Gallery: ‘Workmanlike, utility travel’

Today I’m subjecting you to another photo gallery. This collection of images is a confession of sorts, an illustrated guide to how very wrong I was when, on the eve of our departure from Glacier, I predicted,

“The next several weeks won’t be sightseeing — it’ll be workmanlike, utility travel, the sort of mileage that doesn’t pack much (if any) enjoyment.”

I maintain that my pessimism was justified. We reluctantly were leaving behind our “prize,” and we had almost 2,000 miles to cover before coming to rest again. It wasn’t something I looked forward to.

Those 27 days surprised me, however, packed full of sights and sounds and and unexpected experiences that turned drudgery into delight. The trip became a lesson learned, again, that there’s joy in every moment, every mile.

(A special thanks to Deb for many of these images, captured while I was occupied at the wheel of Ernie.)

Late yesterday I peeked in on some of the live webcams maintained by the Montana Department of Transportation. Conditions in a few of the places we traveled, including a couple of locales from the gallery above, aren’t quite what they were when we passed through on our way to and from Glacier Park — like Bozeman Pass (which we saw on August 31) and Homestake Pass (September 1st) on I-90, and US Highway 2 (September 16th).