Maria’s view of Log Cabin Living

   This is the end-of-Summer view of the mountains, taken from the road to our cabin.  Our cabin is pictured in the 2nd picture.  I’ll tell ya’…sometimes, you could almost run off the road… it’s so pretty!  Even after a year, I’m still in awe of the scenery here in Montana.  I don’t know…for some reason, I never thought of Montana as a state with beautiful scenery.  In my head, I imagined it as a desolate place.  I realize now how crazy that idea was.  I thought the same thing about Utah, before Hubby took me there in 1980.  Turns out it’s one of the most gorgeous places you’ll ever see.

    We took this shot of a log home in the Beartooths this Winter, while on an afternoon ride not too far from home.  It had just snowed the night before, and we were anxious to see how pretty it all was.  We rode up to the East (or was it West) Rosebud river and cruised around enjoying the snow.  If I remember correctly, it was pretty thick, and we couldn’t go as far as we’d hoped.  The sun was going down in the sky, and we were stunned at how pretty this was.

Kinda’ makes you want to take a road trip, yes?

At that latitude and longitude lies the town of Absarokee (pronounced Ab zor’ kee), which is “town” to us.  It’s a 25 mile drive to get there, so we only go to town about once a week.  There’s an IGA grocery store, the 5-Spot Bar and the Chrome Bar, the Stillwater Trading Co., a handful of other businesses, and 3 churches…oh yes, and one flashing yellow light.  The population is probably less than 1,500, and what a beautiful little town it is!  Everyone speaks to us when we pass them on the street…so different from other places that I’ve been.

  At 17 miles from home lies the tiny town of Fishtail, with a small general store, a post office, a 1-room library, The Cowboy restaurant/bar, a rock shop where you can buy coffee and a muffin (and some cool rocks), and a souvenir shop, but no traffic lights.

  Then, at 7 miles from home, is the Stillwater Saloon in Dean, Montana, a haven for thirsty platinum miners after a long day (or night) of work.

The population of deer to people is 6 to 1 around here, so some days, we don’t pass anyone on the way to town.  No traffic!  It’s great!  The main driving hazard is watching for deer crossing the road.   That is more difficult than it sounds, because the scenery is fantastic!

One day, on the way to town, we ran across real live cowboys herding their cattle on horseback, and we managed to take a few shots of them.  We never leave the house without the camera, since there are post card views in every direction, and we never know what we might come across!

This shot was taken from our neighbor’s front yard.  She has the coolest old wagon in her yard and a wonderful veggie garden over to one side.  Our house looks far from here, but it’s really only a quarter-mile away.  The Spring is beautiful, but honestly, I prefer Winter, with the barren trees and majestic views of snow-draped mountains.

  Today, I will spend a few hours working on our greeting cards on our website and doing some web site editing.   We will ship a pretty large order to a store in Southern California tomorrow morning…I have it all packed and ready to go.  I’m happy to say that we get a lot of compliments on our cards.  My husband is the photographer, but once in a while, I get lucky and take a good shot.  He’s been a fan of Montana since he went to college here years ago, and this cabin was his dream.  What a place to take landscape and wildlife pictures!  Every day, we see something interesting, and if we don’t…we take a drive and go look for something.  The web site has has been fun for me to work on.  It’s the first time I’ve done one, and I am happy with the results so far.   So I sit here and wonder…..how many people buy their greeting cards online?

Tomorrow, we’ll make the 80-mile trip to Billings for our monthly shopping.  We visit Costco and several other stores to stock up on what’s needed for the next month.  This requires me to do something new–make a shopping list.  I enjoy grocery shopping and have always done mine not with a list, but by visiting each aisle and picking out what I need, taking advantage of sales when possible…and, of course, hoping that some nice ladies will be giving out samples, because it seems like I’m always hungry when I get to the grocery store…and it’s great when they’re giving out samples…but I digress.  The shopping list is a must now, with several stores to visit in a few short hours.   We take the “back road” sometimes, rather than Interstate 90, to really see the countryside on the way.   We’ll travel alongside the Yellowstone River which winds through that area.