As big as life

 We have arrived  safe and sound at the southern Bureau of Mile 14 which is now miles and miles and a few quick years away from the world famous Kenai River. People who know me will tell you that loyalty is one of my things, in fact I think loyalty and fidelity are the two most important keys to success in this ol world. So we've always been loyal to Alaska Airlines. We'd leave Kenai at 7:00 p.m. on a 10 seater to Anchorage then a red eye to Seattle, then mid morning to LAX then early afternoon to Mazatlan for total of about 20 or so hours of travel....Then we move to Montana...and it's late afternoon to Seattle and spend the night then early a.m. to LAX and mid day to Mazatlan....So I started looking for a better way and low and behold Delta airlines that has a plane spend the night in Helena and leaves at 7 a.m. to Salt Lake City and then an house later straight to Mexico City where you fly over Mazatlan then a short beer or so and onto Mazatlan on Aero Mexico. We were here in 11 hours.....but....holy moly if you've never been to terminal 2 at MEX it's hard to imagine something so big , busy and beautiful in a uniquely Mexican Way.

The outside has millions of holes...it looks like Starport X1 from Space Odyssey. I don't know how they did it but it kinda explains a bit why it was under construction longer than it took the Seattle Mariners to make the playoffs.

Customs is soooo high tech. No guy reading your body language and asking if you have any peanuts or bananas. It's all facial recognition and a breeze to go through. We only have carry on so we head up the escalator and  we're in the bowels of the terminal with thousands of travelers. 

We find our gate, the hallways are wide as a four lane highway and we have time to kill so we go into a pizza and beer joint and look for a table. Well, I see some people we know so we chat them up and we run into another couple on the concourse. I kinda chat with everybody as I go through life so when we finally settled into a couple beers the staff was being amazingly attentive to us. It was weird I started noticing that people were looking at us and our friends at the next table were hard to chat with because Louis was describing menu dishes and beer selection. Finally Louis and a young woman brought over complimentary beer and a thank you card for coming in that was sealed with wax like a note from Henry the 8th....Wow...Our friends said they think you're a V.I.P. and I said it's really kinda cool. I thanked everybody and jumped the jet.

Strangest thing. It was 75 degrees in Mexico City. It was probably 85 degrees in the terminal and when we boarded the plane it was at least 80 degrees in the plane and both of our seats had clean wrapped blankets waiting. I started realizing that for the locals it was a bit cool, some wearing coats...life's like that eh, it's a matter of perspective.

An hour and a half later we're home. It's 90 degrees with 100% humidity and it feels GREAT. Our air conditioner was on when we opened the door and there were 3 beers in the fridge. It was almost exactly sunset so we go to the terrace with a nice breeze blowing. Our first sunseta season 25 Mazatlan Mexico.

Bumped into this on our first hand holder, like I needed a reminder.

Fish pics to follow....hope everyone is smiling, loven, (is that a word ? ) and healthy,,,,gotta go watch the election returns .😎🐟🎸🎵🎶💚

Ahhhh Mexico

 We're a few weeks out...and, as I type there's not one but two hurricanes threatening our town and the north terrace of our building where we read / nap / ocean gaze and play Scrabble daily is still covered with sand from the brush up with hurricane Rachel a couple weeks back. And of course we can't do anything about that as well as the ongoing business differences that are handled in a bit of a different way than most of us would handle them. And then the peso seems to be doing better against the dollar so the exchange rate isn't as favorable to us as it has been. And then of course there is a lawsuit hovering over our building that who knows what , how , when , if $$$$$ comes out of our pockets. And....we absolutely love the place !

As always I make my pile so as to not forget anything. And this year I'm going to take the spinning reel I had factory rebuilt instead of the really worn out one that ended up in last years pile by mistake. I got me a mic holder, gonna do me some singing don't ya know and enough books to get started and a brand new pair of Skeechers power walkers....what a business model, the secret to that comfort is the soft squishy sole that wears out rapidly so you're always buying new ones because once you wear em you'll never go back to the old hard soled tenny's. Got me some Storm brand ' Wildeye swim Shad '  cause I got soooo much Walleye gear I figured I'd in source my system this year...but don't worry Rafa I'll still be down to Pesca Maz for some Pluma's and top waters, I'm feeling kinda Roosterfishy this year.

Speaking of Roosterfish...I can't thank my buddy Ty Tobias enough for sending me one that he garage saled. I've got the most gorgeous wall in my office.

So I got 1/2 a dozen new songs . 

