Holiday at Home, Montana-style

Beautiful windows greet you on a holiday walk through downtown Hamilton, Mt. Above is Tamiko's, a furniture and accessories store at 213 W. Main Street. We're doing most of our holiday shopping in these small, special shops on or near a half-dozen blocks of Main. A Wal-Mart threat just outside of town looms once again; last time the big-box bully tried to move into this area, it was years ago and local citizens successfully fought the invasion. We're joining them again this year by, among other efforts, spending as much as we can afford in the town's locally owned stores.

Late at night, downtown Hamilton is beautiful and empty. But not so during the day, when shoppers bustle in and out of Robbins on Main (beautiful cookware, gifts and cards), Sam's Spade (garden tools, art and other innovative items), Chapter One Book Store (indie books) and Fords Department Store (Filson brand and other fine clothes for outdoorsy folks). We shop at Valley Furniture (handsome Montana-made beeswax candles and other tasteful "smalls"), Taste of Paris (olive-oil soaps from France), Bella's Boutique (Ugg-brand slippers, trendy scarves and knit cowls). Even Bitterroot Drug (Montana's oldest continuously operated drug store) has a lot to offer.

Acquired Taste, a vintage furniture and gift store operated by friend Karol Klakken, keeps a bicycle as its symbol, and Karol decorates the bike differently each season.

(1) I can't get enough of the recycled-cork gingerbread house built by my hair stylist, Jan Erickson. It's displayed at her salon in Hamilton, called The Ritz, 424 South 2nd Street.

(2) We donated some of the wine corks, and Jan used them as logs or sliced them and made moss-covered shingles.

(3) A look inside the cork house shows just how much energy and thought Jan puts into her projects. Kids, I'm guessing, must not touch.

Two screen shots from Facebook tell more of the local holiday story. Our vintage VW Westfalia's restorer, Scott Quinnett, has installed a holiday display, above, of one of his Dragonfly rental vans at the Missoula airport. "I've only been down there (airport) for about 20 mins total since it's been up," Scott writes in an email. "Lots of people with smiles, curiosity, and lots of questions when I am available. It's a pretty potent display for Montana travelers. "

And even though the valley where we live is only getting rain last night and today, the tops of mountains out our back door or 40 minutes south at ski areas (see screen shot of Chief Joseph Ski Trails, above) are beautifully powdered with many feet of snow.

Home again, we sit by the fire...

...and light candles on this, the sixth night of Hanukkah. Happy holidays, everyone.

NOLA for Thanksgiving

A dwarf palm (I want one!), as seen last week in the Uptown neighborhood of New Orleans.

We spend the week of Thanksgiving 2,300 miles southeast (and in tropical cold-hardiness zones 9a/9b) from our new home in Montana (cold zones 4b/5a). We're in my husband's hometown of New Orleans to wine and dine with about 20 cousins and their families. Otherwise, we walk around looking at homes and gardens, a LOT. I want every other plant that I see. Most won't grow where we now live.

On Day One, weather is eerily like what it had been when we left Western Montana -- overcast, damp and a chilly 40 degrees. It is too cold even to spend much time on our lovely little balcony of the Maison Dupuy in the French Quarter. But the hanging baskets of ferns and the tall palms of the courtyard don't seem to mind the chill.

Days Two and Three are perfect winter weather in NOLA -- clear blue skies and high temps in the 60s.

We stand in line outside the Acme Oyster House as the stars themselves -- raw oysters in their shells -- get unloaded out front.

Inside the Acme, we sit at the bar and have fried-oyster po-boy sandwiches and local beer. Truth be told, our Acme sandwiches this time are too bready and not dressed as we like. Maybe it's a holiday fluke. The place is busier than I've ever seen it. So are the street cars -- shiny and refurbished after Katrina. We take one (below) to Uptown.

Can you see the beads decorating this Uptown tree?

On another gorgeous day, we walk in the Marigny neighborhood, where the line-up for music at the Blue Nile catches my eye. Next trip!

Just the two of us try a posh little place near our hotel for dinner. It's Bayona, with a lush rear courtyard and even lusher interior. The place is packed but walls are beautifully upholstered, and we can really hear each other for a change. 

Alex waits for the check at Bayona. Let's just say that service was a little slow. I didn't mind.

But here's who we really came to see -- the Gales and Gale-related persons. They are cousins who generously lent us their little island-plus-cabin up on Lake Superior for 15 or so summers in a row. Now, we're in Western Montana and they are in Colorado, Michigan, Illinois, even Dubai. We all traveled to get to this lovely dinner arranged by Peggy Gale, far right. Our only problem? We stayed on the other side of the Quarter from most of these folks and saw them only twice -- for a lunch and for this wonderful dinner. Thanks, Peg!!

