September Snow

When we talked about moving to Montana, driving in the winter was always high on my list of concerns. I can drive in winter weather - I learned to drive in Chicago, for goodness sake - but I really, really hate it. With that in mind, it makes absolutely no sense that I went searching for snow last Friday.

Last Friday. September 15th. After weeks of absolutely no precipitation and wildfires raging across thousands of acres of land, Montana got rain. The thing about mountains that we flatlanders don't understand, however, is that what is rain in town (elevation 3875 ft.) is snow on the pass (elevation 6312 ft.) and that you can get from point A to point B in about thirty minutes. From my rainy vantage point in front of my in-laws house, I could see snow in the mountains surrounding us, and I wanted to see it better. So with a little convincing, I got Sherry to join me for a drive to the other side of MacDonald Pass. She had been meaning to get to a quilt/antique shop in those parts to buy more fabric, so she was easily coaxed to join me. So, with camera bag and Subaru keys in hand, we ventured out.

We stopped at the top to take a few photos; there were four or five inches of snow on the ground, and the air temperature was in the low 30s. It was beautiful and frigid and weird and wonderful.

Once over the pass, we reached our destination - Birdseye Mercantile in the little town of Avon, Montana. Housed in an historic stone building constructed in 1887, Birdseye sells a funky assortment of antiques and fabric. There was a fire raging in the cast iron stove in the middle of the room, the shop was full of cats, and it was altogether the coziest place to spend a snowy September day.

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