Me and Mpeasy on the our North Terrace . You'd be surprised the interesting things you see in the course of the day. Boats, fish, whales, people and I especially get aa kick out of watching the resort people para sail from the Playa . My normal day goes like this....at sun up I'm on the beach fishing and generally get back to the house to meet MP after her water aerobics at 9:30 . We eat breakfast then I set up our camp on the terrace and get my first nap. When I awake MP is usually on the terrace so we catch up, news from her walk with the girls, news of my fishing buddies and then of course just plain old rumors. If the tide is right we'll walk up to what we call the treehouse a mile up the beach and have a Pacifico. By then it's mid day and we go to the pool with our noodles and float with our friends and then it's get ready for sunset. T this point if I don't have my 10,000 steps I go walk until I do. Then  I usually practice my songs for 45 minutes or so and then meet everyone for sunset....dinner, movie, repeat.

For us it's way more than a vacation, it's really a lifestyle . Through the years we've made wonderful friends with both our Canadian and Mexican neighbors .  I ain't mentioning no names but there'speople in this ol world that could learn something from how we interact with our community .

That's Javiar, one of my new friends.....see you soon Mazatlan.

Just one more sunset pic. I especially like these cloudy ones. After the sun breaks the under the horizon you have an hour or so of reflection when it's cloudy....who couldn't love seeing this routinely ?

Sorry no song, sorry it took so long , I 'll do better , and continue writing along....

You're always 17 in your hometown

                             There's a man who walks beside me

                             He is who I used to be

                             And I wonder if they see him

                             And confuse him with me

My friend Curt ran into that verse somewhere and said it reminded him of me.  Well, it reminds me of me.  All my good friends know that I've felt a little anonymous since moving away from Alaska. I was part of the community and part of something . I was successful and known for good counsel. I had friends who'd known me for 45 years....Well one of my new buddies swayed me into going to a planning meeting for a 55 year High School reunion event to be held in week or so. I ran into a few people I knew from High School but everyone changes right ? I felt like I was starting over . I had a woman I don't know walk by and whisper to me  " behave ". When the meeting broke up all these people were celebrating their years of friendship with hugs and best wishes and I felt kinda weird and after thinking about I guess the closest I could get to an explanation is to say that I felt jealous.  It made me remember what I left behind. So, as I chewed on it I decided to not attend the event because I wasn't feeling good and of course want to avoid feeling bad. I was a little shocked with myself because I've never been jealous of anybody or anything in my life. I was having feelings I wasn't used to , I felt like it is  little late in the game to run for class president. But on further review I came to the conclusion that if I go there's a better chance of good things happening than bad things. Maybe a new friend, maybe an invite, maybe it will just be fun. And I remember ruminating on this Mile 14 blog about the difficulties of the ageing process and how I promised myself to face all and I mean all of them head on.....so, I'll see you at my 55 high school reunion ....

Ya know what.....this would be good time for a song.

My friend Terry came from Iowa home to the Bitteroot Valley to present some of his writing at a Cowboy Poet / music event . Well that was a first for me and it was REALLy good and really fun. Terry is the second from the right here . Like the other presenters his poetry was personal and charming, revealing and entertaining. I highly recommend this type of show of which I'd never attended. In Alaska they do Fishermen / music and I guess it really celebrates the history, the under current of our communities.

On our way home from Hambone we drove up the Seely valley to check out a couple boat launches on Lakes we have yet to visit. MP googled the Fiberglass bull ' Stoney ' that's anchored the intersection of highways 200 and 83 ever since we were kids. It's a Montana story for sure . The Stone family who bought the roadhouse style gas station brought him from Iowa in 1971 . He's had his pic taken jillions for times . When he started to look a little long in the tooth his first shave and haircut was in 1979 when they repainted him and reattached a missing tail and horn along with patching 38 bullet holes, yep you read that right.  Well, when the early 2000's came along he was sent to Missoula for another refit as us boat people say and this time he had roughly 200 bullet holes and a few missing parts...mmmm.....Montana .

So we've been harvesting. Here's the tally as of last week. Yesterday we picked all the corn, more than 60 cobs. The zuchs are finally wearing out and we still have Broccoli , onions, carrots and potato's...Hehehe, we like this chalkboard real well.

It's rule of physics....

