Helena Montana

 

Saturday, August 6, 2011

We arrived in Helena, MT just around dinner time on Sunday night. Tommy’s friend, Tom has a BBQ business and a roadside stand. He was working at the county fair that weekend and we joined in on the fun.

While at the fair a torrential downpour along with hurricane like winds came out of nowhere. It was quite amazing to witness.  Umbrellas and tables were thrown around like a child’s toy. It lasted 30 minutes and - poof - it was gone.

Helena - pronounced Helen-Ah, is the capitol of Montana. It has approximately 46k residents and is growing at just under 10% per year.  The elevation here is 4029. Helena‘s historical earthquake activity is above the Montana state average. It is 51% greater than the overall U.S. average. This is good for us. We can experience BABY earthquakes NOW as opposed to BIG earthquakes while we are visiting in California.

We had set up camp at Cindy and Jeff’s house. They have 2 acres that sit along one of the main drags in Helena. Tom has his roadside stand set up there all week and passerby’s stop in all day long for his incredible, delectable, melt in your mouth ribs, brisket, and pork.

One day while there Tommy and took a ride on little red. I couldn’t believe it but I got him on the trolley. It is an hour long train ride throughout the capital city. Total tourist trap! It tells you about the history and the millions and millions of dollars excavated from the surrounding mountains. It takes you through the ‘mansion neighborhood’.  It was very interesting and our ‘conductor’ just happens to be the principle of the local middle school.

We learned all about the ‘Last Chance Gulch’ and how it came to be. Prospectors that were here made millions of dollars when gold was only worth $3.00 an ounce. Can you imagine the translation into today’s market?

The cathedral downtown is undeniably the most beautiful church I have ever been in. St. Patrick’s in NY is a very close second, but this one, it takes your breath away.

During our stay here we also took a ride up the mountain to a town called York. They have less than 100 residents, one bar, no post office and no stop signs. We, of course, stopped in the saloon. We had burgers for lunch and next to the fries in the basket was, wouldn’t you know it - A York Peppermint Patty! Very cool touch.

We had Sire with us on that journey and he loved it. He got to play in the river and just be a dog for a day. That evening we sat around a fire and hung out with Kelley, Tom’s wife, and their 5 year old son, Sebastian. We had a blast with him. So full of energy, and he loved Sire, of course.

The sunsets here are phenomenal. When they named this state, the big sky, they weren’t kidding. It’s beautiful.

We ended up eating BBQ every night, and pulled out on Friday morning. But not until after the moonshine was ready to be processed. This is how it works:


Take 2 - 50 gallon plastic garbage cans and load them with corn, yeast, water and sugar. Let them sit for 15 days to ferment. When done, filter into a keg that is heated by propane to 180 degrees. Once hot enough the liquid will be forced up the piping (that you have already installed). The copper piping continues down into another 50 gallon barrel of cold water. Once it’s cooled enough it will drip its way out into yet another littler bucket. You then take that littler bucket and filter it once again through a Britta filtration's pitcher. Once that is complete, you drop a hydrometer in the liquid and it will tell you how potent the moonshine is. This batch came out at 115% YEEHAW!!!

We did not even attempt to drink the ‘kerosene’ but the boys LOVED it! Salute! Thanks for reading. We are on our way to Glacier National Park.

Last Days in Butte, MT

Friday, July 29, 2011

As the days winded down for us in Butte, we tried to fit all the things we wanted to do and crammed them into 2 days.

Matt, along with Lucy, and a buddy of theirs took us about 35 miles out of town to fish for the day. When we settled down on the river and sent our casts we once again realized, there were no fish in the water. Maybe it was us, maybe it wasn’t, but this was the second attempt and we came up empty handed.

We decided to move on to another ‘hot spot’. It was just up the road from where were were and was located under a bridge. Being out of the sun was a good thing. When we arrived, the place was jam packed with kids. High School kids. Obviously this was their ‘hot spot’ too. They were not interested in fishing. They all had floats, some of them being actual air mattresses. They would all try to link together and would float away.

This happened with several different clicks of kids. All of them seemingly having a blast and making great memories for themselves.

Lucy found a craw fish and a baby frog while we were there, but we went home with no fish, again! It was a lot of fun though.

Saturday morning we all went downtown to the farmers market. It was impressive. It’s geared to be ‘green’. There was an Amish - I don’t think Amish, but a derivative of - family there, offering fresh chickens, organic tomatoes and everything else they could grow. The chickens were 7-9 lbs and we so fresh. We all purchased fresh, organic produce and tommy finally replaced his lost diamond earring with natural quartz that was excavated locally.

That afternoon we all hung around home and ate an early dinner/late lunch. Matt and Lucy fed us well while we were there. Around 7pm we headed to the demolition derby.

We sat on the grassy hill and drank PBR’s. Yes, Pabst Blue Ribbon beer. Apparent it’s a big seller there, and in reality, wasn’t too bad. At $2.50 a beer, it tasted great! LOL

Tommy, Briar, and Matt

 

The derby was fun. Briar, Matt’s son, had a blast. Sometime prior to the crashes and mud slinging the derby announcers buried a $20 bill in the mud in the field. In-between rounds of classes competing all the kids were called down into the ring and were told to DIG! What a mess! What a funny thing to observe (when it’s not your kid rolling around in 6 inches of mud). The funniest thing was all the kids congregated in one area at a time. They all followed each other like a herd of cows. When the announcer would tell them, ‘it’s not over there’, they would all move - together- to another spot. It took almost 30 minutes for some little girl to finally pull the muddy, wet, torn, almost illegible piece of currency from the mud.

Briar

can you believe how big these tires are?

Lucy and Matt

look at that face!

such a great family!

Sunday came and it was time to move on. Tommy has a friend, Tom, and his wife, Kelly, who live in Helena, MT. we were expected there by Sunday dinner time.

Matt tried to teach us to walk across a line he has in his front yard before we left. He has a strap tied from one tree to another about 100 feet long. He just stepped up on it, held his hands out and walked. Amazing. Tommy and I tried it on the smaller line. It was about 20 feet long and only 2 feet off the ground. Our line also had an overhead rope to hold onto. I couldn’t do it but Tommy succeeded. - With assistance from the upper rope. Matt made it look effortless.

We pulled out after breakfast and Lucy gave us a loaf of her famous strawberry, walnut home made bread for the road trip. We had such a great visit with them and they were great tour guides and wonderful cooks. We will miss them but know that we will see them again soon when they come to Florida.