Montana...

Sitting atop the Hayes, Montana mountain on Ft. Belknap reservation, my husband and I grinned at each other like kids with cookies. It was the 4th of July. We had made it. Only here for a couple days, we gazed hungrily down into the valley that held our friends' home, and their 35 dogs and pups, their 30 horses and 10 llamas that they breed. Everywhere color. The green hills were so green you felt like if you licked it you'd taste lime. The skies were a seamstress blue, and you almost smell the thread, the woman's hands and the lavender stitches being sew into the shifting cotton clouds. It was good to sit with the dog, Meggie, who'd attached herself to as our guardians and just look and look. For miles Indian country. As we drove from LA, I couldn't help think, 'this is all Indian country.' Our journey from LA had been filled with surprises, Wyoming and Utah held such beauty, even the outskirts of Las Vegas floored us, but the most startling testament of how our country still echos with past discrimination were signs like the one in Idaho saying, "Warning to Tourists: Do Not Laugh at the Natives." My husband whipped his head around as we drove past, "did you see that?" He made me turn around so he could take a picture. It's on my Facebook page, and every time I look at it, I can't help but think who are the real "Natives?" So much has changed since 1492. But when we see a sign that has to remind tourists not the guffaw at the "Natives," i.e., Native Americans, the indigenous people of that land, I think maybe not much has changed. But on that mountaintop in Montana, for the moment, we could dream...