Anonymous

 That's how I've been feeling. I think you would to if you went from a town where you've known everyone for the last 45 years to a town where you knew no one. Expectations and reality don't usually collide in my life so this part of the deal I guess I just overlooked a bit...I do miss that  store visit where it's impossible to not chat with a friend or fellow guide....So it was a moment, that Kizmet thing, that we're attached to the world  thing that will happen in life if you have an open heart and maybe just need a little help....MP and I  decided to check another Hot Springs off our list and I called to make reservations at the Historic Symes Hotel in Hot Springs Montana, about 3 hours away if you're daisy sniffing along the way. The call went like this after the receptionists said they had availability....

OK, I'm ready for your information and Credit card number...

Cool,my name is Jeff King

Oh, we have a friend with that name

Really, does he live in Alaska ?

Yes, yes he does...

Does he mush dogs ? ( that Jeff King is famous )

I don't know but I do know he is a fishing guide

Well ( now I'm figuring it's a customer who we always befriend ) you must have fished with me ?

Oh no....wow this IS Jeff King...we grew up together.

And it was my one of my best buddy's ever Tom Beneventi's sister Lori.

We had a great visit. Like all of us her life didn't take a direct path and the zigs and zags of life found her raising 6 kids in Hot Springs Montana a town of 500 people on the reservation. She loves it there and now so do we. The waters that artesian everywhere in town are known as some of the best and heaviest mineral waters in the world and have been the economy for a 100 years . The Symes Hotel was built in the 1920's, it's funky, ultra friendly, our kind of place.

In the morning we went for the 102 degree pool and this is the view at sun up. We chatted with a young gal from Missoula and an interesting couple who come over from The Tri Cities to stay for 4 days every so often...I asked what do they do all day and the guy gave me that 'what a stupid question' look and said ' nothin". This sign next to the office tells you a little bit about the informality at the Symes Hotel.

We tried to get our 3 mile walk in but just like the last place there wasn't a lot of choices...but we did walk enough to see that the water is everything in this little town, there are several small 50ish style motels with the Hot water in the rooms and even an undeveloped natural pool just outside of the town. After we walked we stopped on main street at the only store to get milk and a Danish. We were just in time to see an ugly situation where the proprietor threw somebody out of the liquor store across the street from us. Now I don't know what ya gotta do to get the hook at the Liqour store at 10 A.M. in Hot Springs Montana so I can't tell you what to not do.....mmmmm...

Liking the eclectic I spotted 2 houses in this little town that looked more like Mexico than Hot Springs Montana. You can tell their owners love the places. It was a cool little town and we'll be back.

MP's grandfather used to do a getaway and soak at a Hot Springs that she couldn't remember the name of until we saw the sign for Camas Prairie so it was pretty cool to think we were sharing an experience with somebody she loves so much....This is definitely one of those places that I say ' ya gotta want to be there ', you don't end up in Camas Prairie by accident and if you do you're a loooong way from where you oughta be. Right in the middle of this wilderness high desert we found this, no town no nothing just this....

A close up will show you the unusual architecture. We were going to go home a different way but I went back about 20 miles so as to not miss these shots...I got a little time on my hands.

Here's a shot of the prairie .  I had the same feeling I had in Death Valley a few years back, can you imagine walking along side your wagon and cresting a hill to see this ahead of you....call my mom and tell her I'll be late for dinner.

I stopped and took a panorama pic with my phone of Camas Prairie and I hope this works for my blog. But the entire area has stridation type lines where you can see the varying levels of ancient Lake Missoula that took up most of this part of Montana and eventually ended up being just Flathead Lake which is pretty impressive by itself. mmmmmm sorry, the upload is beyond my blogging skills....Stick with guitar video's right ?

AND....we found a river and will be looking at property in Plain's Montana area...This place is gorgeous and this river has H2O...I stopped at several boat launches and you can see that larger prop and jet boats are used and the fishing is excellent, semi wild....I'll let you know.

