I have never been to Montana, but I’ve always wanted to visit. I’ve always wanted to witness the acclaimed sundowns. They tell me one Montana sunset can cause people to spontaneously believe in heaven.
I almost had a chance to visit the 41st State as a teenager. I was supposed to help my friend’s uncle work on his cattle ranch. Sadly, his uncle passed away before I got the opportunity.
But I wish would’ve visited. I know exactly what I would have done. I would have spent every evening sitting on a log, watching the sunsets over the windswept plains. Or walked the famous Going-to-the-Sun-Road at dusk.
A few years ago, Montana residents reported that the sky was having some highly unusual sunsets. In some regions, the skies were turning electric purple and indigo. This mystified many, including multi-generational Montanans and meteorologists.
(Cue “Twilight Zone” theme music.)
Finally, science discovered the reason for these sunsets. The answer lay across the Pacific Ocean with the Raikoke volcano, between Japan and Russia, and the Ulawun volcano in
New Guinea.
Both volcanoes had recently erupted, sending volcanic material 60,000 feet into the stratosphere. When volcanic aerosols drifted into the stratosphere above Montana, they scattered blue light particles, which mixed with the reddish sky colors to produce deep purple sunsets.
The effect was heaven-like. No wonder they call it the Big Sky Country.
Montana is also where an old man named John once lived. You’ve never heard of John, he wasn’t famous.
At the start of John’s adult life, he was your average Montanan. He had an okay job, three happy kids, loving wife. Theirs was a good life. They attended a clapboard church. The family was a tight-knit one.
John’s wife died at 39, leaving him with three children, and it was like having his limb amputated.
John’s adult son recalls, “My dad became old overnight. His hair literally went white in a…