2014 in Review, Part II

American Bison (bison bison) on the National Bison Range

Moiese, Montana

July 6, 2014

July was a month for entertaining friends at home, viewing wildlife around the state, and not an insignificant amount of in-state travel.  In addition to the bison shown above, I managed to get pictures of antelope also at the Bison Range, ducks in Missoula, and even a cow and calf moose on our own property near Plains.  My dahlias brightened the deck with their red, pink, lavendar, and yellow blossoms, and one of the large orchids given me by my friend Hank deigned to bloom--one small, solitary bloom, but one I could photograph, none-the-less.  I got some wonderful shots of Glacier National Park, taken from the backseat of Kevin's big red Ford.  Not having to drive Going-to-the-Sun, I was able to see (and capture) scenes that have always eluded me when driving that narrow, twisting road.

Canadian Pacific Railway Water Tower

Cranbrook, British Columbia, Canada

August 6, 2014

August brought us another WarmShowers guest.  WarmShowers is an on-line community of bicycle tourists and people who can host them, offering them a warm shower, as it were.  We have hosted many such guests over the past couple of years as Montana Highway 200 is one of only two roads into the state from the west that don't involve crossing a mountain pass.  The day after our guest left, we took a day trip up to Cranbrook, British Columbia, the first time I had been out of the country in three years.  I was able to find a few geocaches while there, which allowed me to add a foreign "souvenir" to my geocaching statistics.  We went to Trout Creek for their annual Huckleberry Festival.  A Scottish pipe band was visiting from Sandpoint, and I recalled the day, some thirty or more years back, when our Scottish Country Dance group from Missoula performed in Trout Creek. We also traveled to Butte for one day of the Montana Folklore Festival, and spent a great day near Sheridan with friends from Butte and our gracious host Jim Schwindt.  August also brought lots of blooms in the guise of my dahlias, my hibiscus, some lovely and quite different petunias, and the patch of wildflowers that grew like crazy around the pond in our front yard.  (Ok, they're not really wild.  We bought a packet of wildflower seeds and spread them in the dirt around the pond.)

Two Medicine Lake

Glacier National Park, Montana

September 21, 2014

The beginning of September brought my dear friend Ken to visit from Fairbanks.  I've known Ken since the early 1970s when he was my first Scottish Country Dance teacher in Berkeley.  I traveled to Turkey with Ken in October, 2000, and it was great fun getting to act as his tour guide this time around.  Together we drove through the Mission Valley and around Flathead Lake, we took another day trip to Cranbrook, this time to visit the Canadian Museum of Rail Travel, and we spent a couple of days in Glacier. Our garden started producing peppers, tomatoes and cucumbers, more tomatoes that we could use, actually, but we do have quite a few jars of home made tomato sauce and tomato juice in the pantry now.  Our one and only CouchSurfing guest visited from southern California, and during the week that he stayed with us, I got to play tour guide all over again, including another two days in Glacier.  We drove Going-to-the-Sun on the last day it was open for the season, and a few days later rode our bikes down the Hiawatha Trail on the last day it was open for the season.  In between, we hiked into Cabin Lake, a four mile hike (one-way) from the trailhead along the West Fork of the Thompson River.  We also made another trip to the Ross Creek Cedars.  All in all, September was a great month for being outdoors.

Bowman Lake

Glacier National Park, Montana

October 13, 2014

October started with a hike up Spring Creek, a few miles west of home, and ended with a four-day down and back trip to Phoenix, Arizona, a trip I've already recounted in this blog.  In between I turned that magic age, 65, and went on Medicare, which dropped my medical insurance costs significantly.  Another visit to the Ross Creek Cedars, and yet one more to Glacier, this time to the western side of the park, where we visited Polebridge and then Kintla and Bowman Lakes.  A week later we drove up Going-to-the Sun one last time (the road was closed at Logan Pass), and I got some beautiful photos of the fog in the McDonald Valley.  I spent more time in Glacier Park in 2014 than any other year in my life.  It's a beautiful place to visit, and I look forward to many more exploratory trips.  Having a Federal Senior Pass means that I don't have to pay entrance fees, nor do any of the people traveling with me.  Come for a visit and I'll show you the Park as well.

Loaf Shaped Como Bread, Fresh From the Oven

November 11, 2014

It's been an unusual year, weather-wise.  I still had flowers blooming on November 1st.  Most of the photos I took during November were loaves of bread I baked.  I pulled out my stone mill and ground my own wheat berries to make what has become our favorite bread, a version of Como Bread that calls for both sourdough starter and yeast, as well as both whole wheat flour and white bread flower.  I have made it free-form and in loaf pans, and have used primarily the home-ground flour with just a touch of white, as well as two-thirds white to one-third home-ground.  It doesn't seem to matter, we love this bread.  With Thanksgiving, my "Christmas" cactus bloomed yet again, but by the end of the month, the only flowers we had blooming were the occasional hibiscus which I had moved to the family room downstairs.