That objects in motion tend to stay in motion...or as us ahhhh, older people say ' moss don't grow on a rolling stone '. So for me and MPeasy we were off to celebrate my 73rd year on the planet earth with a road trip to eastern Montana by way of North Dakota . Three days, 2 nights , I gained 4 pounds 1,000 miles of potato chips, licorice and ice cream stops...and the Chinese Buffet in Miles City didn't help. But the trip was to experience the Teddy Roosevelt Presidential library that opened in Medora North Dakota on the 4th of July a few weeks back. It was Way More than we expected and would tell anybody driving across North Dakota to not pass it up, in fact the parking lot had cars from all over our country. Here's a pic of me helping my new buddy Ted with signing into law legislation creating the Forest Service.

And of course being a boat guy I decided I should help out with the trip down the Amazon's River of Doubt which because of us is now the Roosevelt River .

The architecture is stunning. You drive up a mountain and carved into the mountain is the library . At first is doesn't look like much as it fits the natural landscape but boy howdy, it's impressive. All the windows or port hole overlook the badlands . You can walk along the top that's planted with the native flora . You can ask the President questions and he'll answer with a jovial sense of humor...it's amazing and they are still building another wing to the 500 million $ already spent. MP liked the birds, plenty of birds .

Here's the view from the top...

So old Teddy was an amazing guy and you certainly feel that as you learn more about him...I liked the part where he was giving a speech from a train whistle stop during a campaign and was shot by a wanna be assassin . He asked the crowd as he continued to withhold the applause so he'd get done sooner  and " it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose...

It took us 2 hours to tour the library. So without letting the wonder of surprise out of the bag for you and knowing a lot of you will get there I'll just say this....As we drove across the Badlands back to Montana we had a lot of " how'd they do THAT'  kind of conversations.

And. It was 103 degrees when we toured the Little Bighorn Battlefield. Being a history buff I knew the story of how the soldiers tried to gain the high ground and how the fight was a rolling skirmish. The markers tell the story of how the troops stood together and even back to back and fell together as the helped their buddies....it's a solemn place.

Now if George hadn't left one of these babies behind the story might have ended different....here's the one Teddy had @ San Juan Hill .

Many a time we've driven by a place called Pompei's Pillar, named after Sacagawea's baby son. On Lewis and Clark's return trip in 1806 Lewis went down the Missouri and Clark down the Yellowstone . The Pillar is a towering rock that looks a bit out of place where Indians would leave messages and Clark scratched his name and year...It's basically a landmark full of graffiti...of course over 200 year old graffiti. I was a bit underwhelmed...Of course Park Rangers have the inscription protected from vandals and this particular historical site might lead the nation in ' don't do this ' signs.

inspiring eh ? It was kinda pretty from the Pillar. The walkways looked to need some repair and...ah well it's just a weird place.

I hope you can read it because all the signs didn't stop one hearty Alaskan from from adding his John Henry....atta boy.

As far as signage goes I think a simple ' don't do anything here ' or maybe a ' don't have fun here '  or maybe a ' ya wanna get arrested ' sign would be preferred over this one at the local lake .

So I got my deadline done...Trying to do at least, at least one edition of Mile 14 every month. If you come back I'll have another new song posted right here on this beautiful Yamaha Trans Acoustic guitar that MP bought me on my birthday at Hell Creek Music in Glendive Montana....Steve and his people there are fantastic, it's another must stop place . Especially if you wanna get close to a full sized replica of a fossil Tyrannosaurus Rex without...errrrrr....going to a State Park .

It's one of THOSE things.....

 ....that you just have to want to do . They're usually not for everybody and quite often you end up wondering why you're doing what you're doing...know what I mean ? Well,  Wisdom Montana is one of those things. You don't get there by accident and you know you've been there if the front of your ride looks like this.

I thought I knew Mosquito's , after all if you spend a lifetime in Alaska you get used to them...But, these guys are little stealthy no swatter S.O.B.s that seem to thrive on deet . And on the morning when the temp was a cool 42 degrees the seem like it and start their day as early as we do....Then there's Ticks....my god, I'd rather deal with a brown bear than a wood tick . I felt something crawling across my thigh and looked down to see the weirdest , scratchiest bug I've ever seen / felt . I hit the brakes and swerved to a stop so I could grab him get him out of the car, he tried to burrow into my hand....ah jeez Louise, so much for my machismo.

So you go through that and some of the most remote and gorgeous country on the planet just so you can do an 8:00 a.m. soak in the soothing waters of Jackson Hot Springs and take silly pictures like this early morning O face.

