Me and the Gang

When I was a kid, the fraternal (Eagles, Masons, Elks, Moose) and the veterans (American Legion, VFW) organizations had a major presence in the small town where I grew up.  Maybe they still do, but are less visible in the big cities.  But being in Montana & back into little places...I'm noticing them again.  In downtown Bozeman there are the Eagles & the American Legion.

I wanted to have a before dinner drink at one, so we walked into the American Legion bar.

There were three really big biker dudes sitting at the bar with empty stools between us & them.  Susanne & I plopped down, me next to a BD.  I easily struck up a conversation with him.  Turns out they're from central Pennsylvania, having left on Thursday. (It's now Sunday.  That's some serious biking!!!)  They are all Masons (Not my idea of what a Mason looks like, especially since my father was 32nd degree & a Shriner) and that's what their motorcycle club is all about.  A photo of their back patch later.

As the conversation went on, the other two & Susanne joined in.  It was really great!  They're headed to the Redwoods in Calif. then back to the big biker event in Sturgis, SD then home.  They saw alot of Lewis & Clark places.  We told them about Three Forks & the history there.
 
These folks are the stereotype bikers...big guys (the one next to me is a prison guard), leather vests, inked from fingertip to shoulder and probably all over underneath.  They wanted to get back to their lodgings & we were ready to move on to dinner.  But before we broke up the impromptu confab, I asked if I could have a photo with the celebrities.  They gladly obliged & Susanne snapped the pic.

You can see the Masonic compass & square logo on the prison guard guy.

I wanted to get some shots of them leaving on their bikes.  Here's their club patch.

AU REVOIR, BIKER DUDES!!!!!!!

And with that, they were off...

My 100th Post since August, 2011

Prior to the blog, I emailed a journal to about 100 people.  It was more difficult because it took more effort to insert fewer pix.  Also, Hotmail limited recipients to 50 email addresses so I had to send it twice.

As much as I complain about Blogger, this is progress.

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The students at Montana State make their mark.  We see this from all over Bozeman, but here is the best shot.

We toured the Museum of the Rockies, across from  MSU.

I'm the fossil in the green shirt.  The other one is a T-Rex named Big Mike.

If we take the shot from the building looking out, here comes another Big Sky.

I'll just post a couple of dinosaur shots.  If some seem out of focus, they're not.  But in low light, no flash, the camera becomes a bit unsteady for a 2 second exposure.  That's why tripods were invented.  But who's going to schlep a tripod?

I don't know what the one below is called, but Satanosaurus sounds about right.

A small one.

A big T-Rex.

A bit of nostalgia found in a small town...an A & W Root Beer stand.  I had to stop by.  While I was parking the car, Susanne went in and ordered a Black Cow.  She got a blank stare from the young lady behind the counter.  (Kids, these days.)  Only when she settled on a root beer float did we get what I expected.

Time takes the romance out of things.

Bozeman Friday night tango was at a tea house on Main St.  A couple of pics.

That's Gary on the left, Sadie in the striped skirt with her partner Dennis, and Sam on the right.

Susanne's partner Michael is an MSU student.  He arrived late, changed shoes, then made a beeline to cabaceo Susanne.

My partner, Suzanna, was the evening's birthday girl...a snippet of her birthday waltz.

Some miscellaneous shots.

Susanne is really good at seeing these scenes, then framing them.  This is an old house next door to our place...has a big back yard. Now it is offices for attorneys & court reporters.

The French cafe is a bit of a disappointment.  Yes, the pastries are first rate but their French dishes are to be avoided.  We had breakfast there.  Susanne's Crepe Madame was the worst ever.  The eggs on top were just shy of being cremated.  My Crepe Jambon et Fromage was a mere shadow of the Parisian version.  The crepe was thin & the fromage seemed to have been dispensed from a salt shaker.  The street crepe guy off the Bastille applies it by the handful.

We have tango there Sunday noon.  We'll try the onion soup, going directly to dessert.  Report: The onion soup wasn't that great, Susanne's strawberry pastry was.

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It's now Sunday afternoon.  Tomorrow is pack day.  It'll take longer since we're pretty much settled in here.  Then Tuesday a 6:30am yoga class, check out of the apt., then drive up to Great Falls to a hotel for three days.

After that is uncertain because of the fire at Glacier.  The main road through it is partially closed meaning it can't be used to cross the Park...our plan, of course.

A map (click HERE) shows the fire (red) and the closed road (yellow).  Zoom in a bit (The + over -, upper left corner) to get rid of the text across the most interesting part.

We may go directly to Kalispell after Great Falls.  We have an apartment in Missoula Aug. 7 -11 but we're open in between.

That's it for now...the blog may go silent for a couple of days as we move around & get settled.

Another Great Day in Montana

(To view this in your browser, click HERE)

First, an apology for the spacing and formatting of my posts.  I am using Blogger, Google's version of online blogging software.  The primary attribute is that it's free.  And I'm getting what I'm not paying for.  Blogger allows me to "preview" a post before publishing.  Unfortunately the preview bears only a small resemblance to what the published post becomes.  I tried to upgrade to Wordpress which is also "free" but it is so stripped down that once you begin adding needed features, it is not at all free.

