Bozeman, Montana

I am now sitting in a coffeeshop in Bozeman, Montana. I arrived in Bozeman last night, after a rough and, frankly, terrifying drive through North Dakota and eastern Montana that took all of yesterday. It was snowing quite a bit and the interstate was covered in many places with ice and sleet and slush--at least, I think that's what you call that mixture of snow/ice and mud; looks pretty harmless, until you try to drive over it. That, combined with wind and drifting snow, sent my little Mitsubishi fish-tailing a few times on the road, and it was all I could do to try to maintain control of the car, and not let the vehicle drift off like a leave in a storm (Moral of the story: Four-wheel drive vehicles are better for driving through snow.).

Anyway, I won't bore you anymore with the details of yesterday's journey's road conditions. At any rate, I woke up this morning, and was rewarded with a beautiful view of the mountains of Montana from my hotel:

I think I know what you're thinking. You're probably thinking that the view would be even more beautiful if that Walmart wasn't in the foreground. Well, if I am a little more tech-savvy, I would probably have photo-shopped that Walmart out of the picture. But I'm not. So Walmart is there to stay... At any rate, I have a feeling that somebody like Heidegger would have something to say about this scene of human technology impinging upon nature: Something about the question concerning technology, or something along those lines... perhaps Grimmly would be able to say something about this here?

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I also did some yoga this morning. I went to Down to Earth Yoga in downtown Bozeman for self-practice. It's called "self-practice" and not "Mysore practice", because Randa, the teacher who runs the studio, is away in India studying with Lino Miele. So there was no teacher adjusting or assisting people. It was just me and two other people doing primary series at our own pace. It was a very nice and calming practice. Here's how the practice space looks like:

As you can see, the practice space also doubles as a dance studio; I think Randa shares the space with a dance studio or something; I don't know the details. It was a bit drishti-distracting, being able to see myself while I was doing my practice. Fortunately, since I practice without my glasses, and I can't see so well without them, the drishti distraction factor was minimized :-)

Here's a close-up of the pictures of Ganesh and Guruji at the front of the practice space:

Aren't they beautiful? I'm really happy I got to visit and practice at this beautiful space this morning. I also sense that Randa puts a lot of work into cultivating this space and the Ashtanga community here in Bozeman; her students come to practice even when she's not around.

Well, that's all I have to say for now. I'm going to go soak up the sights of Bozeman for the rest of today. More later.