Pictographs and Hoodoos

One of the campsites along Montana's Missouri River where we stayed was also one that Lewis and Clark had used on their epic exploration of the West. I like to think that they also gazed on the canyon and explored the pictographs on its smooth rock walls.
They do beg to be written upon.
And there were graceful horses, shot with bullet holes by later, less gracious intruders.

This one, with a rider and a flowing tail.

I don't know how old these pictographs are, but they are very old.

Above them, rock formations called hoodoos look down, guarding, watching.
A fitting phalanx of guardians for treasures so rare.

Tipi Ring Magic

There are magical places that we come to in our lives, places that leave a print on the soul. Such was one promontory over the Missouri River in Montana, last June.

Somewhere along late September I lost the Montana thread, so caught up in the splendor and hubbub of the fall that I couldn't go back. But as I look out at a fine sleety drizzle falling on gray twigs, I need a little sunshine, a little remembrance of Montana.

I need a Western White, bobbing in the warm mid-June breeze.

And a horned toad, delighting the kids with its existence, sending me into a reverie of the first one I ever found, in my uncle's hedge in Iowa. Such a dear little lizard.


The weird and wonderful wildflowers that nodded in the breeze on this promontory confounded me.

This one I know: Gallardia, or something like it.

And scarlet globe mallow. I know you.

But oh, what we didn't know could fill volumes. Who made these rings of rock, and when? Plains Indians, weighing down their tipis with the rocks at hand, leaving them in perfect rings, undisturbed for centuries.Left there, for children to wonder at.


We touch these rocks, that they touched so long ago. We imagine roasting bison over a campfire, vaulting on our paint ponies for another hunting expedition, flensing hides with flint and bone.

The clouds roll over us in an endless summer parade and we listen to what Bob knows.
And the rocks and the wildflowers are the same as they were then





But we are forever changed, having been here, having seen what they saw, having touched the rocks they gathered and used.

We will always long to return.

Campsite Scenes

There are many times when I use my 300 mm. telephoto lens to photograph my family. I'm not a fan of the typical travel snapshot, in which a person stands grinning in front of a sign, a precipice, a statue. Blaa. No information content, no artistry, no interest, no life.

So when I crawled out of the tent and saw this scene unfolding below I deployed the long lens for some paparazzo-style documentation of Liam self-actualizing.

Liam loves, loves, loves to cook. He is almost always between me and the saute pan or mixing bowl. Perhaps because my mother would only let me rinse bowls, never allowing me access to the messy stuff, I try to let Liam stir and mix and pour. It's hard, I'll grant Mom that, to stand by and let somebody do something wrong, or messily, but how else is he going to learn to do it right? And how hard is it to wipe up afterward, if he gains confidence and surety in the process?

Jim and Nick asked Liam to mind the sausages. And mind them he did.


I love how he's holding the tongs here. He doesn't quite get that tongs are long so you don't get burned. Had I been hovering, I'd have shown him how to hold them. But I stayed back.


Hmm. Is that done?


We all agreed that the sausages that morning tasted extra good, and wondered aloud who had cooked them so masterfully. It was me, Mommy!

Later, I looked up from packing the tent and sleeping bags to see this fine example of anthropoid ape grooming/bonding behavior. Out came the telephoto.


Yes, candid shots are ever the best.

Threading the Needle with Bill of the Birds

Not only was the slot canyon spookily magical, but it offered some fabulous photo-ops.

There came a point where it narrowed down to a squeeze. Now the fun begins!

I often wish I were taller than I am. This was not one of those times.

The slot canyon narrowed down to a hole, blocked by a huge boulder. You had to crawl under the boulder to get through. It was tight. I was regretting the extra biscuits, but I made it.

Come on, Daddy! You can do it! I just did it!

Of course, Liam did it in seconds. Little snot. Then he climbed the wall just for fun.



Bill of the Birds examines his options. He don't much like that crawl-under thing.

Nick suggests climbing the wall a ways back and coming along the ledge instead. So Bill handed us his camera and binocs and went for it.

This was not an option I was wild about. The ledge kind of melted away in a Dali-esque drip as it neared the passage. Bill soon reaches a point where he can go neither up nor down, forward nor back. Oh, drat. You guys go on. I'll just stay and feed the burying beetles.


Back to Plan A. In order to squeeze through beneath the boulder, Bill has to wriggle on his back, like a sea otter. I went through on my hands and knees.