Into the Cold

It's supposed to go down to -2 degrees here in the Bitterroot Valley next Tuesday night. Right now, it is sunny but a bit nippy, with afternoon temperatures in the 50s -- just warm enough to finish raking, mulching and bagging our MANY maple leaves. But on a recent really warm day, friend Mel Holloway and I went on a photo safari to catch a glimpse of winter.

We are greeted by a dusting of snow at lower elevations of Skalkaho Road.

On the diagonal -- a tree hit by ice, snow or old age at a campground on Skalkaho Creek.

We turn off and start climbing on Skalkaho-Rye Road, and I'm so glad that Mel's '92 Nissan Pathfinder has a full tank of gas, 4 new tires, 4-wheel drive and a great driver behind the wheel. (Can you tell that I love pictures of empty mountain roads?)

Higher still. Are we only in a black-and-white world?

Nope. Suddenly there's color -- in trees holding onto their leaves and a glimpse of blue sky, beyond.

And we stop near the top, where shapes and textures make for a magical landscape.

We make it to the top and, boom, the sun starts to wash over selected peaks.

Off in another direction are clouds over eyebrows of pine slashing across an old burn in the forest.

Roadside red twigs grab my attention on the way down.

And then there's a grand finale. Instead of turning toward home, Mel heads up to Skalkaho Falls. He'd been there the day before, when there was no snow. Now, there's plenty!  Here is Mel, tiny figure at lower left, with tripod and camera snapping the tree-shrouded falls. His photo ends up on several admiring Facebook pages.

Hall. O. Ween

It all started the evening before Halloween, with a street full of impromptu witches on bikes. Not a great picture, as I was in my car with a hastily focused iPhone, on my way to a meeting.  But the Ravalli Republic captured these witchy ladies cycling through Hamilton. It's the second-annual such parade. Women friends and I plan to join the third witch-a-thon next year. Anyone got a pointy black hat that they don't want?

Heather, our neighbor across the street, put on temporary tattoos and tutu and hosted a pre-Halloween party.

We ate and schmoozed: Heather, left; Shelley (Queen Bee); Alex (prisoner); and Katrina (Holstein) with Arlo (baby bear).

Jeff, Heather's husband, was an eerie, um, train conductor?

My favorite snack at Heather's -- spider-sugared brownies.

Our own spider! Ready to receive visitors on the front porch.

Our friend Rob handed out lots of our candy. He's a bagpiper by trade and insisted that his costume was not a dinosaur but, instead, the Loch Ness monster. See the Scottish tam attached to his wee dino-head??

One of our scarier trick-or-treaters (temp. tattoos, a la Heather? Must be a trend.)

Perhaps the cutest duo of the night!

Rob was a Halloween rock star! He not only handed out bags and bags of candy but he also played his bagpipes for the crowds. Our friend Mary sat at the picture window, sipping wine and counting children. Her notes say we got 560+ kids!

Walk to the River

We live six blocks away from this -- the Bitterroot River, still wearing its fall colors.

Or, as a Montana gardening friend of mine says, "Colors have lasted for weeks longer than I ever remember.  It is glorious!" We walk to the river and, indeed, fall this year is glorious.

We look northwest from the river trail. More beauty.

A pair of sunlit cottonwoods highlight the far bank.

As we get closer to town, the river trail becomes more citified -- still beautiful.

We take a seat and look at Blodgett in the distance. It's our favorite craggy granite peak.

And Alex, who spent childhood summers climbing around Blodgett, snaps a picture. It is ready for its close-up.

Not Holland Lake!

We set off northward to camp one last time this year. Our destination was the much-anticipated Holland Lake, about 50 miles northeast of Missoula, with mountain views and a vintage '40s lodge serving family-style food. The Website said they were open through October.

They weren't. We camped at the lake, above, instead. It is not Holland Lake...

Here's Holland Lake! Just seeing it was a thrill, with stunning, snow-capped views of the Mission Mountains...

...and even a long driveway that gave us peeks at the peaks!

We stopped at a boarded-up/winterized lodge and walked around, moping a bit at our bad luck. We should've called! I did call, after the fact (to what turned out to be a California number), to ask about the Website's mis-information -- plus the roadside sign's "Open through October" -- and got a rather terse "I'm not going to answer that." But there was an entirely different, very warm response from a concessionaire for the adjacent Holland Lake campgrounds. She apologized for any vagueness on reserveamerica.com. "It was snowing when we pulled out of here," she said.  If the Indian summer that appeared a week later had been well forecast, she added, she might have stayed open. We'll be sure to book a campsite with her next spring!

We drove a few miles south toward Missoula and found Lindbergh Lake and a U.S. Forest Service campground. No one was there. But it was open. We took up two parking spaces in order to have a van-side view of a fire and the lake.

 

 

The beginnings of our fire.

Lindbergh Lake, to the front of us...

...And a beautiful fall view, behind. Not too shabby for last-minute accommodations in Montana!