6 degrees of separation

That's one of my friend Curt's favorite sayings, of course it makes sense to him as it seems to me that he knows about half the people in the world and at the very  least half the people in Montana.  He knows a lot of people, but me I just rely on dumb luck and the randomness of life to find our connections to the planet. So Elliston Montana a mere 22 miles from here is becoming a favorite place of ours. It's just a small railroad town, one bar, one gas station with one pump and the funkiest little target golf course you've ever seen called Blackfoot Meadows as it's right on the banks of the Blackfoot River. We stop and get our water jugs full of the best spring water in the west first. We kinda avoid the chemical treated city water here in Montana.

Then it's off the golf course where we had a credit coming after we were chased off the course last fall by the fattest Black Bear we've ever seen. The place is always quiet and always gorgeous . Maybe three acres of tees and greens all rolled into one. I carry a pitching wedge, a 5 iron for the chip and run and of course a putter. 

You'd think that a guy with years of blogging under his hat and hundreds of pictures taken would learn to keep his thumb and golf clubs out of the foreground....but nope...I'm still learning. Here's a pic of the course and the clubhouse where they had bug juice for us and an honor system pay box like we had at Stewart's Landing where we learned that the honor system works well....if you monitor it .

Then it's to the tavern for cold cerveza . We walk in and I tell everybody I finally broke 100. I'm kind of a roving ambassador for Alaska, for fishing , for fun and of course for myself. So it's no wonder 
Alaska fishing comes up and we meet Rhonda Webster who is Mindy Payne's aunt who runs Widespread Charters with her husband Ruben in Soldotna on the world famous. Mindy's dad Jeff is also a retiree from life on the river and well we just had a wonderful chat . They're all friends of ours so if any of you fishermen who were orphaned when me and MP retired these guys know the way and so here's the link to the adventure , great friends.....widespreadfishing.com , here's a pic of MP and Rhonda.

Back in the mid 70's I met a guy named Al Antilla who was playing country music at Honey's in East Helena. Al was from Elliston and I always remembered that when I met his brother Bob who was the yard manager at Spenard Building Supply in Soldotna Alaska. Bob was a wonderful friend and his office was right next to the warehouse portion of the store that was the first building project I worked on with Wayne Passe Construction in 1977. The building had flat top bearing commercial trusses which finally gave out last year when the snow load collapsed the building...how's that for connectivity ?  There are still Antilla's in Elliston of course and I hope someday I can sing them a country song like Al always did.  Maybe a song like this , in one of my favorite movies Mac Sledge sang about redemption 40 years ago , Tender Mercies .

So as we strato cruise along we ran into these young guys filling up with gas in Townsend Montana. I was so excited, the human spirit at work.  I asked the young guy how far they ride those things as they were in leathers etc. Well, they have a traveling club and had been to the east coast, Hatteras North Carolina and then into Canada and then Montana on their way home to Medford Oregon....Well, it took me back to the days when I got in a Volkswagen Beetle by myself and drove into the future. How cool, the scooters are 300 c.c. and get 150 miles per fill up AND they never ever drove on an interstate highway. Back roads are good roads. Carry on young man !

mmmm....and in the We're still Alaskan's category.....MP's got all these birds she loves and takes care of.  We bird watch, now with my new hearing aids we  ' bird listen ' . Maybe it's a sign of appreciation and coming of age but we like birds. So as we walked the other day the conversation fell on birds. We talked about our favorite, the Stellar Jay with it's huge personality and aggressive survival ways...and they're kinda social. We see Blue Jays but they ain't the same sooooooooo.....MP built us one. Jeez, that's amazing. 💚

Ahem,,,,ya know Kenai guide #003 , father of two wonders, a guy with 250 songs , who's disappointed as well as  uplifted and is crazy about Mary Patricia Brown is turning 70 years old in a few short days. Mmmmm, that's  a big number that I intend to increase, so come back to the ol Mile 14 soon and I'll do a list of the things.....70 brings 😎