On The Road Again...

        Last night I got back from the Glacier National Park trip. It was incredible (I'll rant more about it and post more pics later) and my road trip buddies (Tonya, Nicole, and Ali) were all super cool. Culturally speaking, it was a really interesting group with a Swiss-Austrailian (Tonya) an Australian (Nicole) an Iranian-American (Ali), and an American (myself). I found myself translating quite a bit between Ali and the girls. :) We had some really great conversations about stuff you normally don't discuss at the dinner table.
        Today I worked on a found object poem that I'll discuss in further detail later. It's half sculpture, half poem. It's somewhat inspired by Joseph Cornell's shadowboxes and somewhat by the surrealist concept of exquisite corpse. Also, it requires a non traditional effort to read. I finished the basic sculpture (see photo) and need to finish writing the poem so I can paint it in strategic places. This is one of those more than meets the eye pieces and physical manipulation is not only encouraged but required to read the poem.
        Tomorrow Tonya, Nicole and I are renting a car in Helena and driving to a ghost town called Virginia City then to Bozeman where we'll couch surf a night or two and drive to Yellowstone National Park. Should be back sometime Thursday evening. Until then!
        

Do These Pants Make My Butte Look Big?

        This evening Cynthia and I drove down to the Old Wild West mining mecca known as Butte (that's with a long "u" as in beautiful). The Woodford Gallery was hosting a fundraiser for the Montana Artist's Refuge called "Strawberry Moon Celebration 2008". For a $20 suggested donation you got your fill of strawberry desserts-- everything from chocolate covered strawberries to strawberry bread.
        Cynthia played a couple of songs and I read Hurricane Rain, an old crowd favorite, and two poems that I've written here in Montana. The audience was great: very attentive and responsive. On quite a few occasions I had to pause my reading of Hurricane Rain because the laughter was so loud.
        Later Cynthia and I went out to dinner with Jennifer, Karen and her husband Steve, who are all involved with the artist refuge. It was interesting to hear about their lives and artistic pursuits. Jennifer transforms old wool sweaters and other old articles of clothing into new wearable and non-wearable creations. Karen develops her own photos and weaves. Her and Steve have seven horses, two goats, and some dogs and cats.
        After dinner, I loaded up my take-out container with the dinner rolls that came in the basket, and Steve made a comment about "starving artists" before he declared he was treating us all to dinner. Very cool to be around such a positive, supportive group of people.

        Also, at the strawberry celebration a woman named Emma loaned me a book of William Stafford poetry called The Way It Is. I'm looking forward to reading it on the way up to Glacier National Park. I'm leaving Friday morning with the two Australians and an Iranian student named Ali who will be our driver. He'll also be filming and photographing the girls playing around in the snow for a multimedia project they are working on. Should be a great time.

        By the way, thanks to all who have been reading my blog. It's good to hear from everyone! :)

Why Can't I Quit You?

        So I didn't know exactly what to expect when Cynthia invited me to the cowboy poetry reading that was held in Boulder yesterday. She told me that evidently there's a whole sub-genre of poetry centered around cowboy culture. Now I thought that this could probably go a couple of different ways, and it's fair to say I was more than a little curious.
        After almost missing my ride due to my afternoon cat nap becoming a little bit too epic, I saddled up the Honda Accord with Cynthia driving and Nicole and Tonya in the back. Ten minutes later we were walking into a little Methodist church built in the 1870's for Boulder's second annual cowboy poetry reading-- yeehaw! Well okay, there wasn't any yeehawing going on. But there was some fun sing-a-longs. In fact the stage was split between poets and musicians, which gave a nice variety. Although many of the poems were rhyming couplets, which can sometimes be a little painful, there were a couple that really struck me. One epic poem (that happened to be metered and rhymed) about a fictional cowboy who rescued a baby and then later when he was old and decrepit she was his nurse. It was pretty touching. The poet, whose name was Sara, also wrote about being a businesswoman in Helena and longing for the range. She was quite good. Also of note was Kerri Lyn Kumasaka, a woman of Japanese descent who moved to Boulder from Seattle. I ended up buying her book. Cynthia, my jazz musician neighbor sang and played a song on the piano called "Cow on Capitalist Avenue" about a cow lost in New York City. It was written from the cow's point of view...very, very creative. The crowd loved it too. Afterwards there was a ho-down of sorts, with hot dogs and "gourmet" tube steak. Also, some excellent peanut butter cookies.

