Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Neither here nor There.















Driving between Helena and Bozeman this summer, I've begun to feel like I'm cruising the main highway of the Twilight Zone. Don't get me wrong - I've yet to see a sentient ventriloquist dummy or become slave to a fortune-telling machine. It's just that, no matter the time of day or direction of travel, every trip I take is full of incredible, thought-provoking vistas that redefine the word "beautiful" with each mile. With clouds and mountains, fields and blackbirds, prickly pears and faraway rains, the landscape reinvents itself over and over.

But it's problematic. You see, there are at least 60 little white crosses between Helena and the interstate, a distance of almost exactly 65 miles. That makes US 287 one deadly little road. There are plenty of reasons: it's a busy two-lane with no shoulders that caters to slow-moving agricultural equipment, boats, and semis, after all. Seems reasonable enough. But does it really explain the little flocks of crosses that fly by my side?

I have my own theory about them: sometimes there are places too beautiful for people to survive.

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