One fresh June day, accompanied by my best friend and wife, Rose, I had an epiphany. Not that moment you realize you were supposed to buy milk and are coming home with beer instead. Not the kind of moment you first realize that “those college kids are so young!” This was  an  awakening of a deeper nature. In a place I’d viewed so often, the “scales fell from my eyes” and I saw that familiar scene with renewed vision. Suddenly, I was seeing Montana through new eyes. Eyes not my own. I was seeing my native land through Rose’s eyes, and with a freshness I had somehow lost. Like some modern Meriwether Lewis, Sacajawea by his side, I had joined the “Corps of Re-discovery.”

“Montana: The Last Best Place”. “Big Sky Country”. “Treasure State”. We Montanans proclaim our pride for this Heavenly amusement park we live in. We sport bumper stickers and t-shirts announcing ourselves as “Montana Native” or resident of the “406”. We proudly announce  Montana’s four seasons: Hunting, Skiing, Tourist and Road Construction. Authentic Montanans sport state pride as strong as any Texan.

We enjoy this place. We hunt and fish and picnic and camp. We traverse the backcountry a-horseback and on foot. We ski like there’s no tomorrow. We dive into favorite swimming holes and raft the Gallatin at House Rock. As a population we are an active and outdoorsy bunch.

I think though, we find ourselves a bit jaded from exposure. Really, how many times can you be left breathless by a waterfall when you’ve seen hundreds? How often watch Old Faithful blow her top before she’s just another geyser? How many deer do you count feeding in alfalfa fields before you’re a little blase’ about venison on the hoof?

My bride on the other hand is a recent transplant. She move here from Philadelphia just two years ago. Yup! Big city girl. It has been through her that I’ve had opportunity to see my home country anew. As a “genuine article” it’s been my privilege to serve as her personal tour and adventure guide. It’s been an eye opening experience.

Back to that epiphany. June 2013, my niece’s weddin’ (not wedding) was held in an alpine cirque in the Beartooths out of Pine Creek. Rose and I met my nephews at camp the night before for the roasting of the hog for the reception supper. I didn’t yet know what to expect from my city gal, and was prepared for a tenderfoot. I knew she’d camped in Michigan, but you know those “Easterners”! To my surprise she fit right in. She pulled her weight, knew her way around a camp and a fire, and never whined once. Clearly, I’d drawn to an inside straight and came up all Aces!

The next day as the smoker was towed to the site, Rose and I followed it up the mountain and over the cattle guard (surest way to know you’re going to a weddin”). All the way Rose prattled over the beauty of the trees and wildflowers and declared expectantly, “I hope we see a moose!”. We pulled into a verdant meadow ringed by craggy peaks and I watched her eyes widen with wonder, her mouth dropping open, as she exclaimed “This is the most awesome place ever!” It was in that moment that I began to see Montana anew. Through Roses’ eyes.

Since then, with Rose at my side, (or behind me on our motorcycle), we’ve toured, and traveled highways, backroads, dirt tracks and game trails. At every turn, every stop, Rose  responds with joy and wonder. She peppers me with questions. “What kind of bird is that?” How do you know that is an elk track and not a cow track? How long do cubs stay with their mother? Why do you call it a crick when it’s spelled c-r-e-e-k?” She’s as curious as a child, as absorbent as a dry sponge. She wants to know in detail and is as interested in the minutiae as she is the mountains. She challenges both my knowledge and curiosity constantly. Adventuring with Rose is a hoot!

We collect rocks, a tradition started on our first motorcycle adventure. Whenever we go some place we select one rock to take home, where we date and label it. One day we’ll have enough memory stones to build a fountain in the yard. That fountain that will grow, I’m sure, as we continue to record our travels in a “concrete” way. Who needs bumper stickers or t-shirts?

Early mornings are great for spotting wildlife and the light is wonderful for photography. Leaving before dawn allows for plenty of dawdling. Once it took us a full day to travel from the ghost town of Maudlow over 16 Mile Road to Ringling. We studied deer feeding along Dry Creek Road. We photographed an abandoned mill and homesteader cabins. At Maudlow we explored the town, peeking into the schoolhouse, imagining ourselves as kids playing on the rusty teeter totters. Further on we found a wonderful canyon, narrow and deep, with vertical walls that reached to the sky. Between the towering cliffs we spotted wind caves and made up stories about rock formations, picnicking beside water flowing against the base of one wall, while sitting on a green velvet carpet under a bower of willow branches. That evening we drove home via Bridger Canyon, navigating our way through a herd of elk strolling up the highway. With Rose I’ve learned to let the journey become the destination.

We’ve gathered and eaten nettles. She listens raptly to stories of Montana history and my own “back in the day” growing up in the Bozeman Valley. We’ve dipped our toes in cold mountain streams and hiked back to hot springs. With Rose, a picnic by the river is a five star dinner! Constant delight and interest are our companions.

Nature is again a place of music and art. The wind rattling the aspen leaves, the resonance of the Gallatin coursing its way over rocks and the cheerful chatter of a Chickadee all ring as new music. I’m again enthralled by the brilliant blue of forget-me-nots, the bright red tips of indian paint brush. I listen more closely for bird calls, look more carefully for the silver flash of  trout in a crystal pool.
On a trip with Rose to Virginia City, at Robber’s Roost, Henry Plummer and the Vigilantes were upstaged by the joy of spotting a small cottontail feeding in the shade of a cottonwood tree. In Virginia city we gawked, pointing cameras to shoot pictures incessantly. In Ennis we sat in a bar corner while I pointed out the differences between the real hands and the posers. With Rose I’ve become a tourist in my own land!

Montana is more than a place. It’s an experience. It’s a lazy float down the Madison. It’s the brilliance of a western tanager perched on a branch. It’s watching a black bear meander up the side of a ridge near West Bridger Creek, or the scent of fir as you brush by on a mountain trail. It is being raced by a pronghorn while motorcycling to Clarkston, and breathing in the views on the Beartooth highway.

I write this sitting on the porch of a historic Forest Service cabin, watching the sun set on the summer ripened hills to the west with an amber glow. This morning we breakfasted on blueberry pancakes with bacon and eggs redolent with campfire smoke. We watched that black bear climb the ridge to the south and sat silent and still as a four point buck in his summer coat and full velvet drank from the stream. The Corps of Re-Discovery continues on.

I recently saw a hat at a gas station that said, “Montana is full, but I hear North Dakota is nice!” I can’t echo that sentiment. Rose and so many other out of staters who come to this Last Best Place to visit, to point and gawk, and perhaps, to settle, serve as a testimony to us that wonder exists here. They are the glasses to cure our myopia. Perhaps we would all see Montana in a lesser way without being faced by their expectancy at every corner and gratitude for every sight, no matter how insignificant. Montana should be all the more authentic to us for the mirror they hold up before us.

Tomorrow on the way home maybe we’ll cut up to Emigrant to drive Trail Creek over the top and down into the Valley. Or we could take Jackson Creek road and go home through Bridger Canyon. Either way, I will share with Rose a sense of delight and curiosity, for I am seeing Montana through her eyes.
Hey! Maybe we’ll see a moose!