Since I'm not trying to monetize the blog (translation for the reader: no pop-up advertisements) & I only do this a few weeks a year, we'll just have to take the posts as they are...sorry!!!

And I misspelled "rainy"; the spell check didn't catch it & neither did I.  Curses be upon you, Blogger!!!

Back to business.  The Montana State used-to-be Prison:

What it looked like back in the day.

 And now.  The gray outer wall and the red brick cell block building.

 Outer wall & guard tower, prisoner's eye view.

Yes, the day was gloomy, ran into intermittent rain, literally.

The cell block, straight out of a 50's film noir movie.  But this is for real.

The dining hall.  Note how monochromatic the place is.  Without the ketchup & mustard bottles you'd think I shot this in B&W.

 

The warden's office, complete with a short-lived policy of having the guards dressing professionally.   The prison's first warden (1871) looks on.

A typical cell, maybe somewhat comfy until the prison became overcrowded & they stuck more than two in each.

I have lots more but this is depressing enough so on a lighter ending note, even prisons have gargoyles, not nearly as artistic as in France:

The auto museum was much more uplifting.  I could regale you with tons of photos, but will boil it down to a few either interesting or significant to us.

The 1920's produced elegant cars; the museum had dozens.  Here are just two.

Susanne loved the hood ornaments.  This one is from a Packard, as I recall.

Another hoodie:

My father had one of these, a 1947 Plymouth, in black.

For a time I had a '53 Chevrolet, from Aunt Martha.  She installed air conditioning, but repainted it with a pink top & white bottom.  It was a great car until a lady in a VW bug ran a red light & smashed the front.  Bye-bye old Chevy.

I had one of these a '55 Chev Bel Air sport coupe, but not so grandly restored.  The divorce hit, the money was very tight, so I sold it for something more dependable...a Toyota.

Susanne had one of these, a '67 Pontiac GTO with a big engine and the Hurst shifter.  Also not so pristine.  Hers had a grey-blue bottom & a white top.  It also lacked dependability at a time when she needed it, so it was replaced with a '76 Dodge Dart.

OK, enough cars & prisons.  Back to nature...big sky, etc.  An odd cloud formation taken while rolling along a 70mph road behind a 50mph camper rig.

Sun hidden by clouds, color and B&W:

Susanne is a great photographic companion.  She sees she little stuff with lots of details, that I pass right by.

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We went to a tango party last night, no dancing but a social gathering to see a tango movie.  Lots of fun & good company.  We've become part of the community, for a short time anyway.

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In March, 2009 there was a huge gas explosion in downtown Bozeman.  One person killed, several injured.  Multiple buildings destroyed.  Some have been rebuilt, but there are still two empty lots.  The first building on the left is original.  The next group is an attempt to keep the traditional late 19th century style.  Then there's an empty lot, another new building and an empty lot behind the trees.

Almost at the very center of the photo is a vertical red lit sign "FIN".  We ate there our first night & will walk there this evening before a milonga at a teahouse across the street.  Small town, everything's easily accessible.

That's it for this post.

A Rainey Day in Bozeman-town

Thursday dawned with a steady rain but undaunted, we did our yoga class & returned to the apt. only slightly wet.

OK, a good day to catch up.  First some unfinished business.  Last night I forgot to provide a link to more background on the Lewis & Clark headwaters website (& with some clicking around, you can research the entire expedition).  The more I learn about L&C the more  extraordinary I find it.  Camping out in unknown territory for years, yeah...YEARS, to me that's amazing.

Here's the WEBSITE.

Back to Big Sky.  What we're learning is that it's the clouds that make the Big Sky.  They're always there (not like the cloudless blue of Arizona) and always changing, in a matter of minutes.  It can be dark & grey overhead but we see the sun shining on a distant range.  Yesterday we had the full range of sky...big clouds & grey clouds loaded with rain.

Here are some pics.

Note the car ahead, lower right below.  This is a two lane state highway, mostly deserted.  The speed limit is 70mph.

This one was so dark, most of the color was gone so I took the rest away and the clouds popped.

Rain is coming...

Here are some part sun, part shade photos.  There was a resort in Paradise Valley years ago called Mountain Shadows.  Well, that's what we see below.

The first one is the Gallatin River taken earlier this week.  Note the reddish stick with a reflector in the middle & on top.   That's the guide for the snow plows when the white stuff comes.

Not all of Montana is big sky.  Here are some pics that fall into the "other" category.

 This is the type of shot that I miss but jumps out at Susanne:

This one, taken in Deer Lodge, can only be entitled "Oooops!"






Also in Deer Lodge is the Montana State Prison, opened in 1871, closed in 1979 & now a museum.  It's a depressing place.  I'm going to save that for another post.

More uplifting and part of the prison museum is a fabulous car collection.  Later.  And an old west museum.  DL is a museum town.

The sun is showing signs of returning.  And I've got to do other things.

One last little thing.  There's a type of bird we see here that I've never seen before.  I posted the photo below to my Facebook page.  A lady from our tango community that lived in Bozeman identified it as a magpie.  Thank you, Niki!

Bye4now.