I happened to be sitting in the right place at the right time tonight, and saw the most beautiful colors out my living room window. So I went outside with my camera, hoping to do this October sunset justice.
It didn't turn out half bad.
This is the view of the sunset tonight in Kellogg. Because we are in a valley, we don't get a whole lot of beautiful sunsets, so, when we do, it is a blessing to experience them as they happen.
Kellogg sunsets are much different than the sunsets in Big Sky Country in Montana. They are also different from the Treasure Valley in southern Idaho. There, the skies are big, and go on forever. The sun and clouds and light have a lot more room to spread and color up the sky.
So, in the Silver Valley, when we have a beautiful sunset with pinks and purples, and oranges and blues, we don't take it for granted. We savor the beauty of the often short-lived phenomenon as the sun is setting in the western sky over the old Bunker Hill grounds.
And I know this valley is too much of a closed in space for some. I remember hearing about a teacher I had in high school who was from Butte, Montana. He had to get out of town every so often because the valley was too confining for him.
I have never felt confined by these mountains. They have always been a comfort to be, almost like a blanket swaddling me and giving me comfort.
When I lived in Montana, and would drive west through Big Sky Country to come home, I will never forget the feeling of getting to about Frenchtown, Montana, and feeling the mountains starting to close in, and the valley getting narrower. I knew that I was almost home.
This valley has always been home. Even when I have geographically lived in other places, this is what my body rhythms know. I never got used to the longer seasons in Glendive, Montana, or Meridian, Idaho. I never got used to the badlands of Montana, or the high desert of southern Idaho. The mountains and the valley is where I belong.
It courses through my veins like the minerals in the earth that surround me each and every day.
And I, like a miner, dig and blast what I can from this valley each and every day. Some days it is hard work, but it is well worth it in the end.
