A Study in Opposites

I am blessed to live in a beautiful part of our country. I've said time and time again that I'll probably never leave Montana (unless, of course, someone offers us a killer job, comes to our house and packs us, moves us to said job, comes to our house and unpacks us....then I might be persuaded to leave).

These are recent photos from our trip to the Twin Lakes...

I was thinking about our camping trip as I drove home last night from Huntsville. It was a long drive to/from Space Camp and I had plenty of time to think and to make observations about this southern part of the country through which I was driving. I was entertained by signs of the local culture....

I was also struck by some of these tiny little towns that seemed lost in a bygone era. I'm sure southerners would say the same of some of the Montana towns, so I mean no disrespect by that comment ( you guys have Slick's Gun Shop and we have Mentzer's Used Cow Lot, so you'll get no argument from me on that point thank-you-very-much). But I was struck by the decay in some of these towns, almost like it was Lost America.

This last image really struck me as I rounded the corner of a little backroad after taking photos of an old caboose that was overgrown with vines and shrubs. I started to drive away and noticed this scene and in light of having just dropped off my future astronaut at Space Camp, I had to pull over and capture this one as well. The way the sign fell you couldn't read that it was a furniture store. All I saw was "Discount Future". What a commentary on our world today. Here I was dropping my child off with the hope that the experience she has over the next week will continue to spark her interest in science and math and further develop her passion for space and space exploration. But then I look at our world and how much we discount her future by physically wrecking our planet day by day.

Heavy stuff to think about...no wonder the rain came down as a deluge.