MONTANA HOT SPRINGS TOUR

In my previous two trips to/through Montana, I lingered only in Missoula - home to the University of Montana and, so they say (with sneering pride), full now of trendy Internet cafes and chi-chi shops - and in Glacier National Park, traditional habitat of the bandannaed backpacker and the senior RVer.

On this visit I saw neither Glacier nor Missoula, but I noticed that drive-thru espresso huts are in all the large towns (and quite a few of the smaller ones). So much for the Cowpoke mystique...though the cowboy poet I met at Norris Hot Springs did point out that cowboy poetry is the one poetry scene in the US in which the poets get paid.

And speaking of hot springs, luxuriating in these luscious waters seems to have been a previously unsuspected goal of my visit to this beautiful and blessed state. I have visited three of the better-known spots, which are in varying stages of development, and had three distinctly different experiences.

Boulder Hot Springs

I had not planned to stop at Boulder Hot Springs - partly because it's listed on maps as Boulder Hot Springs Hotel, or even Boulder HS Resort. It sounded too upscale for Ethel and me. But I'm on my way north to Helena, and since I nearly froze last night, I want to retrieve my sleeping bag from rooftop storage before stopping for the evening. Boulder just sounds like an interesting place to pull over. Then I see the sign for the hot springs. Just a couple of miles - why not? So I drive on.

Much to my surprise - shock! - as I turn up the gravel road, I realize I've been here before. Circa 1981, four of us had been hiking and camping in the Tetons, had swung through Yellowstone, and were on our way home. We'd not carefully planned our first night's stop out of Yellowstone and ended up pitching our tent by the side of the road. We were all crammed into a very small tent in the midst of a windstorm that kept one side (guess whose side) of the ripstop nylon plastered across our faces (okay, mine) for the several hours that we attempted to sleep. When dawn broke, we commenced our journey. As the only one awake enough (and that only because I hadn't slept a wink) I drove while everyone else crashed. Out of the blue, in the middle of nowhere it seemed, I saw a sign: Hot Springs, and an arrow pointing up a dirt road. We found an old hotel - not open, but under renovation - and a swimming pool-sized hot soak in an old tile and brick building. We swam and rejuvenated ourselves. In my memory, it was on the outskirts of Helena, so I hadn't expected to find it outside of Boulder. But here it is - grandly renovated, I must say. National Historic Register.

Of course, I park and go inside. Men and women now have separate pools - suits optional, and showers mandatory. Good - I'm hoping for a shower; bathing is a luxury in Ethel. Primarily, my bathtub is full of things destined for Chicago or to be given away to unidentified recipients. And at this time I've not yet mastered the art of recharging my 12 volt battery with sunlight (that'll happen the next day - thanks, B!), so I have no water pump anyway.

I take my time - showering, washing my hair - and then slip into the pool. For once, I'm grateful to my first husband for his love of nudity. I'd feel like a prude with a suit on.

The two (naked) other women in the pool are weathered Nordic types, like many Montanans - at least in that part of the state. One is a native; the other came out from Pennsylvania in the late seventies and traded in her return plane ticket to stay on. In response to my questions, each tells the other's story. I've already told them about my journey, bereavement, film, etc.

They speak cautiously, with confirming glances to each other. I'm certain they're carefully choosing what information to share with me, and what to leave out. I'm also reasonably sure they're lesbians, so used to being closeted that they can't bring themselves to tell me, despite the subject of my documentary.

I speak privately with one of the women, when the other goes to the cold pool. She wants to invite me to the house of a friend they're staying with (they're visiting from the Missoula area).In the end, it doesn't work out; but she clearly wants to invite me into their circle and is just probably outvoted. I wish they could've been more forthright with me. I give my new friend my card. I wonder if she's reading this....


Norris Hot Springs

Norris Hot Springs - Water of the Gods, the sign says, emblazoned with the business logo: a solid blue dot inside an encircling blue line - a god's eye.

After my blissful and engaging soak at Boulder Hot Springs, I search the Internet for more options. Norris - though not exactly a population center - sounds like a party. And after two weeks of limited interactions, I'm ready for a party; though usually the prospect of a party where I know no one fills me with the utmost dread.

Sunday's entertainment sounds good - eclectic bluegrass music - so I wheel Ethel into the parking lot around 4:00 (music at 7:00), to make myself as comfortable as possible before the crowds arrive. One of my goals for this journey is to help me learn to talk with strangers, to approach them without the fear of rejection that has dogged me all my life. I had an excellent role model for twenty-five years, not that I could hope to approach his level of mastery; but I seek to honor his memory in this way, among others.

The pool is crowded. I take stock; mostly families and groups of friends - gen xers and ys. There's also quite the kitchen going. The hot springs is operated by a trio of young women, all of whom have the harried comportment of those who depend on outsiders for their living. They are clearly at the end of a long weekend.

I claim a chair and sit for a few minutes to take stock. No one pays me any attention. I venture into the pool. It's quite hot by the steps, but there's a sprinkler system that spews a cooling rain over most of the pool area. I circulate, smiling indiscriminately at children and somewhat selectively at their parents. No one seems to mind - or really notice me for that matter. Some of the children smile back. The droplets become annoying, and I seek out a somewhat sheltered corner.

