White Powder Withdrawl

Only in Montana will a cowboy open a door for you or a single gal keep her house unlocked at night or a Raggae band offer you a t-shirt and free CD. I'm back in New York now and feeling withdrawl from power-naps on ski lifts and the super nice folks I met out west. They rolled out the red carpet for us lucky press peeps and I sure was grateful. Put political affiliations and religion aside I made some very close friendships in a relatively short time in Montana. And I discovered how inept I can be after 5 straight days of downhill runs.

But Montana, like so many other states, is a changing landscape right now. The little town of Bozeman used to be a quaint art town and quintessential ski resort. Now big box stores like Target, Petco, Costco and Home Depot are gentrifying the area and fat-cat developers are using the power of eminent domain to take property away from little people. How much shopping do people really do? With gas prices skyrocketing doesn't everybody use the internet, like I do now?

I picked up a Real Estate guide out of curiosity. Albeit the log cabins are beautiful but who can afford 1.6 million for a 2-bedroom dream home on the side of a mountain? What if this country has another recession - a ghost town of retail chains, empty condo's and skiless slopes will follow. Montana is too rich with wild game and wide open space to blight themselves with ugly commercial enterprise. I saw a rare Bald Eagle, several grazing Buffalo and a Ram perched on a cliff's edge while I was there. I sure hope the wildlife and the cowboys can survive another Starbucks and Barnes and Nobles because they are what make Montana, not Walmart.