Moosing Take Two

        Tonight I went out to moose country again with Cynthia. This time Tonya and Nicole came along. The Australians must be good luck because we saw three! A mother and calf which were kind of far away and scrammed rather quickly and then a beautiful single cow that was chomping on a willow bush. It was very exciting! We also saw two elk and a handful of deer.
        I was looking at the big giant moon with the binoculars and out of nowhere Cynthia goes "Do you see the fat woman kissing the old black man?" This is evidently what she sees when she looks at the moon! She's such a riot!
        As an aside, June 12 was my year anniversary since becoming a vegetarian. On my journaling software there is a little icon labeled "Taco" and when you click it, it gives you a randomized Simpsons quote. Here was today's:

Homer: Are you saying you’re never going to eat any animal again? What about bacon?
Lisa: No.
Homer: Ham?
Lisa: No.
Homer: Pork chops?
Lisa: Dad, those all come from the same animal.
Homer: Heh heh heh. Ooh, yeah, right, Lisa. A wonderful, magical animal.

The Trouble With Coffee and The Internet

It's been an unusual day here on the Dental Floss Farm so far. I woke up at around 6 am yelling at my brother because I had a bad dream that he borrowed my laptop and returned it with a grotesque colony of black fungus covering the entire keyboard. I couldn't get back to sleep so I climbed down from the loft an hour later and intended to get my day started by making a big breakfast of eggs, home fries, and toast. For something different I decided to make coffee instead of tea this morning. It's funny how sometimes a simple decision like that can alter the next couple hours of your life.

Let me explain: when I went to pour the water in the coffee pot I noticed it looked rather gross. Brown spots, maybe fungus? I don't know. I didn't want to take any chances though, so I decided to look on the internet for directions about how to clean. Vinegar and water it said. So I followed the directs and ran the solution through and then ran a couple more of straight water. By this time the fact that I had only had 4 or 5 hours of sleep kicked in all at once so I decided to scrap breakfast for the moment and go back to bed. I didn't expect to sleep until 1pm.

So I climbed back down and began my second crack at breakfast, which now was brunch. It had been on my mind to look up where in Montana Ted Kaczynski, the unabomber, had lived. So while my home fries were cooking I jumped on Wikipedia and found out he was from Lincoln and then Google mapped that location from Basin and found it's an hour and a half's drive away. So of course I was intrigued and had to read the introduction of Industrial Society and It's Future, his manifesto, over breakfast. And then of course after breakfast I had to read the details surrounding his life, fascinating by the way, and began clicking on a number of the embedded links. The major divergence happened when I clicked from T.K. to Jacques Ellul, who T.K. had cited as being a major influence in his writing. Ellul was a French philosopher, sociologist, theologian, and Christian anarchist. He wrote over 40 books including The Technological Society which is his most important work.

Anyway, there I was with my laptop that I had just dreamt was overrun by black fungus, reading about the dangers of technology for hours while clicking through links like there's no tomorrow and bouncing from topic to topic in my browser tabs. How ironic. I'm going to go outside now.

Why did the Dharma Bum cross the road?

