Some of the photos from the Battle Ridge area are on my old cell phone.  I have to see if I can upload them here.  There was snow on the ground and I took them with my cell phone so that I could send them to my friend, who loves snow. This part of our drive would prove to be one of the most beautiful ones we’d ever taken in Montana.  We were headed towards the Crazy Mountains, and if you’d like to read more about they got their name, try go here. It’s a pretty fascinating story.

Another thing I love is winding dirt roads heading off into who knows where.

I’m pretty sure it was a road leading into a ranch house, and I tried to imagine what it’d be like living out here, especially during winter when the snow would be deep.  Really deep.

At this altitude, there wasn’t a whole lot of green yet.  But the winding road led us further east underneath a lovely, cloud-filled, sky.

I saw a bird from a distance and wasn’t sure what it was, so I took its photo. Too blurry to tell for sure at this point; it looked dove-ish.

We stopped for a bit, thoroughly enjoying the amazing vistas of the Crazy Mountains and seeing another winding dirt road going somewhere.

Yep.  Once we got closer, I could see that it was a Mourning Dove.

We pulled into a dirt road so that we could stop and eat our sammiches that we’d fixed before we left T and J’s.  I cannot begin to describe the quiet out here. Except for some bird calls, there was absolute silence. It was absolutely wonderful.

I’d turned the car around so that we were facing the highway, and we just sat there, eating our lunch, and enjoying the beauty around us. We need to do this more. We get so busy in the rush of everyday living that we forget to take quiet breaks like this, where there’s no pressure, no sound except for birdsong, and beauty that astounds and satisfy our souls.

While we were sitting there, I spied a Mountain Bluebird!

I’d never seen one before, so it was pretty exciting!  He was so gorgeous, and my hands were shaking because I was afraid he’d fly off before I could take the photo.

See that dirt road off the right?  That’s where I turned around to face the highway, and those are the mountains behind us.

And those are the Crazy Mountains.

Oh, the lure of winding roads! Like a tractor beam from Star Trek, pulling me in, irresistible, calling me towards them.  I can’t resist them.

Oh yeah, and old barns, too. This one didn’t show much sign of life.

Yet maybe cattle or other animals found shelter in it during fierce winter storms blowing in from the Crazies.

We came across another old barn that was in far worse shape than the previous one. But I could imagine barn swallows nesting in it during the summer, flitting over the fields catching insects for their young.

The nearby log cabin was obviously not inhabited, and as always, I wondered who had lived here.  How did women like living in isolated cabins like this?  Did they go crazy like the woman for whom the Crazy Mountains were named?  Who lived here first? And last? I doubt I will ever know.

This is one drive that I knew I could take over and over again.  And we’re not even pau yet!