Mount Baldy

Sanders County, Montana

December 25, 2014

December brought snow, then rain, and on the night before Christmas, more snow.  We did have a white Christmas, at least at 12 Kay Wood Drive, if not in the town of Plains itself.  December also saw me say good-bye to my trusty 1989 Ford F-250 and the 11' Lance camper that rode on its back.  We haven't used the rig in the two plus years we've been here, so it was time for it to find a new home.  More bread, more hibiscus blooms, and an early Christmas present.  In the Spring, I had the opportunity to try a new GPS unit, and while I found it somewhat frustrating to use without proper instructions, I knew that I could learn it given time, so I asked for a Garmin Montana 650t for Christmas.  Kevin found one on-line and ordered it.  I showed up a week or so before Christmas, and after asking my Facebook friends for advice, I decided that life is short.  I was able to use the unit for several geocaching jaunts, most of which I've written about earlier in this blog.  I love it, and I'm so grateful to Kevin for buying it for me.  We have one week left in 2014, and who knows what mischief I can get into in that time.  I hope you have enjoyed spending the year with me, and I look forward to chatting with you through the new year.  Please feel free to leave any comments you might have on the blog site.  I know people are looking at the site, I see the number of visitors.  But almost no one ever leaves me any messages.  Go on, I promise I won't bite.

Easter in December?

More Swans on the Flathead River

12/15/2014

East of Perma, Montana

No fife did hum nor battle drum
Did sound its dread tattoo
But the Angelus bell o'er the Liffey swell
Rang out through the foggy dew.
--Irish ballad 

To hear the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem sing this song of the Easter Rebellion in 1916, click here.  And yes, in the course of this post I'll tie in both fog and Easter (and the Irish as well--in the form of a church built for an Irish community in, I kid you not, 1916, the year of the Easter Rebellion).

Monday morning I rose with a list of chores that I would need to get done during the day, if only to feel as if I'd accomplished something.  But even as I stripped the bed and filled the washing machine, I watched the sun light up the hills surrounding our home.  You should never pass on a sunny day when you live in a winter climate, so I threw caution to the wind, grabbed my camera and my new Garmin Montana 650t GPS unit (note how I made sure to get the Montana and not the Colorado or Alaska model), and hit the road in search of more photographic opportunites, not to mention geocaches.  Photography is, after all, the use of light (φῶς, φωτός) to write or draw (γράφειν), and this morning promised beautiful light.

I hadn't made it to Highway 200 (roughly five miles from home) before I was in a deep fog--the kind that you really hate to drive through.  But by now I was on a mission, and besides, I really did have to get to Polson to pick up new test strips for my blood glucose meter.  The fog held on through Plains, but by the time I reached Paradise, some six miles further east, I was back in sunshine and all set for a great day on the river.

The first of my pre-programmed geocaches was a couple miles east of Perma on the side of Highway 200, and I quickly added "Sword Play" to my list of finds.   A few miles further another cache was hidden, this time by a rather long pull out on the river side of the road.   The name of the cache was "Why did you stop here?" and the cache owner had suggested we come up with a reason--presumably one other than "I wanted to find your cache."  The swans were swimming (may have been seven, I didn't count them all), but I grabbed a couple as seen through the trees above.  I also grabbed the cache, and proceeded on to the next on my list.

The Mission Mountains

12/15/2014

West of Dixon, Montana

My next scheduled caches were in the town of Dixon, but before I reached the town, the Mission Mountains drew my attention, and I just had to pull off the road and take their portrait.  The Mission Mountains are one of the more spectacular ranges in our part of the country, and they never fail to impress visitors.  Well, there have been times I've brought guests to see them, only to have the mountains hide completely behind fog or clouds.  Who knew mountains could be so shy.

The Flathead River at Dixon

12/15/2014

Dixon, Montana

I tried for two different caches in Dixon, one at a fishing access by the river and the other in the town's tiny city park, but I was unsuccessful with both.  I did get a great view of the river, a view I had never before seen, and looking downstream, there was a bald eagle perched high on a tree along the river's bank.  I switched lens and took several shots of the eagle, but I'm not particularly happy with any of them.

Just east of Dixon, I turned north off MT 200 onto Highway 212 and stopped almost immediately to grab the cache hidden under the bridge spanning the Jocko River.  The cache's name is Jocko's Troll, and the clue suggested looking just where you'd expect to find a troll--well under the bridge, silly.  There was a hint suggesting that the cache was along the Jocko under a rocko, but when I found it, the cache was in plain sight, with no rock covering it at all.  After signing the log, I carefully replaced the cache where I found it, then laid a large flat rock over it.  Wouldn't want the hint to be wrong now would I?