  

And of course we absolutely love this place , The Lodge at Jackson Hot Springs is perfect. They have a bit of an unusual business model and I like that knowing that people like us enjoyed the freedom of running your own business any old way you'd like. The cabins are spartan, no TV, no internet and no Gidiens bible in the drawer but they're clean and comfortable . Of course the business strategy is to get you into the Lodge and drop some lettuce which is just fine with me. The staff is Chuckly, the food is fantastic, my running buddy who is the consummate carnivore had Prime Rib that fed her for 2 days . I miss my fish so I had that with about the most perfectly cooked crunchy french fries I've ever had.

Like every morning we did our walk . Grave yard with plenty of space left on one side of town and a steaming hot creek on the other side of town where when Lewis Clark found it rather than taking a bath they cooked their meat. Feel free to walk down the middle of the road when you get there, it feels great to kinda stretch the normals in our lives sometimes.

So we drive through town to see how our people live. We had noticed a sign on the road for a Mexican restaurant which I'm sure the people of Wisdom were happy to see land in their little town and we found it in a garage....perfect on those warm summer evenings you can role the door open and watch the stunning landscape and ...oooops... I forgot about the bugs....bad idea Jeff.

So we followed the Big Hole River downstream to almost Butte . It's a gorgeous river that is troubled by growth, like everywhere I guess. Water draw down for irrigation - algae growth - diminishing fish counts - and too many @#$%! guides to name a few of the problems. so having been through a bit of that kinda thing we stopped at one of the  many access points and did a video of a new song....Now don't start thinking that I'm Joe cause I'm not...but like everything I've done in my life I'm learning from the folks that do things well, like Joe .

Hope you're all enjoying the Blog, Mile 14 . I know it's kind of evolved into a personal journal . I toyed with the idea of redoing my title page and making the blog more relevant...then the left side of my brain took over and said...nah,,,,all that is what got ya to where ya are and some things ya just gotta wanna do so just let it flow Jeff, let it flow .

50 years !

 That's how long it took me to get here.

That would be the Sleeping Giant you see in the Beartooth mountains that are part of the Rockies that surround this gorgeous part of the planet earth. Everyone that's ever been to Helena Mt. would tell you the Giant is the centerpiece of this setting. 

The Beartooth Ranch is 1,000 acres that includes the Giant and has been in the Synness family for going on 200 years. So for 50 years we've heard about the Giant from people in town and of course my friend for life Curt Synness who as life goes is now the gatekeeper of the families ranch. Curt had a young couple contact him for permission to climb the mountain to celebrate a birthday and called to see if me and MPeasy would like to come along as he guided them to the trail head....

It was threatening rain and blowing 15 to 20 knots I'd guess when we met Nate and Camy  at the first of several gates. A couple were barb wire posts gates and a couple were these ingenious counterweighted swinging gate like this one Curt is opening.

We gained serious elevation as we crossed from ranch to ranch and finally pulled up to a beautiful meadow surrounded by the original cabins and the shadow of the giant. Here's a pic of the crew . Curt on the left.

Curt gave the 4 of us a cool history lesson of his grandparents and great grandparents. The history of the homestead and the hardships and joys that all went together through the years . We then walked a mile or so up to the marked trailhead that would take the young people to the nose, us ahhhh.....older folks... decided we'd just kinda call that part of the hike good enough.....here's the crew and Camy on the nose eating her birthday cake....well played mam.

That would be the Gates of the Mountains on the Missouri river below pretty much in the area of Mann Gulch which is Famous for the smoke jumper tragedy years ago, this stretch of river is the prettiest place to boat that I've ever experienced, discovered and named by Lewis and Clark of course. You can see the elevation and with the wind howling and scattered rain and hail Nate and Camy summited the nose AND the chest of the Giant in 6 and 1/2 hours....And us, well we beat feet over to Curt's cabin for a civilized viewing of the wide expanses of Montana. 

They got that board nailed from the front deck out to tree they topped with about a forty foot drop down. That's about as far as I wanted to go out on it...guess I'm finally run out of stupid .

If I were one of these guys, this is the place I'd be.

and my favorite sign of the day was this one....you know how I love signs.

So,a very special day for me and MPeasy. A special day for our enduring friendship, so thanks Curt. and speaking of friendships have a lookie see at that counter. When I started Mile 14 I thought my first 10,000 reads were impressive and I was humbled and excited for that....well, here we are at 1/2 a million....that's a lot of smiles....THANK YOU to all my friends....How's about a song ?

Keep an eye out for a new Mile 14, I got a really cool song that's coming next.