Night Wings

Yesterday while waiting for my rig to get fixed at the Nissan shop in Great Falls, I chose to be dropped off at the Paris Gibson Square Museum of Art. http://www.the-square.org/ It is located in an old high school building downtown... I was the only visitor during the hour and a half I was there, making it a great, peaceful time to for me to walk around. It's very small, and only had 5 small scale exhibits.. But they were all very enjoyable... Especially Night Wings: Moths in Sight and Sound, by Joseph Scheer. He has taken photos, digitally enhanced and enlarged them (some up to 4 x 8 feet) to the point that you can see every individual hair on the moth... To get a great interview see... http://www.photoinsider.com/pages/scheer/scheer.html
Most of the display was set up as prints in frames, but one small room was set up with the prints on canvas, hung randomly with tiny speakers inset in the canvas. The sounds of moths and other forest music was played as you walked through-out the room... Very peaceful and relaxing... What a cool experience.. I highly recommend the show if anyone is lucky enough to find it in their area.

Another great exhibit they have permanently at the museum is Lee Steen's Menagerie... It is a collection of Tree sculptures from cottonwood branches and found objects he collected near his home in Roundup, Montana. One of the most unique exhibits I've seen in a while. A true Montana original. All of you who know my Dad, this exhibit is right up his alley..

Wildest One-Day Rodeo in the West

Augusta Rodeo pics from 2004


The Augusta Rodeo was this last weekend. And yes, we all had to head on down to par-take in the festivities... Augusta, where Pat is now based with the Forest Service, is about a half hour South of Choteau. The official rodeo is on Sunday, but the party is all weekend long, with the slack rodeo on Sat. For those of you who have been to the Houston Livestock & Rodeo, or any other large scale rodeo... This is nothing like it... It is an official Pro Rodeo, so it does bring in big name riders. But as a small town (pop. 300) which multiplies by ten for the weekend activities, it makes for a great fun. Even if you are on the top of the stands (which only go to row 15....) you still eat the dust from the arena.

The weekend started with a group of friends heading out to Lake Eureka for some fun in the sun. Then down to Augusta to BBQ and check out the Slack rodeo with the Forest Service Crew that lives there. Ate lots of Indian Tacos (a taco with Fry Bread instead of a tortilla) and partied '"till the sun come up" with the town at the street dance.

On Sunday, Pat and I were up early, due to a neighborhood dog's charming wake-up barks... So we decided to go exploring... First we drove around checking out houses, then headed up into the mountains... Where we ended up dead-ending on a trail-head that was only 6 miles from the Scapegoat wilderness... A must do hike for some future date...


But not then, because we had to get back for the Rodeo!!!! So in the heat of the day we all watched the cowboys and cowgirls strut their stuff, even as they participated in the annual wild cow milking contest, which is a hard event to look good in... Buy supper time we were all shot, so we drug ourselves back to Choteau to sleep off the weekend before everyone had to go back to work today...

This weekend is Choteau's 4th of July festivities, including another "in your face" rodeo... Everyone will be resting up this week, to make sure they're at the top of their game for another rodeo weekend... The Summer Festival on Saturday is Choteau's arts & crafts show... So I will be gathering my "art" up to prepare for my first attempt at a show... I will let you know how it goes...

photos of the Xpress ride

Jesse hanging out in Atlantic City before the mail came in.


Jesse riding off with the mail
Changing the Mochilla Phyllis telling us Peace, as she leaves with the mail

Pony Xpress

I have just returned from my 3rd Pony Xpress re-ride in Central Wyoming. We had 58 miles across South Pass to ride the mail... A young woman and two younger girls took 6 of those miles, while the 7 of us took the rest.. The mail came into Atlantic City at 8:40pm, and we handed it off in Jeffrey City at 3am. Averaging 10 miles an hour... The past 2 years we carried the mail from 2am until dawn... So this was a nice change to get the mail early enough to ride with a little light, in the beginning at least. The mail came into Wyoming an hour early and left an hour and 45 min. early...

The way the re-ride works is that riders leap frog with each other in there rigs.. The average rider does 2-5 miles at a time. We tend to take 2-3 miles each, due to our horses conditions... We don't do a whole lot of preparation... I rode with my friend Phyllis, her son Jesse, her niece Jenn and sister in law Janet, Jesse's good friend Tom, and our area coordinator, Stan. The mail comes in a Mochilla, it's a leather sheath with pockets that fits over every saddle, so when a rider comes in all you have to do is lift the Mochilla off and transfer it onto the next rider's saddle... I have included some photos that should show what I'm trying to explain...

My time in Wyoming was great... Before the ride, Phyllis and I went out to the McCullough Peaks (the Wild Horse Herd Area I used to work at in Cody) for a good 6 hour ride to go horse and fossil hunting.. We got to check on some horses and found a great cache of bones and even found some great teeth. ( most are from a prehistoric boar creature). And then after the Pony Express ride, we got a call about some rouge yearling steers that had escaped and need to be rounded up... so off we went with the ponies again to chase some steers...

Way to much fun for 4 days... there are times when I wonder why I ever left Wyoming... I have a feeling it will call me back soon....

Where & What

I have come to the realization that I have become so bad at staying in contact with all of you, that most of you have no idea where I am, or what I am doing... So I thought it is time to join the age of blogging to keep you all better posted...

So to answer the question of where.. Pat and I are living in Choteau, Montana... Where???? About an hour south of Glacier NP... For any of you who are looking to travel.. You have to go through our small town to get to the East Entrance of the park from Great Falls... We are always welcome to visitors... Hint Hint...

As for what I am doing.... At this point I am telling people I'm retired.... But the truth is that I moved up here to be with Pat ( instead of 7 hours away, like before) and have yet to get a wildlife job... Which has allowed for me to dabble more into my photography, and I am actually going to show some of my work at an Art in the Park here in town over the 4th of July to see if there is a chance I can make some $. I feel like I'm entering a new stage of self- invention... and I'm not quite 30... (close, but not there yet... Give me the few last months I have...) Makes me wonder how many of these I'm going to go through...