He's going to make it.
I think we should do this slot canyon hike every year. It will keep us honest when the Christmas cookies come around.

This post is dedicated to all the Little People out there. Sometimes we rule.

For those needing another Chet Baker fix, as well as a splendid photographic and video run-down of October 11's Big Sit from our tower, go visit Jim McCormac's excellent blog, Ohio Birds and Biodiversity. There is a picture of Chet there that will make you smooch your screen.

Slot Canyon Magic

Every now and then I think about my favorite days ever. A few stand out in memory, like the day I took Phoebe, 17 mo. old and just walking, in a bike trailer along the coastal trail in Monterey, California. I remember every detail, every sparkle on the water from that day.

The Slot Canyon Adventure on our Missouri River canoe trip in Montana certainly ranks up with the Monterey day. We'd camped under some cottonwoods, and got up the next morning to go into the most magical of canyons. As its name suggests, a slot canyon narrows down until it's a squeeze to get through, making for a whole lot of fun. That's a whole 'nother post, seeing Bill of the Birds through that canyon.

The view across the river included some sheer cliffs and a prairie falcon nest!
Bill of the Birds had brought his spotting scope along, and we watched the falcons tend their young.

A bull snake greeted us at the campsite. Liam spotted it first!


Our guide Nick caught the placid snake and relocated it a short distance away. Bull snakes climb after birds' nests, as rat snakes do back home in Ohio.

What a gorgeous creature. He looked like someone tried to make him a T. Rex for Halloween.

This canyon had it all. Gorgeous wildflowers with extraneous minutiae (Nick and Liam).


There's a rock wren in this picture. Take my word for it.


Gumbo lilies, a kind of primrose, spread their huge white flowers along the cliffsides and tops. I scrambled up to this one and confirmed my suspicion that it would have a heavenly fragrance! Barely any leaves, any plant at all--just a huge flower that looked like someone had dropped a Kleenex on the scree.

Rock pigeons nested along the canyon walls, filling the space with their eerie moans. It was as if the rock walls were breathing, weeping.


We took turns shooting pictures of each other in the great arch atop the canyon.


Here's Bill of the Birds, posing.


I don't know why we feel we have to stand, face the camera and smile, but we do, again and again, even though it makes for some pretty prosaic shots.
To me, the rock looked like a big camel, or a wonderful turkey.
Al Batt, humorist, writer, exemplary human being, was along on our trip, by the grace of Mountain Bluebird Trails and the Great Falls Chamber of Commerce. Such a gift they gave us, letting us experience Montana's Russell Country in this way. Al barely fit in the arch.

Back at camp, Al and Bill muttered about needing some yaller mustard for these here hot dogs hmmmmmm
I don't think there was a pop culture, music or movie reference that Al didn't get and fire right back, and they flew thick and fast. Not to mention his wide-ranging knowledge of natural history, and the obvious mutual affection between Al and our kids. What a wonderful traveling companion!

Oh, thank you, Russell Country. I hope my readers are inspired by this post to book their own trip on the Missouri.

A Bald Eagle's Lunch

Wildlife viewing opportunities along the Missouri can be spectacular. There are eagles, bald and golden, prairie falcons, mule deer, mergansers, nighthawks, coyotes, soft-shelled turtles, beaver, muskrat...we saw them all.

A pretty Brewer's blackbird poses for its portrait.

Here's a pair of golden eagles on a distant but most picturesque promontory. Oh how I wanted to get closer.

With Phoebe steering, we drew near a bald eagle who was having a fish dinner on a log.

It's a subadult bird, with a "dirty" head, not quite in full adult plumage. It could be anywhere from two to four years old.

Note that it's got the fish in its bill on takeoff.

I am loving this, trying hard to keep my camera steady as I fire shot after shot. Should have had it on motordrive, but ah well.

And then he did it--transferred the fish from bill to talons, in flight! Woweee!


As this publishes, they'll be finishing up the Big Sit in our tower at home. I'll be over in the Dayton area, having booked a presentation for the Bruckner Nature Center on the day of the Big Sit. D'oh! Never thought the Sit would fall on October 11! That's what happens when you book a year in advance...things slip your mind. But I'll have been there from dawn to noon, when I have to take off. And I'll have packed in as much fun as I could. Hope you've had a fun weekend, too, wherever you're Sitting.