We're no Lewis and Clark...

Bitterroot
(Lewisia rediviva)

...and we left Montana yesterday (hooray for home! boohoo for the end to our great vacation) without even knowing exactly what a Bitterroot is. 

And so I search around and read that the Lewis and Clark Expedition first encountered the little, low-growing plant -- with simple pinkish flowers and a fleshy taproot -- on its return trip through the Bitterroot Valley in 1806.  "Instead of admiring the flower, Meriwether Lewis saw and tasted the root," says a National Geographic Web site.  "Writing in his journal, Lewis described the root as 'cilindric and as white as snow throughout, except some small parts of the hard black rind which they had not seperated in the preperation… [the roots] became perfectly soft by boiling, but had a very bitter taste, which was naucious to my pallate, and [I] transfered them to the Indians who had eat them heartily.'" Decades later, in 1893, the Bitterroot plant was voted the Montana state flower (http://montana.plant-life.org/page_bitterroot.htm). Unfortunately, we never see one of these flowers on our hikes.

Speaking of the daring expeditionary duo, we have crossed Lewis and Clark's trail west and east -- from and to St. Louis -- several times on this trip, and follow it again as we drive south on US-93, out of the Bitterroot valley and over Lost Trail Pass (the expedition temporarily lost their way in snow and sleet). Alex learned to ski at a small, rope-tow-only resort there when he was a child. It's now called Lost Trail Powder Mountain and comes complete with ski lifts as well as rope tows but still looks pleasingly Mom-and-Pop around the lodge.

Ski runs at Lost Trail

Still on the trail, we have breakfast at The Crossing in Wisdom, MT, and walk around the tiny, quirky town, altitude 6,404 feet...

...and also visit a beautiful hilltop just outside of Wisdom.

A historical marker there is at the campsite of Meriwether Lewis, where he celebrated his birthday with a sad letter for such an amazing and accomplished man. I copied it, below:


"This day I completed my thirty first year, and conceived that I had in all human probability now existed about half the period which I am to remain in this Sublunary world. I reflected that I had as yet done but little, very little, indeed, to further the happiness of the human race, or to advance the information of the succeeding generation. I viewed with regret the many hours I have spent in indolence, and now soarly feel the want of that information which those hours would have given me had they been judiciously expended. but since they are past and cannot be recalled, I dash from me the gloomy thought, and resolved in future, to redouble my exertions and at least endeavour to promote those two primary objects of human existence, by giving them the aid of that portion of talents which nature and fortune have bestowed on me: or in future, to live for mankind, as I have heretofore lived for myself."

Back on the trail toward home!

The sky starts to look like a Georgia O'Keefe painting (even through the bug-splattered windshield).

Still heading south, through a corner of Idaho, we trade mountains for potato fields. And then we enter Wyoming -- there's no place like it...

...and find our Green River, Wyo., motel for the night just behind a gorgeous rock formation (http://hamptoninn.hilton.com/en/hp/hotels/index.jhtml?ctyhocn=GRVWYHX)...

Two more days on the road -- a night with Alex's cousin Kathy in Golden, Co., and a night in KCMO -- and we'll be home, on the 4th of July!


I must add one more little Hamilton adventure.  On our last night in town, we get tickets to a BBQ and street dance in front of the Ravalli County Museum (see the little cardboard-backed tickets, below.)

We're packing, so we miss the rodeo induction ceremony but arrive just in time for food and a small, sweet street dance -- a mix of young families and gray-haired dancers gliding across the concrete, often with the littlest kids emulating the smooth moves of the older folks, as day turns to dusk.

Folks also take time to chat with neighbors...

...or just sit and watch the complicated steps out on the street.

So long, Hamilton!! Maybe we'll see you cowboys, and girls, again, soon. (Oh, and the house in Hamilton? Alex gave the broker an earnest-money check to hold onto, in case we were to decide to make a serious offer?!; meanwhile, other potential buyers viewed the house the day that we left; and he hasn't heard a word back. Me? I'm just watching the process. Since it's his money at this point, I'm calling it free, live entertainment!?!).