Vacation III-IV

I must confess that I find the 'Big Sky' a little disturbing. There's a place on the Idaho-Montana border that must approximate some of the areas of Eastern Montana. It's like a large, extremely shallow, and nearly featureless bowl. Potato farms have petered out traveling northward; grassland and cattle ranges have taken over the scenery. Mountains appear far to the west, foreshortened by the incredible distance, but with a shape and shade indicating they must rise a mile or more from the plain. To the south and east, small rises block the true horizon, leaving the impression that the openness continues endlessly. And to the north, the slow rise to the 'crown of the continent' begins, a steep but steady grade through largely empty terrain.

The clouds, having gradually fallen for many, many miles, appear to hover only a hundred feet overhead. This pane of scattered clouds, pulled down by gravity, seems like it is pressing in, leaving you without that third dimension.

It feels like being on a different planet, maybe Majipoor or another giant sci-fi world, Earth-like but with double the radius. To me, it seems vaguely unsettling, perhaps a feeling of insignificance made obvious. I am glad to get back in the tiny car and continue on, an hour's drive to be amid topography again.

I guess it's common knowledge in the Flathead valley that the guy who owns the San Francisco 49ers has a palatial estate up here (now on sale for $8.8 million, I'm told) and throws a huge, private party for Independence Day every year (rumor has it that Duran Duran performed). The fireworks show he puts on dwarf those of the surrounding towns. So after the farmer's market in the morning, and a backyard barbecue in the afternoon, we'll head to a suitable spot to catch the spectacle. But first, my nephew Scott and I burn through the remains of his stash from last year: sending rockets off on crazy paths over the Dunkley's garden and setting off smoke bombs that momentarily drive away the mosquitoes.

The show did not disappoint. We watched from a vantage point somewhere on the outskirts of Kalispell, far enough away that the sound of the bursts did not carry, but close to a race track where the synchronous sound of motors in high gear filled aptly in, occasionally grinding down to a dull roar (a yellow flag, no doubt). Not only was it a big show with a big finale, but people and places all over the valley were putting on their own shows concurrently. I love fireworks. I love being in the middle of the action, as in Lordsburg NM where it's like a war zone (seriously, they should warn PTSD sufferers to leave town the first week of July). And it's great to enjoy the large-scale tableau, as we did one year from Griffith Observatory above LA, or often from Tucson, where fireworks aren't even sold (legally, that is ). So this was kind of a happy medium, with large and small bursts all around, but at a safe remove so you don't have to worry about your airspace being violated by wildly off-ballistic missiles shooting in from over your shoulder.

Smaller displays continued here and there in yards and fields as we drove home, and sporadic sounds, including occasional gunfire, into the late night. I'm sure I slept quite peacefully.