        Yesterday was by far my most incredible day out here. I planned to take a jaunt on Moe's Huffy to get out of my apartment for a bit, but it turned into an odyssey as soon as I made the turn onto Cataract Creek Road.
        Cataract Creek Road is a narrow dirt road that winds its way along Cataract Creek and deep into the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest. At the entrance near Basin there's a horse ranch nestled in a lush valley that's surrounded by nothing but mountains and sky. The scenery is absolutely stunning. The further back I pedaled, the closer the road paralleled the creek until the incline began steadily climbing and became mountainside on my right and creek on my left.
        Cataract Creek at this time of year (because of the snow melt in the mountains) is a roaring, foaming, gushing body of water that tries to get down the mountains as quickly as possible. I climbed down to a place where it was accessible, and the water was ice cold. No surprise there. While I was poking around down there looking at the stones a woman appeared on the road and called down to me. In trouble again? But no, she was just going for a walk and noticed me.
        She asked me if I was from the Artist's Refuge. At this point I'm thinking: what is there a sign on my back or something? Is it really that obvious that I'm not from around here? But anyway, we got to talking and turns out she owns a store in town called Montana Dreamwear and her husband is a poet by the name of Earl E. Martin who is a Vietnam Vet and has a book out called A Poet Goes To War. I'm going to have to get my hands on a copy.
        Celeste and I had a very esoteric conversation about the creek and the mountains and the air, and she pulled out a black rosary and told me that although not Catholic anymore she still comes up here as often as possible to be spiritual. I agreed with her that it was indeed a very spiritual place. I said it felt very familiar, like I had been here before in a dream or something, and she replied that I must have an old soul. I don't know about such things, but I do know that if I lived in Basin I would be walking or biking that road as often as possible.
        When we parted ways I continued on up the road as it got steeper and steeper and finally I got to a dark cool side of the mountain that still had snow on it. I don't know how far I traveled, probably 7 or 8 miles one way, but I was gone for hours and really didn't feel a want for anything. Riding back was all down hill, a tad scary on the ole' Huffy with the weak breaks and no suspension, but it got the job done and I wasn't even conked in the head by any falling rocks.
        I'll try to get some pictures up the next time I go, I forgot to bring my camera.

6732 Words And Counting...

        Tomorrow it will be one week since arriving here at Montana Artist's Refuge. I just tabulated my production thus far (don't worry I didn't count them manually, MacJournal keeps track) and I came up with 6732 words between my blog entries, memoir project, and poetry. To some reading this that may seem like a lot, to others not that much. It's difficult to quantify creativity in terms of word counts but I'll say this much: I'm doing good but I could be doing better. Procrastination is a tough nut to crack and I feel that I've spent too much time avoiding writing so far. The good thing is one can only procrastinate so much in the middle of a June snowstorm like we got here today (I woke up to 2-3 inches on the ground and it continued snowing and blowing all day). That being said, I feel like I've settled into a writing groove these past couple of days and feel optimistic about what I'm going to accomplish here. My goal for next week by June 18 is an additional 13464 words, which is double my current word count.

        Now a word from my sponsor Owyhee® Idaho Spud: "The Candy Bar That Makes Idaho Famous":
                        
                        *BEGIN CORNY MUSIC*
                                If you want a candy bar that's not a dud,
                                Reach for an Owyhee Idaho Spud,
                                Rich chocolatey-coconut shell,
                                Surrounds our mystery gooey gel,
                                So if you want a treat for not a lot of dough,
                                Grab the only candy bar shaped like a potato,
                                Owww-yyy-heeee! Idaho Spud!
                                "The Candy Bar That Makes Idaho Famous."
                        *END CORNY MUSIC*

        Now a word of advice from me: if you are ever in the tiny little grocery store in Boulder, Montana and you spy an Owyhee® Idaho Spud in the candy section next to the checkout, DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT reach for it. Don't be deceived into thinking its 1970's style wrapper is "retro." In reality it has probably been sitting there on the shelf since then. Don't think "For 69 cents how can I lose?" You can loose, believe me. Don't be fooled by the ingredients that list chocolate and coconut, because it's not an oversized Mounds bar shaped like a potato, it's a hideous abomination of a candy bar filled with only God (and the chemists who mistakenly created it in the lab experiment gone horribly wrong) knows what. And yes, it is really that bad. In fact, for this monstrosity I think I must reference the immortal words of the famous cultural critic known as Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons: Worst candy bar ever. No wonder Idaho is nowhere near famous.

It's Called Global Climate Change Now, Man...You...You Gun-Hugger...

