Day 27: Taking a Breath

Tuesday: 30th Sept.

We wave a last goodbye

Together on Mount Howard

Today is the day we have said an almost certain last goodbye to our friends and traveling companions Roy and Anne, so this morning I have been reflecting on what has been. We owe them a great deal as they have shown us so much about this country (they have a different set of travel guides), they have been there when perhaps lack of confidence would have dictated going a different route. So what we have seen of  the countryside will always have their images built into it as well.

So further reflection brings me to think about just what we have seen when we are surrounded every day by such beauty as here it is easy to become acclimatized to it and neglect  to put that into our narrative.
For the last two weeks we have been traveling in the mountains and forests of Eastern Oregon, Central Idaho and Western Montana in some of the wildest and most remote countryside in the United States. Mountain ranges such as the Wallowa, Clearwater, Bitterroot and Beaverhead that give evidence to, but also hide, the story of the making of the Earth itself, Volcanic construction and tectonic upheaval, bursting forth of liquid minerals to create the mineral and metal wealth, the etching grace of glaciers. So remote that most Americans do not know where we are talking about. Mighty rivers such as the Snake River and small rivers like the Powder, Imnaha, Grande Ronde, Lochsa and the Big Hole each with its own story. Land that was only discovered by white men 200 years ago.
It has been our privilege to see some of the most beautiful rivers, valleys and mountain passes in the world. We are disappointed if we do not see wild animals and birds at every turn of the road, a deer or bear, or at every glance out of our trailer windows a stellar jay or squirrel, every time we turn an eye to the sky we look expectantly for an eagle or hawk. Every mile of the roads we traveled have their own story of the making of America by explorers, mountain men, emigrants, gold prospectors, real cowboys and real Indians. Of life and death, hardship and joy for grizzly men, women and children alike who passed across this countryside.