Parking deck safety phone had a cool blue light.
Blue Light
Montana has a lot of nowhere.
Here’s a leftover from that Montana trip. I’ve gotten the SOS thing on the iPhone before but this is the first time I’ve seen the satellite icon.
It makes sense, since Montana is mostly backcountry, but it was weird to see.
Harrisonburg and Staunton Va.
More work miles here. I was sure the novelty of Virginia greenery would start to wear off by now, but it hasn’t happened yet. I do love a scenic overlook.
As fate and fortune would have it, the office I visited was just down the road from the county fairgrounds and the fair was in town. I mean, we had lunch options, but we’d have been fools to go anywhere but the fair.
1/4 fried chicken and a Dr. Wham? Yeah, 1/4 fried chicken and a Dr. Wham.
The fair at lunch doesn’t run the rides, but they’re all ready to go. We also missed the monster truck show the night before, and we were going to miss the tractor pull and demolition derby later in the week (but I did get to meet the guy who hauls the demolition derby’d cars off of the track). I’m just glad those things are happening somewhere.
There were also cows.
Blushing “Sugarcoat’
I’ve been listening to (and loving) this one for a couple of weeks and I cannot remember where I found it. It’s a good one, no doubt. Two married couples make up the band and there’s some excellent Gum Country (my fave record of 2020) vibes and enough guitar fuzz to draw My Bloody Valentine and Lush comparisons.
The album artwork is great, too.
Bozeman 3
I wasn’t in Montana long enough to adjust to the time zone, so I got up early on my last day to catch a hike before I flew home. I am not normally a hiker, but when the trails are right there, a person doesn’t have a choice. I even packed hiking boots.
The Drinking Horse Mountain Trail, built in 2001, is a 2.5-mile hike with 700 feet of elevation. The internet described it as “Easy to Moderate” and “Good for Children”. I figured I chill 90-minute loop would be the best way to wrap my time out west.
Getting places before sunrise is easy when you’re surrounded by mountains.
Even though the trail was a loop, I took a picture of the map just in case. I didn’t need it, but it gave me something to pretend to look at while I was catching my breath.
As I worked my way up the trail, there were plenty of benches to grab photos (and gasp for air. so much gasping). The sun slowly worked it’s way up the valley as I went along. You can see it getting brighter in these photos.
At the top, with the sun over head, you could see everything. It was awesome.
I was gassed. “At least the rest of it is downhill”, I said.
There were a couple of places where you could see a small path off of main trail, where maybe people were adding small spurs to get to photo ops. This one was obviously a path to that treacherous-looking rock formation on the left. The park added the barrier to give folks an extra minute to consider their common sense, I suppose. I didn’t need the extra time.
It is difficult to describe just how steep these switchbacks were. I hope this photo does it justice. There weren’t many on the way down, but it was like this the whole way up. “Easy to Moderate” my ass.
The descent was otherwise a delight. I can’t help but reiterate what a beautiful part of the country this is. Back at the bottom of the trail, having survived the experience, I took a minute to enjoy some of scenes.
I didn’t notice this sign on the way in. It all worked out, though.
And with the hiking done, I rolled out to the airport and home.
The Bozeman airport is really something. I’d go so far as to call it “pleasant”. They really lean into the dinosaur fossils here, but I didn’t have time to get to the big museum with the skeletons. Next time.
Winged Wheel “Big Hotel”
Another in a long line of terrific recommendations from Tracy Wilson’s Courtesy Desk newsletter, Winged Wheel’s “Big Hotel”, is, as she describes:
Impenetrable echoes rumble and then evaporate in hypnotizing swirls as if a raincloud is trying to extinguish a volcanic river of neon molten rock. Willy Wonka could play any portion of Big Hotel in his unsettling boat ride tunnel and I think accomplish the same mesmerizing yet mind expanding journey.
I get serious A Storm In Heaven-era Verve vibes, too. This is one that I’ve streamed enough to buy.
Bozeman 2
Day two in Montana got off to a promising start because a cold front had blown through overnight. The wind and light rain cleared all of the smoke and overcast blegh, so the Big Sky show was in full effect. The day’s schedule consisted solely of an excursion south into Yellowstone National Park. I wanted to see as many of the Park’s wild animals as I could, and it was slow going.
This chipmunk was as good as it got, at first. I don’t know if the smoke from earlier in the week had the animals in hiding, but we didn’t see much for the first hour or two. It didn’t really matter since the scenery was as advertised and a complete stunner at every turn.
I was tickled by the way fishermen would just pull off the road and walk down to the river to get after it. Like, no parking lots or anything. If you’ve got a license to fish (and you better have one because the park rangers don’t play with that shit), you’re free to go.
We stopped to take in some of the majesty at an overlook that featured this waterfall.
And if you are going to have wooden rails to keep people from falling, you’re going to get the good pocketknife graffiti.
We eventually saw just about every animal I’d hoped for.
Bison:
Magpies:
Elk:
What they call “tourons“:
We also saw some packrats, prairie dogs, ducks (we have those here, though, so not so impressive), a gopher, and a mountain goat, but I didn’t get photos of those.
I just couldn’t get over how crazy it was to have mountains everywhere. It’s a beautiful place.
They also get dozens of feet of snow in the winter, so there’s no chance in hell I’d live there.
Jack White’s “No Name” LP
A few weeks back, Jack White released a new record as a giveaway for anyone buying something from one of the Third Man Records shops. Clear vinyl, white label, plain sleeve. I guess owning and operating an in-house vinyl pressing plant has some advantages. After the release, the Third Man social media accounts seemed to promote ripping it and posting it online, hence these youtube embeds of the record. It’s a good one. A lot of the talk was about “a return to the White Stripes”, which isn’t completely off-base because these are mostly blues songs, but the band on these songs is bigger and the sound is not as raw-raw.
As an aside, I went to the store in Nashville a few years ago and it’s a really cool spot.
The album has since had an official release, streaming and physically, which is cool for me. I’ve played it enough that I’ll probably by a copy.
Bozeman 1
Most of my work travels will be driving but I caught a flyer for a quick trip to Bozeman, MT. As a full-sized fellow, plane travel is not my preferred mode, and I caught a couple of classic “business flyer” snafus along my way.
I’m sure I’ll get over it at some point, but seeing major US cities from the air still gets me stoked. Chicago is cool-looking (and some outrageous gate arrival luck let me make my connecting flight to Bozeman despite a big delay getting out of Richmond).
The California wildfires had laid a big blanket of smoke on Bozeman and it looked like I was going to be denied the full “Big Sky Country” experience. It was still neat to see, as I’d never been to this part of the country before.
I hit the ground a grabbed a beer and couple of slices to fuel up for the list of places I wanted to hit before the working started.
Unfortunately, the comic shop I had on my list wasn’t open, and this cool-looking record shop was closed Mo-We for the month of July.
I didn’t get totally shut out though, as Cactus Records was there for me to scratch my travel shopping itch.
Poolside Viewing
The rent is too damn high, for sure, but I’ll take an invite to a spot with amenities like a poolside cabana tv that turns so I can watch the Olympics from the water.