And on the Kevin-O-meter .....we shot a scene in town town that was either a shoot out or a bomb deal. Lots of smoke and of course you know me, I got us in trouble for trying to get to close...Maybe if I'm a big enough pest they'll give me job.  For anybody who follows Yellowstone this is my spoiler alert and I'll be honest....I don't know s*^%

Thank you all for following along with us...my posts are becoming less frequent and I know that but it's like my music when I say it's only that if people hear it ....so...I'll try to find the unusual as always and try to post more often...keep the faith.

In Hot Water

 Having already  been to 2 of the 17 developed Hots Springs in our area we decided that touring all them might just be a fulfilling experience and we ended up this week at White Sulphur Spring where we had been in 2013 driving the back roads to visit Max in Minnesota. Being kinda social and having nobody to talk with except the MPeasy we adopted some Russian Old Believers that had been to Oregon for a wedding...they were quite impressed that MP recognized the womens hats as not being Amish, Hutterite  or Mennonite . Now this Hot Springs has all it takes to comfort the weary soul. The water is 102 Fahrenheit and is full of minerals, Chloride, Sulfate, Biocarbonate, Nitrate, Lithium, Sodium and Potassium, Magnesiam Iron and Alumina as well as silica...Man oh man.

 

We had been up to Cascade to help a my buddy paint another buddies cabin on....The Missouri River. Now, after being on the Kenai for a lifetime it's hard to be to impressed. The Bitteroot here in Hamilton just ain't working for me, if you can't power up a boat in it I'm not it's guy. But this stretch of the Missouri is impressive and I finally found my interest perked.  And let me tell you there's some revenue going on here...and I like that of course. In a 5 hour morning I watched at least 30 or 40 driftboats float by, spaced out and fishing well. There was a really good seem just off shore from me that I wondered why nobody was on when finally this boat took up station and was rewarded with a double hook up. The trout looked to be about 20 inches.

Looking up the river and across. We actually went east to get away from the smoke and you can certainly see it in the color values of my pics. Finally over the weekend a front came in and changed the air flow from California and our smoke is better...Kinda makes ya wonder just what else 2020 might have in store for us...or are we running out of disasters. ? 

After I fished at sun up that morning I walked back along the river and came across this pond refection. Now it ain't a smoking volcano at sunset or a foggy Kenai morning but I think it's pretty darn nice...And, we're about to experience something that is very rare in Alaska...a thing call Fall, you know Autumn. MP used to say that in Alaska there are two seasons, this winter and next winter. But here we have the month of October with 60's and 70's forecast.

We were up in that neck of the woods to be with my friend Curt. He's had one of those convergence's that this ol world will throw every so often and I've been concerned for him. My friend Chris a few years ago while working through a similar string of gut wrenching sadness told me that the lord never gives you more than you can handle...I hope that's true and all I can do is be here for you buddy .💚 Here's a pic of MP and Curt, a couple of the best people I've ever known.

Shortly after we arrived here at the Mile 14 USA Bureau we went searching for some close by big water. Lake Como is only 10 miles away and it is gorgeous....but...that day in July that we were there it was just boat goofy. I mean there were some fishing boats and if they were ALL fishing boats I'd like that and we could make magic. But there were water ski boats, pontoon boats and I just don't get it but big ocean going glass touring boats with people just riding around....I mean once around the lake and walla, you've seen it all . Is it going to change the next time around at 40 MPH ? I don't think so, slow down go fishing is my advice.

That's how the lake looked from the overlook. Now in July there wasn't so much bank that you notice below tree line in that pic. Turns out the lake is an impoundment and levels fluctuate with demand. So, this September day the only boats were kyaks...Now I'm known as a pretty good low water guy, I know my boats and am in tune with my environment but this launch is waaaaaay to long for retired guide #003...it just plane ol won't work...

So in Jethronian style I was thinking about my other hobby and the possibilities of Marine Salvage with the low water. After all those speed boat guys must lose stuff out of their boats, in fact I bet things get blown out of the boats so I was kinda doing a preliminary grid search when I came across these alien submerged  circles or ???? Could it really be ? There's a lot of unknowns here in Moooontana, hay circles and cattle mutilations, BigFoot and now... 

