Montana State of Mind & Other Stories

This trip I'm discovering the Montana state of mind.  It's not easily seen or felt just being here as a tourist, even multiple times.  It's also not available to those who have moved here later in life although they experience a touch of it.

You have to be born here and better yet, your parents born here, too.

Part of it is because of the land...the mountains & rivers are always close by.  Montana is a rural state, the largest city has 108,000 people; Bozeman, 42,000.  Once you get away from the high rises (in Montana, it's a high rise if it exceeds four stories), the mountains are both nearby and far away.

You see that here while still in town.  A shot taken from Enterprise Car Rental.  Bozeman High School is across the street, mountains close by.  The M is for Montana State University, largest in the state.

Drive anywhere and you're crossing streams and passing rushing rivers.  It's early July but the distant mountains still have snow caps.

There is so much to do outdoors, here it's in your blood to do them.  Winter is not what we in Arizona moved away from or others choose to live with.  Here it's an opportunity to do more differently & with different equipment.

The state of mind exists because unlike Arizona, most Montanans were born here.  So that pioneering spirit is genetic.

Montanans feel close to their history.  Lewis and Clark were and in a sense still are everywhere.  After that expedition (1805-06), there was a historical lag until the 1850's, when gold was discovered & cattle ranching began.  Those gold, silver and copper mines & mining towns past & present are all over.

Being in the little town of Virginia City last year, it was hard to believe that even for only a short while it was the largest city between Chicago & San Francisco.


It's reinforced by signs:

It's interesting to take a look at the state border above for a moment.  The jagged western line that wraps under until it stops at the "L" in LIVE is the border with Idaho.  Much of it follows a mountain range and the Continental Divide.  The word LIVE occupies Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming.  And just north, somewhere in the lower part of the "W" in WAY is Bozeman.

As that southern line continues east, it's the border with Wyoming.  The eastern straight line is the border with North and South Dakota.  And of course, the northern border is with Canada, parts of British Columbia & Alberta.

How did I discover the Montana S of M?  By reading stories by Montanans in their local magazines.  You can feel it from the words.   And by rubbing shoulders with the locals, especially the servers in restaurants & clerks in stores. 

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Montana outdoor philosophy?

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I went to a local gun show the other day.  I miss gun shows; my gun show buddy of decades doesn't walk well anymore so he stopped going.  It was very nice but less fun doing it on my own.  Table after table of guns & accessories with some crafts thrown in.  The people are super friendly; always anxious to sell you something.  But I wasn't buying.

This was Friday late afternoon shortly after it opened.  On Saturday & Sunday, it'll be jammed.  This is about half of one room...there were three.

Friday night there was a milonga at a counter service Brazilian heath food restaurant.  We shared a mango/pineapple smoothie.  It was run by the much younger tango generation so the music was alternative blues, nothing resembling tango.  The steps taught in the class beforehand weren't tango either.  I heard the tango word "collect" a few times but that was it tango-wise.  We kinda lost interest & left.

We stopped at a wonderful local fried chicken place, got a half-chick & sides to go, went back to the apt., popped open some Cold Smoke & that was our Friday night on the town.

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More food pics.  Dinner Saturday night, I had the Montana Trout Piccata; fabulous...best dinner in Bozeman.

I would never think to prepare a fish a la piccata.  It deserves a close-up.

TBT, those two lemon slices on the lower right cover up my first bite.  Lost my head, temporarily.

Susanne's side dish, Pasta Alfredo was pretty ordinary so she dressed it up with garlic, mushrooms & peas.

Our server Sarah, a delightful gal, is from a small village in far north Alaska, above the Arctic Circle.  For her, Bozeman winters are nothing.  She has her masters in neural psychology & is applying for doctoral studies in neural physical therapy.  This isn't the first time we've encountered grad students as servers.  I've read in the local paper that someone thought Bozeman restaurants had the best educated waitstaff in the country.