At 6:30 I order a burger - my first real dining out of the trip - and wine from the extensive local list. The burger is grossly underdone (I'll have digestive troubles tomorrow), and the wine comes in a tiny thin tumbler. I dilute the wine with water to make it last. At least it's decent wine.

There's a band shell that looks like a yurt with one side open, and promptly at 7:00 the musicians begin to play. They're really good bluegrass pickers, and I lose myself in the music. Gradually the families are leaving and a different crowd is arriving - tattooed, mohawked, raucous.... My peeps! Only several decades younger. I see one other unattached woman my age. She sits near me but doesn't want to talk.

After a while the evening air starts to cool. I find a place in the pool, nearest to the band. I'm enjoying the music, even if there's no conversation to be had. But shortly a man in his 40s sits down on the ledge near me. I size him up - he seems to want me to. He looks nice enough, and he has a Celtic tattoo on his arm. I ask about the tattoo, and we begin to talk.

He's a musician, he says. Moved to Montana when Boulder, Colorado, his home of many years, got too crowded. Has a wife who's a textile artist and two children. They live, coincidentally, near Boulder hot springs. Curious, I question him about how he earns a living. He's a composer too, he says, so that brings in a bit. Hesitantly, he finally mentions that he's also a poet. I laugh that that can't bring in much money, and that's where we break through.

Yes, he earns money "cowboying", but that just feeds his real passion - cowboy poetry. Proudly, he points out that cowboy poets - the good ones anyway - actually make money off their poetry. He's part of the scene out here. In fact, the man he confidently considers the country's greatest living poet - Paul Zarzyski - has become a friend.

I tell him about my film and journey; and before we go our separate ways, I give him my card. He presents me with his CD - "Not like it's a big seller," he says, with some embarrassment. I know the feeling.

A couple of days later I listen to the CD. It's very good. And we might be distantly related. So, here's a shout out to you John Reedy! Check out John's music - it's real cowboy and real dang good. Hey, write us some haiku, bro!


Chico Hot Springs

The cowboy poet says Chico is where folks from that part of the state (south central - the Bozeman/Livingston pole) hang; so I make the trek out from Livingston with great anticipation. It's thirty-plus miles through the aptly named Paradise Valley, with the mountains of Yellowstone crowning the distance. I arrive late Tuesday afternoon to see an old hotel (Historic Register again - Teddy Roosevelt slept here), rustic yet grand, in the throes of check-in time.

The grounds are inviting; there are rockers on the veranda, WiFi in the lobby, a day spa up on the hill. I peruse the day spa menu - it makes Los Angeles spas seem a bargain. Hmmm...not what I expected. My phone rings - hey, reception! I have a nice long chat with one of my angels, from the City of; and by the time we hang up, rush hour is over in the lobby. I ask the clerk where the regular day soak pool is and learn that entry is through the saloon. Of course...

The saloon looks like part of the original development. It's the kind of place I'd like to drink, but probably not alone, and certainly not when I have to pilot Ethel after dark to a yet-to-be-determined location! "Pay the Bartender" I read on the door. I do, and he buzzes me to the enclosed outdoor area.

I find the dressing room (with shower!) and outfit myself. The pool is as large as a standard swimming pool, and people are treating it like one. When I dip a toe, I learn why: it's a perfect lukewarm temperature, with that luscious heavy quality of mineral water. Ahh... I float for some minutes, just looking up at the expressive clouds gliding by overhead.

The population at the pool seems to be mostly hotel guests. A father and teenage son toss a ball across the pool's width, critiquing their throws en francais. A group of boys tosses girls into the air with much hilarity. There are a few groups of adults absorbed in conversation, and the one single adult has his nose in a book. That's okay - I'm just blissed out on the setting - clouds and hills and sky.

As I sit idly dangling my feet in the water, I'm thinking about how clouds often seem to convey messages to me - omens, portents, that sort of thing - and I wonder if I will be able to read something in these abundant floaters. At that moment, I notice two large clouds, close together, low, and directly above the pool. One of them is actually a close grouping of three. It looks like a heart, broken in three pieces. Ah, my broken heart, I think. The other cloud is a shapeless mass, with one protrusion seeming to poke out at the heart.

As I wonder if there's a shape that I'm missing, the center of the mass begins to evolve. I notice that behind these two large cumulo-nimbus clouds - as though providing a backdrop - is a circular mass of cirrus wisps, which is now beginning to whirl in a clockwise motion. Now it resembles a medicine shield. My focus shifts back to the dark center of the shapeless mass, which continues to change, and within a few seconds a face forms in that center. Then it speaks to me. According to Black Elk, you shouldn't reveal your visions, so I'll stop there.

In an instant, the cloud shifts back to shapelessness. The face is gone; the medicine shield has rotated itself out of existence; even the heart can no longer be seen. The whole event took, maybe, half a minute. Nevertheless, I am profoundly comforted and moved. And grinning like an absolute idiot, there on the side of the pool by myself.

After a while, I go to the window between the pool and saloon and buy a plastic cup of Moose Drool - dark and delicious beer, despite the name. While I'm at that end of the pool, I discover the separate hot pool - maybe 10'x30', and hot enough even for me. It's the gay pick-up scene this late afternoon. Ah, gay cowboys...

Leaving that research for another time, I finish my beer and flow back into Ethel to search for a place to spend the night.

Montana hot spring
River bend camp starry sky
Pelicans at dawn