        This morning I opened my door to snow showers and a nice white coating on the ground. Ah man, why didn't I bring my snowboard?! Seriously, it really doesn't take much more than what we had to slide down a hill. 

        So yeah it was kind of surreal to see snow covered yellow dandelions (although they were smart enough to close up into a little bulb). And I'll admit, I was thinking about that guy Forrest and his criticism of the bunny-huggers and their invented global warming. But people keep telling me that snow at this time of year is not that uncommon. Debbie the residency co-ordinater told me today that one year it snowed at least once every single month. Wow, right?
        But back to Global Warming, or Climate Change, or whatever the hipsters say these days: on the 20th and 21st, if everything goes according to plan, I'll get to see first hand what all the buzz is about. You see, today my Australian friends Tonya and Nicole (who together form "The Jilted Brides") made arrangements to go to Glacier National Park, and I'll be accompanying them!
        According to scientists, if current rates of melt continue as they have been since the 1950's, all of the glaciers in the park will be gone by 2030. Yeow! Not so good right? At the very least this means one very large puddle. You can read and watch a video about it here.
        The next cool derogative term for environmentalists will be "ice-hugger." Cool indeed. Remember folks, you heard it here on Live from the Dental Floss Farm first!

They Say this is the Golden Age, And Gold is the Reason for the Wars We Wage...        
        Mo stopped by with her bike this afternoon, and since I had been putzing around the apartment all day getting caught up on the latest Apple Computer news (they introduced the 3g iPhone today) I decided to take it for a spin. I rode down to the Earth Angel health mines where for three bucks you can sit in a mine full of radon gas and be cured of your ailments (it's supposed to be a miracle worker for arthritis).
        I decided my body is healthy enough as it is (isn't radon deadly anyway?) and tried to find the old railway path that connects Basin to Boulder (Mo told me it would be a good idea to ride the bike there if I ever needed to go to Boulder). I found some kind of old path and decided to follow it for a bit. It ended up paralleling a river so I stopped and walked down the hill to check it out. There was a little pool of water gathered off to the side and some sand that had washed ashore. I decided to test the water temperature. It was freezing of course. While I was bent down sticking my hand in I noticed the weirdest thing: it looked like someone had dumped glitter in that part of the river. Every time the water lapped against the shore it sent little gold particles racing around. "What the...are you kidding me? Is this gold?" It was throughout the sand as well. I had to bring some back with me and find out what the heck it was, so I looked around and found an old Walmart bag and filled it up with the sparkling sand.
        When I got back, I began the process of separating the "gold" from the sand, and let me just say: what a major pain in the ass. The funny thing is I became obsessed with doing it and devised a method that included using coffee filters, an old peanut butter jar, an aluminum cooking pan, a large plastic bowl, and a tub for discarded water. I couldn't pull myself away until I was satisfied that I couldn't get any more gold out of the sand. It seemed like every time I sloshed water around in the pan it would sparkle more and entice me to keep going. I forgot all about dinner and it was after midnight by the time I stopped. I reckon I spent 7 hours nonstop pulling gold flakes and dust from a few cups of sand.
        My feet are aching and my back is stiff from being bent over the sink all night, but I know tomorrow I'm going to have to tell myself that I can't go back down there, get more, and do it all over again. That's not what I'm here for (and besides I'm running out of coffee filters). No, my career as a prospector is over, but now at least I can somewhat understand why communities like Basin were founded in the first place.
        There is something both magical and terrible about the possibility of striking it rich.

June 8, 2008

The Plural for Goose is Geese The Plural for Moose is _______

        It's funny how dirty dishes follow me wherever I go. I guess there's no escaping some things...

