Writers on the Range: How to learn where we live

I was driving on Montana's Highway 89 just as fall began showing up at one of my favorite spots for walking, a turn onto a two-lane country road. If you don't know busy Highway 89, it travels north from Yellowstone National Park to Glacier National Park, a 400-mile haul.

Making my way through a tree-heavy section on the highway known locally as "deer alley," I saw wild turkeys in the road just ahead of me.

I immediately put on my emergency lights as I always do when I see wildlife on the road and stopped to watch two adult turkeys and about a dozen small ones running all over the place-maybe a...