Bald Eagle leaving its perch

12/15/2014

Old Agency (Dixon), Montana

North of the river, as I was approaching the Lake County line, I passed two bald eagles perched on power poles along the highway.  Turning around, I pulled off the road opposite the large birds and caught several shots of the two of them, before they finally flew out of range.  And yes, I know I clipped his wings in this shot, but he looks so majestic flying there that I'm using it anyway.

Turning the car back around, I stopped to grab a cache at the entrance to the National Bison Range, and at the same time grabbed another photo of the snow-capped Mission Mountains.  The one peak I wanted to capture, however, was behind some trees and I figured I'd have plenty more views of that peak before the day was out.  Famous last words.

St. Joseph's Catholic Church

12/15/2014

Moiese, Montana

South of the town of Charlo, I turned onto Dublin Gulch Road and grabbed the cache hidden at St. Joseph's Catholic Church.  I've passed this church many a time, but I'd never stopped to read the historic marker on the front of the church.  The full text for the placard can be found here, but the main items of interest are that the church was built in 1916 (I believe), had its last service in 1978, and is one of only two churches in Montana built in the Craftsman style.  See.  That's why I go geocaching.  I learn so much about the area.

After leaving the church, I relied on my GPS unit to lead me to more caches, having forgotten to grab the Montana Atlas which would show me the back roads that cross the landscape connecting the various area farms.  Some of these roads are blocked by fences, and most are dirt, but hey, I was out exploring, and I didn't have to be home until 4 or so to fix supper for Kevin.  Oops, it's already 3 and I'm an hour from home and haven't done my shopping yet.  Oh well.  It will all work out.

My main destination for today's trip was actually the Ninepipe National Wildlife Refuge, a 4,027 acre refuge established in 1921. I figured with the light and all, I'd be sure to catch some birds in my lens. I had programmed several caches hidden around the Refuge in my Garmin, and figured I'd catch a few more before I continued on to Polson and shopping. I did find the cache at the Stocky Memorial, a parking area dedicated to the memory of biologist Dwight "Stocky" Stockstad, who was responsible for much of the Refuge being set aside, including the 70 acres dedicated to him. I previously had no idea such a place (or person) existed.

The next two caches managed to elude me, even though my GPS told me I was right on top of them.  What I did notice was that my fingers were getting very cold, and the beautiful sunny day had disappeared into a heavy bank of fog.  I caught the Easter 2014 cache, so named for the date on which it was hidden.  The clue suggested that the cache site would tie in to the name, and sure enough, when I rolled away the rock, all was revealed.  The cache container, a camouflaged plastic Easter egg, gave me some trouble when I tried to open it, but it all worked out in the end.

Down the road another mile, I stopped at the Leon Community Center, but again, even though my GPS told me I was at ground zero, I found nothing and felt even colder than I had earlier.  At this point, I was one mile away from US Highway 93, and I decided to call it a day.

Traffic on 93 was moving very slowly, as the fog had moved in completely.  The mountains, just a couple miles distant, were hidden to the point of being invisible through the fog.  I drove north, and by the time I reached the Tribal Governmental Complex at Charlo, I was back out of the fog, but I had no desire to seek out any more caches today.  There's always tomorrow, and with the seven I did find, I passed my goal of getting 300 caches reported by the end of 2014.  (Geocaching.com now shows me with a lifetime total of 302 caches, and that will probably change before New Year's Eve.)

In Polson, I was doing my shopping when Kevin called to ask if supper would be ready by four.  Oops.  Nope.  I'm in Polson, over a hour away from home.  Kevin suggested that he would get something for himself and suggested that I do the same.  Accordingly, when I saw Bambino's Pizza and Pasta alongside Polson's main street, I stopped and had a wonderful dinner of Lasgna Fresca, with a side salad and fresh, crusty bread to dip in a balsamic/oil/herb mix.  I left the restaurant with a piece of Tiramisu in a box, and the sure knowledge that I will return to Bambino's in the near future.

Polson Bay and The Narrows, Flathead Lake

12/15/2014

Polson, Montana

Driving to Tibet

My cousin Ron arrived from West Virginia one week ago today, just in time to attend the Missoula Gay Men's Chorus Christmas Cabaret on Saturday, December 10th. We had purchased eight tickets, and the tables seated ten, so there were a couple of extra seats at our table. A dear friend, Randy B., took one of those seats, and when he learned that Ron was a masseur, Randy asked if he could get a massage from Ron. One thing led to another, and we scheduled a trip to Moiese, to visit Randy in his own home. Tuesday morning, we hit the road, heading north and west onto the Flathead Indian Reservation north of Missoula. Little did we know that we were really driving to Tibet.