        It's been a great 24+ hours here in Basin. Saturday night I saw Cynthia (the jazz musician who lives next to me in the Dyott) and we started talking. Out of no where she asked "Hey do you wanna go look for moose?" And of course I did. She instructed me to quickly get bundled up, and while I was piling on the layers (it was 30 degrees out) I heard a weird gurgle coming from the toilet. I didn't think much of it until I walked out and Cynthia was pointing to a pipe outside of her apartment that was gushing water. She called M.J. and Rhandi, the owners, and they quickly came over and surveyed the situation. M. J. told us not to use any water and they'd be getting a plumber a.s.a.p. I thought it was nice how quickly they responded to the situation.
        But it didn't matter that much because soon we were headed into moose country. Cynthia drove her Honda Accord (she has a floating-bobble-head squirrel affixed to the dashboard and now I want one worse than anything) down the highway a few miles and we came to a dirt road where a ranch was situated in a valley. It was really gorgeous country. We drove back quite a bit and saw some deer along the way. Cynthia said they were whitetails but they looked different than the deer I'm used to and I'm thinking maybe they were mule deer. Not sure exactly. Anyway we got out at a turnaround spot and she said this is a favorite moose grazing spot. We stood around for a while looking through binoculars while it quickly became too dark. At this point it was snowing and blowing quite a bit and she's apologizing for taking me out all this way in the freezing cold snowstorm and not even seeing any moose. Meanwhile I'm just thinking how great it is to be in a snow storm on June 7....

Bunny Hugger? Seriously?

        This morning I got up and did something kinda brave: I got a shower, shaved and went to the only church in Basin, a small, white, steepled structure at the edge of town. I say brave because I had no idea what to expect.
        What I found was a handful of faithfuls (I'm talking maybe a total of 12 people including myself) and a friendly white haired old pastor who prayed the most poetic prayers I have ever heard. I felt like taking notes. Seriously. I was both fascinated and deeply moved. Afterwards I was invited by the pastor's wife to have lunch at their house. I gladly accepted. Their grandson (whose name is also Scott) drove me up to their house in his old 70's Ford pickup. He had an ice hockey puck sitting on the dashboard and I asked him if he played hockey. "Street hockey" he said "but my brother and I are both huge Red Wings fans." Oh the irony! I can't even go to Montana and escape the Red Wings! So we had some good hockey talk on the way up.
        At lunch I got to know the pastor and his family a little bit, great people, and also a little more about the town. A guy named Forest was there and he was doing a little spouting of conservative politics and using the pejorative term "bunny-hugger" quite a bit. I've never heard that before. Tree-hugger yes, but bunny-hugger? I didn't really want to get into it with him and it seemed no one else did either.

Potlucky

        So after lunch I scrambled to make a big spinach salad before the potluck dinner thrown by a woman named Joanie. The purpose was for the artists to mingle with the MAR supporters and with each other. Apples, almonds and baby spinach-- that was it. Kind of all I had to offer to be honest, but my bowl was returned empty before the party was even over.
        Anyway, the dinner was great. Great food. Awesome people, all friendly and curious about what I was up to at the refuge. I answered a lot of the same questions over and over but I didn't really mind. I really felt at home with these people. I guess I always do around artists, writers, and musicians.
        Getting to know the other resident artists was great too. Sandra, who also lives in the Dyott building, is a watercolorist from Harrisburg. She used to work as a graphic designer in Pittsburgh. So we had a lot of common ground in those things. Jane, the multimediast extraordinaire who lives in the first floor of the Hewitt, seems to be such a wise/crazy old soul and I wish we'd gotten to talk more.
        Tonya and Nicole are two musicians who collectively form the band "The Jilted Brides." Killer name, right? They're from Australia, complete with accents and everything. We got to talking and they want to take a trip up to Glacier National Park to hike around and do some photo shoots. I'm totally down for this, or "keen" as they say. They also shorten all multiple syllable words (so for instance it's doco instead of documentary) and add and extra syllable to monosyllable words (so I'm Scott-ee not Scott). Nicole lent me one of their CD's and I'm looking forward to listening to it.
        I feel so lucky to be in this place surrounded by these people...

June 7, 2008 1:18 PM

Who are you Basin?

