Dog days of summer? Think cool waterfall

I am definitely a cool-weather person. I think I could be happy if I lived someplace where it snowed all year round. Montana: close enough. It’s mid-August, typically the dog days of summer where I come from, and here there is already a lovely chill in the air in the evenings. About this time every year I start longing for fall clothes, but it wasn’t until October if I was lucky that I could break them out. 

I’ve been working on Big Sky Yoga’s early fall newsletter and was trying to think of how to put into words the natural beauty Montana has to offer, and came up with the following: Montana boasts some of the most stunning scenery in the US, where you can immerse yourself in soothing naturescapes: snow-capped peaks, mountain meadows, cool waterfalls, glacial lakes, fresh pine forests. Does this all sound like a bunch of cliches to you, or descriptions used for your white noise machine or aromatherapy products? Yeah, well, that’s where I live. It may not be tropical, but it’s one of the most beautiful (and comfortable) places I’ve ever been. And I’ve found that no matter what the weather here, it is always breathtaking. And I’ll take wearing a cozy sweater over sweating my butt off any day.
This photo is of Grotto Falls, a hiking trail with multiple waterfalls that is about, oh, 20 minutes from where I live. Morgane and I are sitting here waiting for her dad to arrive home from his manly night-out-in-the-woods alone up there. I keep asking myself this question: where else but Montana…?