I first traveled to Montana with my family in the summer of 2001. As an avid angler, I had read about the famed rivers and heard the stories of endless trout and big sky, and realized I had to go. We rented a home outside of Bozeman and spent a week exploring all that the area had to offer. We experienced the majesty of Yellowstone National Park, took a step back in time in the quaint small town of Livingston, fished the Gallatin River every day, drove hundreds of miles under the biggest and bluest sky we had ever seen, and spent quiet evenings on the deck playing games and cherishing our time together.
We fell in love with Montana and it became a part of each of us. We returned the next two summers to continue our explorations and then decided to buy a small place of our own. It has been fourteen years now and while our home outside of Bozeman on the East Gallatin River is a part time residence, it is a full-time member of our family. We long to get back there to take in the mountain air, walk the river rock shores of our favorite rivers, and spend quality family time together.
The nature, culture, and people of Montana inspire me. When I’m in Montana, I’m free—unencumbered by the usual distractions back in Illinois—and able to explore ideas and easily get the words down onto the page. When I’m not in Montana, I’m always thinking about that glorious place, and my experiences there end up finding their way into my writing. What follows is an example of how Montana became part of my short story, Come Out, Wherever You Are.
These days, our world is enmeshed in technological connectivity— twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week—and many people spend the majority of their days searching and texting and updating their networks of people on every minute detail of their existence.
I think we need to be forced away from our devices every once in a while to relish the simple pleasures in life: reading a book, taking a walk, or just looking around and taking in all that is happening around us. For without the break, we might get so distracted that we’ll miss out on what is really important.
What if a person decided to walk away from the technological tether and live his life in solitude, and what if while he was away, something happened to the social network? That, very simply, was the seed of the idea, and it was all I needed to get on with writing the story, Come Out, Wherever You Are.
In the story, the protagonist, Verne, had forced himself to break away. During his career as a politician, he was always in the spotlight and always in the news. Privacy was not a possibility and he understood that the absence of it came with the job. So, as he came to the end of his career, he made a wish to live in Montana, and then when he retired, he made the wish a reality. What he didn’t expect was for the circumstances that nudged him into exile to end up being the same circumstances that made his exile permanent. I had the main character and I knew exactly where to put him. Since falling in love with Montana on my first visit there, I have been pursuing my own temporary but regular exile there ever since.
The sky is big, the rivers are endless, and I think the people there are likely the nicest people in the world. Add to that, regarding the people, there are only about one million in the entire state. There is one square mile of land for every six people. It’s open and easy to get lost there, and I liked the possibilities. Montana was where Verne needed to go. I knew Verne would start and end his story in Montana, and at the end, I expected him to simply head off into the sunset to finish out his remaining years in solitude, as he had wished. However, since that time, I find that I’m often wondering—maybe even worrying—about Verne and what his future holds. Who knows, maybe I will run into him again somewhere down the road, in Montana.
Traveling to Montana? If you are in the Bozeman area, be sure to wet a line on one of the many famed and local rivers. If you’re looking for a great dinner spot in Bozeman, you can’t go wrong with Dave’s Sushi and their creative and inspired sushi creations or Copper Whiskey Bar & Grill and their classic cocktails, hip crowd, and inventive menu items. Plan a day for a side trip over to Livingston for shopping, breakfast or lunch at Gil’s Goods, a drink at the Murray Hotel bar, and dinner at 2nd Street Bistro.