        This town perplexes me. Yesterday evening I went for another walk, this time heading North, and I realized Basin is slightly more substantial than I originally thought-- a couple of businesses I missed on the ride in, and a road that intersects the main street. But the thing about Basin that really confounds me is the people.
        Mo, my ride on Thursday and a resident of Basin, was quite friendly even though she kept her distance. I think she has lived here long enough to be considered a local (16 years is long in my book), but kept speaking of "the people of Basin" as being other. I think the phrase she kept saying was "well, you'll just have to see."
        The truth is I haven't encountered a whole lot of Basinites (is that correct?) yet. A man in town said "Hi, how are you?" and actually seemed interested in my response. That was nice.
        I headed through town out towards I-15 and saw what looked like a logging or mining trail that wound its way up a hillside. Mo had told me that these were good places to hike so I climbed up the hillside like a mountain goat and started exploring. About ten minutes later I saw in my peripheral a guy get out of a pick-up truck. It seemed like he appeared from nowhere. He waved and hollered "Hi. How are you." I walked down to meet him, realizing that although I hadn't seen any No Trespassing signs he was probably going to kick me off. I was all bundled up in my winter coat, hood up, trying to stay warm from the wind. He looked at me curiously, wearing a sweatshirt.
        "Hi. How are you doing?"
        "Alright how are you?"
        "Not bad. This is private property, you know?"
        "I'm sorry I didn't know, I was just out for a walk."
        "Well, this is private property and we don't really want anyone climbing around up here, you know?"
        He seemed almost apologetic to have to tell me this.
        "Ok, I gottcha. Thanks for letting me know."
        "Ok."
        I felt pretty discouraged climbing back down that hill, the view was incredible, but at least he was nice about it and didn't have a shotgun with him.
        I thought maybe I should just stick to the pavement and check out the residential part of town so as to not risk any more incidents. I could always ask Mo exactly where I can hike later.

        So I headed back to town and went down one of the offshoot streets toward where there's an overpass for I-15. As soon I passed underneath I was greeted by a chocolate lab. How pleasant, right? Wrong. This lab wanted to eat my face off. He came up to the edge of his yard and barked and growled at me for a while. I just stopped on the road, expecting the owner to come out and apologize to me and take him in so I could continue my walk. But the owner never came. In fact the dog got closer. I got a nice view of his teeth and hair on end. I stayed calm, turned, and slowly walked back the way I came. The dog followed me, growling and barking. I was mindful of where he was at and planned my course of action should he attack. At first it involved protecting my hands and kicking. Then as I got further and he kept following, it involved picking up one of the sizable rocks along the road and bashing his skull in. Fortunately, he didn't get any closer.
        When the dog finally stopped following me and was content barking out of his mind from under the highway, I turned and caught a glimpse of the owner going back in his house. He was watching the entire time, just watching.

        I was feeling pretty sullen for the rest of my walk. At least 4 other angry dogs came barreling out of their hiding places and barked as I passed. At least they were fenced in, a slight comfort that led me to a realization about Basin that depressed me even more than mean dogs-- everybody here has a fence around their house. Literally everybody. Any type of fence imaginable is here: from chain link to rough pine palisade. I haven't seen any white picket fences though.
        Why Basin? Who are you keeping out? Or perhaps the better question: what are you keeping in?

A Post Breakfast Walk

        When I set foot out of my door this morning, I was immediately thankful that I chose to bring my winter coat. A cold rain drizzled steadily upon the valley and obscured the mountains. I was barely warm enough even with the coat and a hoodie underneath.
        I've decided there must be a smokehouse nearby because as I rounded the corner and hit the gravel road towards main street, there was the unmistakable aroma of meat curing. It smelled delicious and for a moment made me second guess my vegetarianism. Aside from the smokehouse aroma, the air in general here has a different quality. My instinct is to say it is cleaner, fresher, and I think that's true judging by the lichen growth on surrounding rocks. The diversity of color (orange, bright green, and grey-green), along with the fact that they are thriving is a indicator of pure air. (I'm glad I learned something from my environmental biology class.)
        There is also a hint of pine with every inhaled breath. It reminds me of entering an empty room and smelling a trace of perfume and knowing that it was just occupied. A blind person would know that they are surrounded by thousands of pines here in Basin.
        One more thing about the air: it feels a lot less humid. In general it seems easier to breath, despite the fact that we're at around 6,000 feet above sea level.

