Montana - Bozeman and Billings



Site of my meeting with Ray, Board President
Family Promise of Gallatin Valley

I have breakfast with Gloria before leaving Bozeman this morning. Bozeman is a tourist-oriented community of around 30,000 residents that serves as a gateway to Yellowstone National Park. The community describes itself as "an eclectic mix of ranchers, artists, professors, ski enthusiasts, and entrepreneurs."  (Chamber of Commerce) I am told that it is a wealthy community - quiet wealth, not ostentatious like Aspen and similar mountain, ski communities, but wealthy nonetheless. It is stated that one is more likely to see briefcases than branding irons in Bozeman. Indeed, the free daily newspaper provided at my hotel is the Wall Street Journal; restaurants serve local-grown Kobe beef; and Ted Turner has a spread just up the road. But we do not dine in one of the "upscale" establishments, rather in the quaint Western Café, located on Main St. With walls paneled in pine; red, vinyl-covered seats and stools; "heads" on the walls - including an authentic jackalope - the Western Café is a true Montana experience. Gloria chose this restaurant as my best bet for dining . . . amongst cowboys!!! Sadly, while there are many denim-covered rumps and leather boot-clad feet parked in these vinyl seats, there is not a cowboy hat to be had in the room. I’m bummed.



Western Cafe - complete with jackalope!

I travel east to Billings, in the rain and in rapidly dropping temperatures. The countryside is obscured by clouds.  I am frustrated that I cannot see the Crazy Mountains, nor the Beartooth Mountains, nor the Absaroka Mountains. Nor can I find access to the Yellowstone River, which parallels I-90. It is 41 degrees by the time I arrive at the IHN Day Center! I spend the next many hours working with Adela, the ED of IHN of Yellowstone County. Billings is the financial, medical, agricultural, and cultural center for the Northern Rockies/Great Plains. It is the largest city in Montana; however, large is relative, as the population is only around 100,000. Billings is the site of a major Conoco oil refinery as well as a sugar beet processing plant. There is a large Crow Indian Reservation south of town, the fifth largest native american reservation in the US with more than 2 million acres of land.  The IHN stays full with families from the city itself as well as the surrounding countryside, including the Reservations. Dinner this evening is eaten together with Adela and two Board members, in a much different establishment than was breakfast. We dine in the Billings Petroleum Club, located on the twenty-first floor of the Crowne Plaza Hotel, with a tremendous view of the city. Here I eat my first ever huckleberries, a Montana gourmet treat! While folks tell me that you can pick them wild from bushes outside town, this time of year one is likely to be competing for them with the bears, who are storing up for winter hibernation.

Witness

Sometimes the mountain

is hidden from me in veils

of cloud, sometimes

I am hidden from the mountain

in veils of inattention, apathy, fatigue,

when I forget or refuse to go

down to the shore or a few yards

up the road, on a clear day,

to reconfirm

that witnessing presence.

Denise Levertov

Two long but good work days, Thursday and Friday, spent with the staff and Boards of the Family Promise affiliates in Bozeman and Billings. I do love the folks I work with, good people working hard to help families with children who have found themselves without a home in which to live. What a great job I have, providing technical assistance and support to those on the front line of this work. What a great job I have that allows me to get to know communities across the United States.

I end the evening driving to the town of Red Lodge, the entrance to the Beartooth Highway, which I intend to traverse tomorrow. However, the area is fogged in, and it is 32 degrees when I arrive at my hotel. The pass may be closed due to ice. We’ll have to see what tomorrow brings.

Donna

© September 17, 2010