There was just one guy fishing so I watched for a bit and as has happened many times in my life just as I was questioning his fishing skills based on his body language and the fact that his casts looked like he was throwing a shot put...he caught a fish . So I had to ask, a nice rainbow after an hour of throwing. I can do that although lately MP has been saying that I very well could have completely emptied my inventory of fishing ju-ju and may never catch another fish ...we'll see about that MPeasy.

And on the Kevin-o-meter here's pic of the Yellowstone guys building a set on @nd Street here in Hamilton Montana. They've  transformed a Law office into The Montana Cattle Association and today will be shooting street scenes. We're going to check on the progress when we walk in a couple hours and then my strategy for fame...It has to be real looking so they are going to shoot scenes with local traffic so all I have to do is drive around town for a while....So keep an eye out in sthe series for that old White Chevy with Alaska plates...

" Dry land is not a myth ! "

 Next time I bump into Kevin that's what I'm going to tell him....The Rocking Y here is huge, and I mean huge. Unlike the reality TV that was filmed in Alaska with two camera's, a fake Alaskan and a guy with a deep voice this is the real deal. Alaska paid expenses for these guys and of course that's a long gone benefit, Montana just helps, security , logistics etc...Everywhere we go we see the Rocking Y people.

You can tell they're paying their own way . In Alaska it was the Captain Cook Hotel at the States expense. When we first saw the rented building in Hamilton as me and MPeasy walked and analyzed we thought maybe 50 to a hundred people were at work on Yellowstone, well after bumping into them shooting film at 4 different locations as we drove to the Big Hole area to spend a retreat at Jackson Hot Springs I now would expect the number is three to four hundred people working on the series.

Here's a few pics. The base camp in Darby I clicked at 60 mph. Then you can see the boom equipment set up at a rest area. I didn't want to act like the paparazzi that I'm turning into so we passed up many good shots. We came across one highway pull out where they were filming on dirt that had been hauled in to cover the asphalt but the coolest was down by Wisdom where they had the fanciest stock trucks you could find lined up with cowboys and a super cool blacked out Helicopter....which flew over the hot springs for us about cocktail hour. We all waved at Kevin and he waved back.

MP is a smart girl. She knew I could use a diversion as I was once again thinking too much....way too much. So, she knew just the right place for a retreat. We drive up Lost Trail pass and hang a louie then into the Big Hole Valley and through Wisdom and check into a suite at Jackson Hot Springs which is really the only thing in Jackson....and it's super cool. The rumor is that Lewis and Clark cooked Elk steaks in the hot waters which bubble to the surface everywhere to this day. As we hiked in the morning you could see the steam everywhere and when I felt the ground water it was surprisingly hot....this cow is living good, the creek is 90 degrees .

Here's a couple shots , the building that has it all, hot pool, bar,  restaurant and shuffle board table.. Then you can see how small the town is, no stop signs , no nothing....the hot springs a few houses and a farm equipment repair shop.

The water is 102 degrees year around. The pool is kinda rustic, you can see it had a roof over at one time that rusted out and then  removed with a hot wrench and a crane.  Like most of these places we've found through the years the place had a lot of corrosion that just goes with warm mineral water...it felt great, especially in the morning when we woke up to 38 degrees, Jackson is at an incredible 6400 feet of elevation.

So with hot water , a huge hamburger while we watched the Kansas city football game along with a couple Pacifico's I slept the best in months. The next morning we tried to get our walk in but it was a struggle to get our three miles....the problem was kinda weird, you don't realize how long three miles is until you get somewhere there's no place to go. So we had breakfast at the Hot Springs because if you want breakfast it's the only place and then decided we'd drive through the scenic by way at Polaris and up to Wise River....The place is great and we'll be back to play more Pac-Man...this machine had actual scores on it form 1980 and 1981. Wow, they told me I'd have flashbacks someday and they were finally right ! It was sooooo cool.

As life works out in Jeff's world just 30 miles from our new favorite place we find another Hot Springs tucked away in the woods. I thought the last one was rustic but the Elkhorn Hot Springs wins in that category... I told the folks we'll be back in a couple weeks and bring the guitar.

