I Should Have Brought My Cowboy Hat

I was on the lookout for mountains today, and they still surprised me. For the past two days, I've been driving past tall hills that are green or brown, and I figured the Rocky Mountains were going to be, well, rocky in appearance and easy to spot from far away--especially in a state like Montana with a "big sky." However, after leaving Billings, there came a moment when it seems the mountains materialized out of thin air. Not like when you're coming north on I-75 into Detroit and the Ambassador Bridge and the Ren Cen rise before you as you go up an incline close to the city. I'm sure the camouflage of the mountains has something to do with them being snow-capped, but even the colors of the base and the sections of evergreens on them from a distance take on a blue hue like the sky. The sudden presence of mountains makes you realize you're in a different place. I also had a realization about this yesterday, too, though. When I went inside a Visitor Center for the Theodore Roosevelt National Park, a woman who worked for the National Park Service asked me if I was from Michigan. How did she guess? I forgot I was wearing my Tigers hat. She said that the hat was a giveaway along with the Moosejaw shirt. That's funny--when I selected the Moosejaw shirt to wear that day, I thought it would help me blend in with the local outdoor apparel, but apparently not. Turns out, cowboy hats are more popular in this area than I would have thought: maybe I should've brought my Stetson.