        I came to the main road that runs through Basin and decided to head south and see that part of town. To my left the Boulder River rushes north, and just beyond that is I-15, the highway that connects Helena to Butte. The town of Basin itself is built on a narrow strip of land carved out of the mountain. It's hedged in by the river on one side and steep slopes and rocky cliffs on another. For the most part it is one street deep with only a couple of "roads" complete with signs that branched off (these are more like driveways).
        Yesterday in the truck with Mo, she told me that Basin has really been struggling economically ever since the mines closed. This morning was my first glimpse into that world. As I walked down the wide two lane road complete with double yellow line, white lines and berm, I felt as if I were in a ghost town. There was not a single person in sight. The only sign of life was the occasional chimney that puffed out woodfire smoke.
        The houses here are tiny by the standards of today. Most people literally have bigger garages than many of the houses here. There are also junk cars everywhere, along with RV's, heavy equipment, and other scrap items. It seems that most yards here are junk yards, but that's not to say it is trashy. On the contrary, I have yet to see a single item of garbage. From what I can tell this is resourcefulness, and there's a whole lot of dignity in that. There's also a certain charm to many of the places here. A number of times I kept thinking "Oh, I wish I lived there!"
        The further I walked the more Keep Out and No Trespassing signs I saw. I began wondering a little about my new neighbors. Were they unfriendly? Or perhaps just weary of those folks at the artists refuge? Near where the road ended and became a steep logging path, a man was operating a backhoe. He literally had carved a space out of the side of the mountain and was erecting a log cabin. It was three logs high so far. To its right was a structure built out of hay bales and roofed with a tarp. Perhaps temporary storage? Maybe even temporary housing. When he noticed me walking, he waved. I think I'm going to do just fine here in Basin.

Moving To Montana...

        Flying north from Denver towards Helena I fought the urge to close my eyes and sleep. I had been up since 5:30 that morning, and the night before I was up late lamenting over the Penguins' Stanley Cup loss (For the record: Chris Osgood is a lame self-back-patter). I would have just took the plunge into weird airplane sleep and risked drooling all over the lady next to me, but I had a window seat and really wanted to see the view.
I'm so glad I did.
        There were incredible rivers that wound across the vast expanses of brown nothingness. My mind kept roving back to geology class and the classification of rivers. If only I had attended more classes and spent more time reading about them I would have appreciated it even more so. However, I took some joy in remembering the difference between braided and meandering rivers and then seeing them both.
        The landscape began changing subtly and ridges started appearing. I realized these were the beginnings of mountain ranges and grew excited. I had never seen the Rockies from above. Unfortunately, the cloud cover began to thicken, so I picked up a magazine from the seat pocket and split my attention between glossy photos and a landscape that unfolded before me faster than my mind could process.
        At times, the wind scattered the clouds below and revealed a wonderful but desolate terrain whose only sign of life was the black cloud-shadows that raced along the ground. Then, without warning, we flew over a rocky, snow covered mountain. Amazing.
        The clouds became my enemy-- huge puffs that obscured my view. I strained to see rock and snow between them and cherished those glimpses. The corner of my eye caught a faint hue of color. Could it really be? Seriously? A rainbow materialized from underneath one of the clouds and stretched itself toward a rocky peak. I felt like jumping up and telling the entire plane about it.
        Just as I was thinking it was worth the price of the plane ticket if only to see these things, the pilot announced we were arriving in Helena and we began to descend upon the canopy of gigantic cumulous clouds that had been obstructing my view. We flew straight into one, and for a moment I felt as if I were stuck inside a bottle of aspirin stuffed with cotton. Slowly there was blurry color, then shape, and then suddenly we burst into the absolute clarity of a blue skied alpine vista with huge white treetop-clouds floating above. At that moment I felt like I had just been reborn into heaven. It was so shockingly beautiful I began crying; trying earnestly to hold back the tears but they were already streaming down my cheeks. I turned my back to the lady next to me, hoping she wouldn't see. Never before had such beauty brought such pain.

