Long before we had finalized our plans to come and see Andrew for graduation, Andrew had made it clear that he saw no value in walking across the stage and accepting a blank sheet of paper from a highly regarded academic from Montana State University. That being established, we had a wide open day and no need to spend it getting grumpy with thousands of other well wishers. Andrew offered to show us some of the things he liked about his adopted home. He warned us that it wasn’t as clear as usual due to forest fires in Alberta, Canada.
First thing, at about 9 or 9:30, he directed us to Peets Hill, which, if we got it right, is part of Burke Park. There we feted the graduate with photos in various permutations so that when he described his graduation experience to his friends and – much later – to his heirs, he could get the necessary long-suffering tolerance of his familial responsibilities out into the air. Then we climbed some of the hill and greeted people and dogs going up and down. To Bozeman’s credit, most of them, people and dogs, were pleased and greeted us back. From the place that we stopped and turned around, Andrew pointed out the Field House where, but for his thoughtfulness and concern for our well being, we could have spent hours that day.
From Burke Park we headed up past the ‘M’ on Bridger Canyon Road and into the Bridger Mountains, with a stop at the Bridger Bowl to acknowledge the skiing possibilities back in the winter and then up over the pass. We traveled down hill to Flat Head Creek Road which remained Highway 86 and followed that to Highway 89 which took us to I-90. We went east to Big Timber. Now, nowhere did we see massive trees in Big Timber. It may have been a problem of perspective since we were in Big Sky Country. We did find the Thirsty Turtle where a good time was had by all.
We returned back to the very fine house and had a Ceremony of Tribute to the Graduate complete with gifts from proud family members, yet without crowds or traffic jams.
