The West Has Cornered the Market On Sunsets

The sunsets always trip me up anytime I return to the west. Every color in the spectrum participates as the sun slipped behind the peaks ringing Bozeman, each earning a wide band that slowly met the horizon. 

Granted, I'm easily impressed by nature. But these Rocky foothills are not the green-shrouded hills surrounding Nashville. When the clouds over Denver broke to expose the the extended badlands of Wyoming (now I understand why no one lives there), those hills were forgotten. The prop plane slowly drifted into mountains pepper with chains of crystal blue ponds. 

Even the airport is cool -- Gallatin Field's exposed timber roof and support beams made it feel as if I walked off Frontier Flight 3001 and into a regal mountain lodge. 

Bozeman sits a few hundred feet lower than Denver, but huffing and puffing will occur when walking enough blocks at 5,000 feet above sea level. I also wonder if the purity of air was a shock to a set of lungs used to living right next tot Interstate 40. 

Bozeman has a charming downtown with buildings cutting the same shadow as a century ago (minus the horses and unpaved streets) and the well-populated Montana State University. After a dozen blocks in either direction 

It was a day of small events, from the excellent burgers at the Gourmet Gas Station to beers on the porch a few blocks from the NBC station where Athens works. We grilled out with the NBC staff, I pounded down the Moose Drool Brown Ale and caught the first of eight Western sunsets on the drive home. If the sun must go down, better it go down as it does in the west.