Beautiful Days That Aren't
Root Canals and Rocky Peaks
We were rolling through Ronan, Montana, and I just wanted to be home. That's not a knock on Ronan. It's a fine town sitting in the Flathead Valley with the Mission Mountains staring you down from the east like they're judging your life. Under different circumstances, I'd have pulled over and taken it all in. Today was not that day.
The reason was numbness that only a root canal can produce. If you've never had one, the procedure itself isn't as bad as the reputation suggests, but the aftermath is its own special project. Your whole face feels like it went three rounds and lost. Combine that with hours in the car, and the math gets ugly fast.
I used to love being on the road. I did. The kind of restlessness that pulls you toward wide open spaces doesn't just switch off because your mouth hurts. But there's an honesty that creeps in on the hard days, a moment where you stop performing adventure and just admit you're tired and sore and ready for your own couch.
Still, those mountains were out there doing their thing, indifferent and enormous, draped in snow that catches the afternoon light in a way that's genuinely unfair. You look up, and for a second the jaw stops talking.
June 1st Never Sits Still
June 1st has shown up reliably for nearly two decades, and apparently so has the impulse to race, camp, philosophize, and narrowly avoid rattlesnakes. This On This Day reflection traces the thread from a double race weekend in Montana to a wilderness gauntlet in Paradise Valley and a few quieter years in between. The date has a personality, and it is restless.
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