The heat wave was going to get serious in the Denver area, so I left town just in time last Thursday, heading straight north on I-25, right through Denver and out the other side, bound first for Wyoming. This was new territory for me. Turned out to be majestic rolling grassland, a lovely green from the rainy spring and early summer. And very sparse human habitation. Even only a few cattle in view. I did pass one place with bison -- that was fun. And by late afternoon, I was in sight of tall mountains. I stopped in Buffalo, Wyoming, where I-90 meets I-25.
There, I discovered the reason why it had been hard to get a room for the night. Not the large volume of holiday travel at the confluence of interstate highways, no. They were having a national Basque festival that weekend and I was going to miss it! Herding the sheep through the streets, selling wool and Basque things, playing pelota, dancing, making music, speaking Basque. The only signs of the coming weekend's festivities were the old-time shepherd's wagons parked here and there, Basque flags lining Main Street, and notices in shop windows. I sighed and headed North again.
I traveled all day, heading mostly West on I-90 through Montana, following the Yellowstone River and then picking up the Clark Fork on the other side of the Continental Divied. The scenery is so majestic and vast that it does not seem wrong to view it at 75 miles an hour. Mouuntains to the South, Mountains to the North, and the rivers threading their way through them.
Now I am in the Flathead valley, settling in with part of that vast magnificence.
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