur Springs and Interstate 90 is one of those.  Small towns whisk by—Ringling, Willsall, Clyde Park—but they are distant and tiny enough a boy could barely reach full speed on his bike if riding from one end to the other on the longest street.

Between the towns is big empty.  Open hills of grass and sagebrush.  The Castle Mountains.  The Bridger Range.  The Crazies.  Open range.

A lonely man or lonely woman might suffer to drive these miles.  The open country and the empty highway might draw too much from inside.   

I drove those miles at mid-day yesterday amid snow flurries and ground blizzards.  The storm and the snow pressed down firmly against the two-lane highway, obscuring all features beyond.  Wind dragged scarves of snow across the roadway.  I was alone on the highway.

My mind turned in on itself.  Honestly, I felt a little hollow.

Of all things, my thoughts soon turned to Sandalwood, the dog we had when I was a boy.  He had a crazy habit of barking incessantly if you drove him across a bridge.  Same for Canyon Ferry Dam.  He followed me anytime I left the house.  I sat and talked to him the night before my mother had him put down for biting someone he thought was going to harm one of us kids.

I thought of all that.

You would think fifty-some years of time would diminish your feelings for a childhood dog.

But driving Highway 89 will take you back.

I quivered a little thinking about Sandalwood.  And then I grabbed my camera and shot two photographs through the windshield of my truck as I drove.  I still had over 100 miles to go to reach Billings.

-- Mitchell Hegman