Chatting with the servers & salesfolks in stores is what's done here.

A sunset from our restaurant.  The town keeps getting in the way.

Sunday mornings, we always do a special breakfast together no matter where we are.  Last week we did fried eggs, ham, potatoes & a bit of Uncle Bill's Sauerkraut.  This Sunday we're doing bagels & lox.

After Sunday breakfast, we hit the road to explore side roads south of I-90.  The sky was overcast which removes all the color from outside scenes.

On the map I spotted a town at the end of a state road.  You can't go through the town, just there & back.  So off we went to Pony, MT.

It turns out, there's alot to learn about Pony.  Check it out HERE.



It is obviously a town that enjoyed a mining boom that left decades ago, maybe even a century back.  There's the obligatory bank building, symbol of where the boom-town money gets deposited.  But the money left long, long ago; the building is deserted.  The locals tell us the interior has been kept original...teller cages and all.

Here's the name above the door, beginning to show the ravages of time & Montana winters.

There's an irony at the bank.  Here's a campaign sign for the Republican candidate for Congress to replace Montana Congressman Zinke who Trump appointed as Secy. of the Interior.  Gianforte became famous for body-slamming a Manchester Guardian reporter on election eve.  I'm sure the town supported him but the irony is that the GOP at both the Federal & State level have no interest in doing anything for a faded, struggling former mining town.

Our next stop in Pony is not mentioned in the fancy web article above.  It is the Pony Bar, site of a former brothel of which the current staff is very proud.

The unassuming front.  Note the "lady" in the 2nd floor left window.

Here's a look around the interior.

We were in the bar for over an hour, chatting with the bartender & the patrons.  We get as much enjoyment from doing this as seeing sights.  A young lady told us she has taken on the project of keeping the bar and its memorabilia intact.  She showed us two pieces, a lithograph & a photo of brothel ladies (not from here), euphemistically referred to as "soiled doves".

They look like a tough, hardened bunch to me. (The blog's G rating is temporarily suspended, this pic only.)

Even with bad lighting, the scene below from Pony's main drag looking towards the Tobacco Root Mountains has an Alpine feel to it.

A close-up of the old mill ruins.

Some shots along the way.

This huge cave looks natural but a we found out from a Montana state park ranger, it's actually a horizontal limestone quarry from the late 19th century.  The limestone was mined then shipped to a copper smelter in Anaconda to help in the smelting of copper ore.

A sign along the road.  I cropped out the 2nd paragraph...it got boring.

And, turning 180°, here's the spot on the river where they camped.

We saw this all over Montana.  There are three ways to get through a narrow canyon...by river, rail & road.

I'm really sorry it's so gloomy.  That scene should really sparkle.  It was annoying when we got back to the apartment around 5pm, the sun came out & it was beautiful.

We stopped off at the Lewis & Clark Caverns State Park visitor center.  I asked the park ranger if L&C actually explored the cavern.  No, they use it as a draw.  I told him about Montezuma's Castle in Arizona...Montezuma never got to AZ.

We then took the park road back & high into the mountains.  We weren't interested in the hike & tour into the cavern, but was able to get this shot looking down instead of up.

After returning to the apt., we noticed alot of food in the 'fridge considering we're leaving soon.  Combine that with a lack of ambition to change clothes to go out again, Susanne rustled up a great farmer's market salad, tossed in some smoked salmon from this morning, warmed up last night's pasta & Uncle Bill's 'kraut (Damn that big jar!!)...we feasted in.

The trip is winding down; we leave on Wednesday.  I'm surprised I don't feel blog fatigue.  However, with time short, I'm not sure how many more posts I'll do, if any.  We're not planning any more excursions.  Just chill around town, have some nice dinners, enjoy days at 85°-95°, mornings in the mid-50's & get ready to leave.

See ya'!!

P.S.  I posted this on Facebook but with all the maddening Trump stuff going on, I just gotta throw in this serene yoga thought here, too.