A Bittersweet Stop

Some things will never change. Some things will always be the same. Lean down your ear upon the earth and listen.

~ from You Can't Go Home Again by Thomas Wolfe

On Sept. 23rd, we disembarked from the Eurodam. Since we didn't have a flight to catch, we were in one of the last groups to leave. Holland America has a lovely policy of allowing guests to wait in their staterooms until their group is called. Some other cruise lines require their passengers to crowd into lounges and public areas, clumping around elevators like cattle waiting to be herded into loading chutes.  

In the cruise terminal, we had hoped to say hello to Teresa Skeim, our excellent travel agent at Cruise Specialists, but alas! our schedules did not sync. Better luck next time...

Then we took a cab to my friend Darcy's house to retrieve our truck and camper. God bless her for letting us leave it  there. There is RV parking available for cruise passengers, but I'd have fretted about it if we'd left it in the parking lot near the pier.

Since it was afternoon by the time we headed east, we made it a short driving day, only traveling about 100 miles to Ellensberg, WA. We wanted to tie up early so we could go to the grocery store and stock up our  empty frig for the trip home. The next day we made it to Missoula, MT. 

Our westward trip on I-90 was marred by smoke from wildfires. An early snow had helped get them under control and we could see the mountaintops this time.

Coeur d'Alene, Idaho was lovely.

Sorry about the power lines in the first photo and our truck's antenna in this one. Just goes to show that our eyes edit, the camera doesn't.

Our next stop was Sheridan, WY. This was our bittersweet moment because we used to live about 10 miles south of there near Big Horn, which contrary to its name is a very tiny town indeed. To give you an idea how tiny, #2 Daughter had 17 kids in her graduating class. 

Here's the WYO theater in Sheridan, a beautifully restored art deco structure. In addition to providing a concert venue for traveling music and theater troups, the DH & I sang in the community production of Menotti's Amahl & the Night Visitors one Christmas, as well as the Mozart Requiem & Handel's Messiah with the community choir & orchestra. 

But don't let the high-brow stuff fool you, Sheridan is cowboy country, home to the WYO Rodeo and this fenced elk and bison pasture. It's located about a block from my parents' old house. They used to hear the elk bugling when mating season rolled around.

A couple blocks in the other direction from where my folks used to live is Trail End, otherwise known as the Kendrick Mansion, built early in the 1900's for a cattle baron and his family. It's well worth taking the tour!

We headed out of town to drive by our old place, knowing what we'd find, but knowing we had to see it anyway. We'd Google-Earthed the place from time to time since leaving it and were shocked to learn that our log home was no more. The new owners had torn it down and built a new house in its place, a beige, completely forgettable ranch style that would look nice on any suburban lot, but didn't have the organic, fit-the-site feel that our log home had. They kept the  stable we built, the over-sized garage and garden shed, but had changed the rough cut cedar siding for the same vinyl siding that covers their new house. 

The area seems less wild than I remember it. The lush pasture that had been next to our 5.5 acres is being graded for more construction, so  change marches on.

  

But the Big Horns haven't changed. Clouds still slip their icy fingers over the peaks and down the crevices. The mountains still wrap around the region, and the olive trees that smell so sweet each spring still provide a windbreak. Peacocks still cry from a neighbor's property. A buck and his harem still wander through the lower portion of the property and disappear into the brush along Sackett Creek.

I'm achingly sad but I know there's nothing for it. I could never live here again. The elevation is too high for me to be very active now that I have this lung condition to contend with. I miss the younger, healthier body I had when we lived here. I miss seeing the Milky Way spill across a black sky. I miss the breathlessly beautiful quality of light when dawn breaks and hits the mountain tops first while we sit still in shadow, and watching that golden light slide down the slopes to brighten the foothills, the pastureland, and finally our place.

I can't go back. I'll never live in that home again. But I'll always carry it in my heart.

 ~~~

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