Good news, bad news...

Bad news first...
We close the house tight and leave Hamilton around 2 p.m. on Monday (9/10) to get away from wind-driven clouds of heavy smoke. There are lightning-caused wildfires in craggy granite mountains outside of town. We've only driven a mile or so north when blue skies re-appear. But we crane our necks back to see what we've left. It looks like a sandstorm in the Sahara, slowly blowing our way! And yet, it seems to be lit from within. We stop in a parking lot with a few other folks to stare and take pictures. "This is so cool," says a pre-teen, her mother smiling and rolling her eyes. What we are seeing is a reflection of flames in the distance! We high-tail it to Missoula for the night; I don't plan to breathe that stuff a minute more than I have to. The fire, we read and hear, is affecting folks on wooded lots in foothills farther to our south and west.  Containment fire lines on the other side of the Bitterroot River -- east of fire and helping to protect our town -- are now set up. As of this writing, more than $2 million has been spent on man- and woman-power, helicopters for dipping buckets into mountain lakes and dropping water on fire, even infrared flights at night to track progress through smoke. This is a difficult fire to fight, but houses in town -- like ours -- will be fine.

A sandstorm-like cloud of smoke from wildfires to our south and west on 9/10.

Fair News... a new category of news in between bad and good (again, none of the really bad stuff is happening to us!)

Sept. 12, 2012 9:53:AM -- KPAX-TV
DENVER, CO- There's some federal money coming to the Bitterroot as crews continue to battle the Sawtooth Fire outside of Hamilton.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency announced Tuesday morning that they have authorized federal funds to be used to help with firefighting costs.
FEMA Regional Administrator Robin Finegan approved a Fire Management Assistance Grant (FMAG) after receiving a request from state government officials.
The blaze has prompted a stage 2 evacuation of over 320 homes, affecting between 800 and 1,000 residents. The fire is also threatening cellular communication towers and water sheds near the area.
The Regional Administrator, Robin Finegan, determined that the fire, which began as the result of a lightning strike on August 30 and grew rapidly earlier this week due to high winds, "threatened such destruction as would constitute a major disaster," according to a news release.
The approval means that FEMA funding is available to pay 75% of the state's eligible firefighting costs for managing, mitigating and controlling the fire. However, the grants do not provide assistance to individual home or business owners and do not cover other infrastructure damage caused by the fire.
The latest figures made available by fire managers showed that it's cost $2.2 million to battle the blaze so far.
The Ravalli County Commission declared a State of Emergency earlier this week, and the American Red Cross set up an evacuation shelter at the First Baptist Church.
Large animals and livestock are being accepted at the Ravalli County Fairgrounds while the Bitter Root Humane Association is accepting small pets that have been evacuated.

*****

Good news is, we made it quickly to the clear, blue skies of Missoula and had a fine meal in an unlikely place -- the dark-and-handsome wine bar at Red Bird (http://www.redbirdrestaurant.com/), located in a renovated Art Deco hotel called The Florence. And that's next door to the historic Wilma theater (http://thewilma.com/) and performance space where hip films and live music play. You gotta love Missoula.

The lamp above our seat at Red Bird's bar had a fire-like look (yikes), but superb red wines quickly dampened such thoughts.

We walk streets of downtown at dusk. Missoula is an old mill town that became a lumber/forestry hub and now is best known for the University of Montana.

Stately old buildings in downtown Missoula.

Art galleries and chic little shops line South Higgins Avenue. I especially want to return to see the exhibit "Lost & Found Montana," by an associate professor of photojournalism at UM.

A photo exhibit of vanishing Montana communities (http://www.lostandfoundmontana.com/about.html).

Our stay at Blossom's Bed & Breakfast (https://www.blossomsbnb.com/) is perfect. It's an old/new Craftsman bungalow. We have a room with a door onto the little backyard -- with hills beyond -- and we sleep with the door wide open to fresh, cool air.

The next morning, we drive north. It's Alex's birthday -- 9/11 is -- and we want to get into beautiful mountains to celebrate. We almost get lost on old national forest roads south of the Mission Mountains. But both of our iPhones are able to keep us on track. Our destination is an Amish general store in St. Ignatius. The route takes us through an old burn. We can't get away from fire this month!

Old burn beside a road in the Flathead National Forest.

Our road looks desolate at first, but quickly we begin to see life among the ruins.

Two Mountain Bluebirds (tiny dots of blue in the center of this picture) fly about the road.

Vegetation grows up around burnt tree stumps on the forest floor.

An even bigger "garden" of fall colors tops a mound of burnt branches.

We get home in time to harvest vegetables from our own garden (including Green Zebra, SunGold and Black Cherry tomatoes started from seed back in St. Louis!)

Home in Hamilton, MT, is less smoky some days, more smoky others. Inside our little bungalow all is fine and cheerful.  However, we're making plans to celebrate Alex's birthday tomorrow with friends Kelsey and Mary who also have a September birthday to honor, at http://sleepingchildfarms.com/ south of town. And we have an invitation for next week to spend two nights at a Forest Service cabin in the beautiful Magruder Corridor. This cabin once was the residence of the district ranger, his wife and five children. The daughter in that family -- Mary Alice Schumaker -- and her husband Mel Holloway have invited us to stay with them in this rugged, beautiful place that Mary Alice once called home.  We're brainstorming garden-fresh meals, as I'm sure Mary Alice is, too. Life is good. It's smoky but it's good. Rain/snow soon will bring all back to normal here.

The two-story, five room Magruder Ranger's House.