The Great Outdoors

In a far far away land (we're talking no electricity and no neighbors for miles-except maybe the creepy backwoodsman who lives off the land, abducts his wives and has no idea that his lumberjack apparel went in and out of vogue) called Snedeker Basin I stayed in a "rustic" little cabin for two days. By rustic I mean four bunk beds, two queen sized beds in two rooms, a stove and little table for sorting out deer parts and playing cards while drinking whiskey sort of outpost. The hunting cabin looks like it was dropped by a crane in the middle of the Snedeker Basin hilltop with no visible roads to connect it to anything but the 6,500 foot hills around it.
My cabin-ing companion, Fred, says the Blackfeet Indians hunted the hills for thousands of years, monitoring the migration of buffalo by burning the grass in certain patterns. Thinking about chasing buffalo, antelope, elk, deer in the bitter Montana winters to survive affirms my staunch belief that God knew exactly what he was doing when he plunked me down on earth in 1986. I would be the whiniest Indian in the tribe- eventually getting exiled to an enemy tribe (who hopefully can gather berries in a warmer state:)
Now, it's not that I don't enjoy the great outdoors, especially growing up in the treasure state. But with allergies that flare up when I even think about animals, agriculture, flowers, penicillin and socks with sandals, my joy is diminished. Then there's my irrational fear that I'll get out of cell service, in, say, almost anywhere in Montana, have a reaction to basically any flora from the car to the cabin door and die. While I've lived a good 23 years, I'm not ready to die before I find somewhere to don my light denim shirt and polka dot skirt.
So, with trepidation I approached my stay at Snedeker Basin. But...turns out, it was incredible! I saw hillsides covered in lavender, mullan, snaking creeks, grazing cows, singing sparrows. On the second night at sunset I approached a herd of 200 elk and sat 50 yards from them, silently trying to communicate just hold blessed I felt to sit in their presence. The barking of an elk is something I've never heard, the stampeding of antelope traveling 35 m.p.h. is something graceful and breathtaking. And while I itched my eyes, cursed my constricted lungs and contemplated reading my Glamour magazine in the car with the a/c cranking, I paused long enough to see the extraordinary setting enveloping me.
I am so proud to be a Montanan-- even in allergy season.