And a couple pics of the scenery on the By Way....hardly any traffic and the people we met were like us, I like that. The Big Hole River would be a creek in Alaska but it's gorgeous and wild right here in Montana and the winding road through high country Parks , beautiful.

So...feeling a bit better about the Big Sky I searched deep into my song book and found a good Montana story for you....See ya later.

Feeling Better

Maybe all I had to do was put on jeans , grab a rain coat and take a walk in the rain. Today was the first time since we landed in Bellingham July 11th that has happened, the very first day I didn't roll out of bed and put shorts and a wife beater on. MP commented that as we walked it looked a bit like the Turnagian area, mist laying on the mountain tops as it rains in the valley. Here's how it looked as we did our three miles.

Even though I'm getting used to Hamilton I think MP and I both know that we're just going to ride out the virus here and do as much work on the little house as we can to make it rent-able or sale-able as we look for a larger and newer house with some privacy and a dishwasher and most likely near Helena...I don't think that's to much to expect out of this new life....Maybe even just the right fixer upper but after a long and heated 20 second debate we decided to pass on this one.

My last Blog entry you might remember I gave Kevin Costner and his ' Yellowstone' people some advice about ditching the Black Suburbans and getting some white ones so as not to be confused with a politician or a narco....Well, I guess Kev must read Mile 14 because as we walked by the new building they have taken over walla...not a black Suburban in sight. It's kinda cool, they have trailer vans full of props and costumes and the parking lot is full of Utah license plates where they used to film Yellowstone...So Kevin, I hope you keep reading Mile 14 and keep an eye out for a guy with a semi-lost look and pro cure on his jeans standing in line for the extra's call, I think I could help.

The other day we decided to soak at Lolo Hot Springs. We shoulda got started earlier because by the time we got there the place was full of kids. We decided to come at a better time, ya know I love kids but it wasn't the vision of quiet steamy whispering morning that I had along the way...But we did drive into Idaho and the Lochsa River valley. Gorgeous . Not far from the Natural Hot Springs that we Skinny Dipped as Kids we found the coolest little Camp Granada type setting in the Lolo National Forrest. I thought the North Rim of the Grand Canyon was kinda rustic until we found this place, Powell Station. If you need peace and quiet and a summer camp flashback, we found the place for you.

Powell Station is just around the corner from the Devoto Old Growth Cedar conservation area on the banks of the Lochsa River. The place was tropical like shaded with the fast running river gurgling away in the background, just the place to break out a beer and a guitar and do a video which I will end this blog entry with. These tree's are impressive.

Then we decided to find the Lumberjack Bar which sits in the middle of no where about 5 miles off the pavement which you would think would be a bad business model but here in Montana it seems to make perfect sense. Low and behold it was just like we remembered. I showed MP this place after a Hot Springs trip in 1976 and I remember after we walked in with nobody but her and I around she said ' now what ? " Well, all these years later she basically said the same thing and I said ' Heineken and deep fried mushrooms '  .  It's nice to see that some places stay the same. The second pic I took was because I was so impressed with the shear size of those cedar Logs, 4 courses to get a full 8 or 9 foot ceiling.

The place reminded me....although I'm in what we used to call ' the 48 ' I'm Alaskan through and through. My entire adult life is there and all I know and who I am came from there so if I act kinda hinky sometimes here I hope they all understand , they sure seemed to at the LumberJack, I like that.

I got two more pics. The first one I'm not saying anything about except thank you. And if I ever run out of songs or things to do my first project is going to be a stove pipe cactus that will be my Mexico touchstone just like that Palm Tree I fished out of the Kenai River was my Touchstone in the frozen north.

The Cedar Forrest on the Lochsa river was the perfect place to sing. I forgot my tablet and had to use my phone but it's OK...this song used to be kinda of a signature song of mine, It's my friend Glenn's favorite and I really hope Glenn I get a chance to sing it for you this winter in Mexico...but that is still in question...I've sang this song hundreds of times and I'm planning on hundreds more...Next Mile 14 I should have a new song about going back to your old home town, I hope you come see it.