Montana: Day 1

Greetings from Browning, MT!

Our group arrived in Montana yesterday around 1pm local time.  Our flight left Boston at 7:48am and we had a brief stopover in Denver.  My father told me that the Denver airport is as big as the island of Manhattan and he was right.  We landed at gate B29 and our connecting flight was at gate B89!

We flew into Great Falls airport on a small plane and it was a rough landing - lots of wind and turbulence and when we landed the plane tilted a little bit.  In addition a woman had a seizure just as we landed!  The airport is very small but I guess it’s the biggest in the state (!).  There was a stuffed bear in the airport lobby along with lots of mounted deer, moose, and elk heads.  One girl asked, “Where have you taken us, Mr. Flaherty?”

We were picked up at the airport by Bro. Ray Bonderer, FSC.  He took us to a McDonald’s for lunch and a grocery store and we were then back on the road for the 2 hour plus ride to Browning.  Bro. Ray took the backroads rather than the highway as it was too windy and the bus is very shaky (the sideroads were pretty windy too and I thought we were going over a couple of times).  I thought for sure the students would fall asleep on the ride but they were singing and having a great old time.  Bro. Ray pulled over at one point at a pretty nondescript spot with a fence and a concrete slab.  He asked us if we knew what it was and no one knew - it was a nuclear missle silo!  The government has a number of these silos all over the west that were installed during the Cold War.  We also saw hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of cattle, horses, and sheep along the way.  

We arrived at the ranch around 5pm or so.  The property was given to the brothers by the local parish who had invited them to start De La Salle Blackfeet School in 2001.  The property is 1,000 acres and there is a church and three trailer like houses.  There are two Lasalian Christian Brothers and three (I think) Lasallian Volunteers (LV’s) who live here.  LV’s are post-college graduates who spend a year or two after college serving at a Lasallian ministry.  There are also two beautiful dogs here named Jack and Jill who greeted us very enthusiastically.  I will explain more about the history of the property and the school in another blog post as I am still learning about it myself.  

When we arrived Bro. Ray met with all of us to go over the property, the schedule for the week, school expectations, etc.  At 6:30pm we went over to one of the houses where the school’s president, Bro. Dale Mooney, FSC, made us a delicious baked pasta dinner.  One of the LV’s was there too but I can’t remember her name.  We headed back to our house and everyone was dead asleep by 9:30pm or so.  

Our bunkhouse is fairly simple but very nice.  When you walk in there is a kitchen and a big table.  There are two showers and two bathrooms and twelve beds for students and two small rooms for the adults.  The beds are divided by walls with about 4 beds (2 bunks) in each room.  The house is heated with a pellet stove and it is quite comfortable.  

We were all up around 6:30am this morning after a great sleep (although I woke up a few times in the middle of the night and got a little chilly).  We are going to Mass today at 10:30am and were then supposed to visit Glacier National Park.  But they got 12 inches of snow so that will have to wait for another day.  So I am not sure what our plan is for the rest of the day other than Mass and dinner at a local restaurant.  We got snow too but it’s not too bad  - it’s more windy and cold than anything.  

Much more to come but please keep us in your prayers.  The folks here are:

Kasie Bourque ’14
Allison Doherty ’14
Brenna Gibbons ’14
William Herringshaw ’13
Kerra Photiades ’14
Ceara Quinlan ’14
Julia Steer ’14
Matthew Stewart ’14
Elizabeth Wright ’14

In addition to me, Ms. Foley of our theology department is also here with us.