        When we landed in beautiful (as the pilot so aptly dubbed it) Helena, the passengers were buzzing. The flight attendant told us it was United Airline's inaugural flight from Denver to Helena and there was to be a "fiesta" in the airport. I walked down the staircase onto the runway and there were was a photographer taking pictures. In the background a news anchorman was giving an interview to a camera. For a second I felt like one of the Beatles.
        Helena's airport is tiny, with a ski-lodge type atmosphere. Inside it felt like I was walking into someone else's family reunion. Everybody was hugging, smiling, talking to each other, etc. There was a table set up with cake and refreshments. It felt so warm and personable compared to other airports, but by the time I sat down to call my ride the place was empty. They hadn't even left me a piece of cake

                                                                                ***

        Mo, my ride, is a 50 something short-haired, blue-jean and flannel ex-hippy with a hunter green beater of an S-10 extended-cab pickup. She's thin with a weak handshake and is warmer in person than over the phone. Sitting shotgun is her curly haired dog-- a mutt with some Irish Wolf Hound in her. The dog is friendly, but reluctant to move to the back.
        The pacing of Mo's conversation is slow, and it takes me a moment to adjust, but when I do I find it quite enjoyable. There is thought between my questions and her answers, and she allows me time to think before I answer. For the first time in a long time I find my speech is lucid. There is no rush.
        She's willing to take me to not one, but two grocery stores. The first is a hippie haven with organic everything. It's a full scale grocery store and they use white iMacs as check-out machines. The floor smells like they wax it with pachouli oil. The whole experience is somewhat overwhelming because there are so many choices, and I can no longer decide by buying what's good for me. There are all kinds of neat looking people working and shopping here and I have a bitter, cynical moment where I feel homogeneous and self-concious all at once.
        On the way out and fifty dollars later I spy an outdoor store with hiking boots in the window. Mo tells me to go ahead and check them out because Basin has some great hiking and she's in no hurry. The woman inside is an authority on hiking boots and I enjoy listening to her highlight the nuances between each pair. She encourages me to do my own research, and normally I would, but this is somewhat of an impulse buy. Somewhat. I mean I was planning on looking into getting a pair because I knew if I was going to walk anywhere other than the little strip of road in Basin I would need them-- this terrain is pretty rough. I try on a pair that she recommends would be good for both where I'll be and also hiking back home. They feel like a little piece of heaven on each foot-- especially after walking around airports in my old broke-down Chucks all day.
        I slide my debit card and see the total. I have never spent so much on a pair of footwear, and a little part of me winces. But that's only a little part and is all but buried by my excitement.

"The food here seems more expensive." I tell Mo as we leave the Safeway parking lot.
"It is. And it's been getting worse because of the gas prices. We're pretty much out in the middle of nowhere here and everything has to be shipped long distances. Did you notice how much eggs cost?"
        I did. Eggs, regular ones, not cage free or organic, but plain old eggs from angry chickens cost 2.79. Regular old wheat bread was 2.69.
        Mo has been living in Montana for 16 years now. She's originally from Massachusetts and was living in California for a while when she decided to comeback East. She stopped to visit some friends in Basin and has been living there ever since.
        All at once, it seemed, the sky darkened and it began pouring down rain. Mo turned on the windshield wipers but they didn't work. We were going 70 mph in a downpour without wipers. I think she sensed I was getting nervous.
        "There's an exit coming up soon we can pull over and wait for this to pass, I think it will be over soon."
        "It's ok, keep going if you can see. I trust you as the driver."

                                                                        ***                        

        Mo took me to Boulder first (7 miles north of Basin) and showed me around town. There was a grocery store and a library. A coffee place. A couple of diners. It was comparable to downtown Slippery Rock, only with an old time West feel. She told showed me a trail along the highway, an old railroad line that connects Basin and Boulder, and said I could borrow her bike and ride into Boulder whenever I wanted.
        When we arrived in Basin I was giddy. I tried to stop fantasizing about this place for the better part of a year and now I am finally here!