Clouds covered the sky in the Missoula valley, but as we climbed Evaro Hill, the clouds dissipated to be replaced by a pale blue sky above Montana's shining mountains. US highway 93 north of Missoula has to be one of the most scenic drives in the country, with the Mission Mountains rising on the east. Snow covered jagged peaks form the eastern horizon for a good seventy-five miles, and this is one of the drives I take when introducing out-of-area friends to western Montana.

Leaving Interstate 90 at exit 96 (96 miles east of the Montana/Idaho line), approximately ten miles west of Missoula, we drove north on US 93, climbing Evaro Hill and leaving the Missoula Valley behind. At the top of Evaro, we entered the Flathead Reservation of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes. Covering much of Lake County, along with portions of Flathead, Missoula and Sanders Counties, the reservation extends over 1.317 million acres and includes much of Flathead Lake, the largest alpine lake in the US. Created by the Hellgate Treaty of 1855, the reservation became the home of the Bitteroot Salish (Flathead), the Pend d'Oreille, and the Kootenai tribes. In 1910, the reservation was opened to white settlement, and today the population is largely non-indigenous people. Just north of the reservation boundary, we drove under the Animals' Bridge, a conduit designed to keep the suicidal deer and elk from meeting their maker at the hands of a passing Hyundai or Ford. Just north of the "bridge," we passed a sign in English and Salish noting that we were now in the Schley Area.

Cabin in the Schley Area, Flathead Reservation, Montana

The Schley Area is one of my favorite spots to stop for photo-ops, and Ron and I took advantage of having some time in our schedule to stop and shoot the roses, as it were.

From Schley, the highway drops down off Evaro Hill to the first reservation town, Arlee, then just north of Arlee it crosses the Jocko River which it then follows north to the community of Ravalli. Just after crossing the river, we took a right turn onto White Coyote Road, heading toward the Garden of One Thousand Buddhas. The Garden's web site explains the purpose of this bit of Tibetan Buddhism found in western Montana:

The purpose of the Garden is to bring about positive transformation within those who visit, in response to the negativity that abounds in the world today. One thousand hand-cast Buddha statues will be arrayed around the central figure of Yum Chenmo, or the Great Mother, the manifestation of the perfection of wisdom. One thousand stupas, representations of the enlightened mind, will line the outer circle. Each will enshrine an image of the female deity, Tara. Elegantly adorned with native trees and flowers, it is hoped that the Garden of One Thousand Buddhas will instill lasting impressions of peacefulness and compassion.

Yum Chenmo, The Great Mother

Back on the highway, we drove past the Bison Inn in Ravalli and climbed the hill that separates Ravalli from St. Ignatius and the Mission Valley. As you drive north, the National Bison Range is on your left, and the Mission Mountains come into view in an ever widening panorama of snow-capped, shining mountains. If the sky is blue and the sun is shining, as it was for us, new visitors almost invariably gasp as the view ahead becomes more and more filled with jagged peaks rising thousands of feet above. One of the native names for the land we now call Montana was "the land of shining mountains," and it was certainly an apt name in our opinion.

The Mission Mountains as seen from the top of the Ravalli Hill

or are they the Himalayas in Tibet?

After a U-turn to get us back to Ravalli, Ron and I stopped at the Bison Inn for lunch. Normally I would order their Indian Taco, as I feel they have the best in the area, but an Indian Taco is so filling, that I passed in favor of a mushroom-swiss burger made with bison meat. Ron had the same, and we joked with the host/waiter/owner? of the establishment while enjoying a delicious lunch.

Ravalli is where Montana highway 200 coming in from the west merges with 93. We headed west on 200 toward the town of Dixon and what, to my knowledge, is Montana's only herd of Tibetan Yaks. If you've never seen a yak, believe me, they look like giant ambulatory dust mops. I'm told that they are also rather angry beasts, not at all like the ones Hilaire Belloc wrote about in his Bad Child's Book of Beasts, and More Beasts for Worse Children. Belloc's poem "The Yak" has long been one of my favorites.

Montana's Yaks--not friends to the children

Montana secondary highway 212 runs north from Dixon, through the town of Charlo, and connects to US 93 just north of the Ninepipes National Wildlife Refuge. We drove north as far as the entrance to the National Bison Range at Moiese, but alas, there were no bison to be seen. We had passed a herd a few miles back, so we turned around and headed back toward Dixon. Sure enough, our eyes hadn't deceived us, and we were finally able to assure ourselves that we were, indeed, in western Montana, and not on the "plains of Tibet." Having filled our memory cards with these iconic plains undulates, we continued on to Randy's home on the banks of the Flathead River, where we spent a very enjoyable afternoon and evening. Both of us are looking forward to another trip to "Tibet."

Isn't there a nickel around here somewhere?

NOTE PLEASE: clicking on any link or photo will open that link in a new window. Double clicking on a photo will not only give you an enlarged view of the photo, but should fill your screen with the image.