Three Forks

Three Forks is a very spiritual spot for me and Susun.  It's where the soul of  three rivers come together and give up their names and identity to create a marriage of a much larger Spirit—The Spirit of The Missouri.

Anyone who knows us know that confluences are a huge part of our lives  and hearts.  A confluence of two rivers is a special and sacred spot.  Being here at the confluence of THREE rivers is deeply spiritual.  Staring at those mingling water watching The Missouri be born is deeply emotional for each of us.  For two lovers who have spent the past 30 years together holding hands and kissing at too many confluences to remember, being here at the birthplace of The Mighty Missouri is truly a special personal experience.  Oh, my.

What makes it even more special and spiritual for us is that we are Lewis & Clark junkies.  And Lewis and Clark camped right here in 1804, almost at the same time that we are here.  L&C were here July 25-29 and we're here July 31.  Pretty danged close.  Very few of our Dear Friends have a clue how deeply tied we are to Lewis & Clark's epic expedition.  It's a huge long story too long to tell here.
But to be camped right smack in the same footprint as L&C and to be at one of THE most special spots of the L&C Journey is...well...AMAZING!

We left our Idahome at High Noon and enjoyed a very pleasant drive up through Island Park, across Raynolds Pass and then downriver on The Madison until we crossed into The Jefferson drainage.  It was so delightful watching those forever free flowing rivers dancing in the light, making merry music amid the miles and miles of glacial boulders strewn in their waterways.

The Madison's vast valley is a classic glacial gig.  Even someone with absolutely no knowledge of how glaciers work could look at that valley and instantly see the fingerprints of gigantic glaciers gone by.  What a sight to see!

The Madison is Fish Country.  Fish People are every where.  Legendary Ennis has become quite big for its britches and now reeks of all the trappings  of a classic tourist trap town.  Except all the tourist traps are set for fishermen.  The entry sign to Ennis says “840 people and 11,000,000 trout.”  The stereotype old west Main Street is chock-a-block with Fish People Shops.  Alluring larger than life fish statues are perched seductively here and there. Fly fishing rods adorn many of the vehicles.  Yes, old men walk down Main Street wearing hats adorned with too many fly fishing flies.

The last time we saw Ennis was 2003.  That was before the now infamous housing boom-bust.  Sure enough, once little Ennis is now a full grown adult tourist town, complete with its own ghost housing subdivision sitting serenely in the high sage flats above Old Town.  McMansions are dotted here and there and several upscale housing developments fill the once empty hills.

The air quality was quite nice until about 20 miles south of Ennis.  Then smoke from not-too-distant Montana wild fires brought on the normal, scenery-numbing dog daze haze.  As veterans of fire smoke thick enough to cut with a butter knife, the haze was nothing.  In fact, it gave a pleasant blue hue to the surrounding medium tall mountain ranges.

Up here in Three Forks, we couldn't care less about the haze.  It's the stuff in front of our faces that's exciting us today.  Seeing the creation of The Missouri River here from the collective chalices of three fully grown rivers is at once humbling and thoroughly exhilarating.

We're camped at the Montana Missouri River Headwaters State Park.  Montana really knows how to stiff “non-residents”.  If you're a Montana resident over 62, you can camp here for $9.  If you're a  foreigner like us, the cost is $28.  YEA, Montana!

But we're delighted to pay the $28 to be here.  We found the ONLY campsite with a modicum of shade—Site #16 and, thankfully, we're not inside a microwave oven as we write this missive.  The huge heat wave has really knocked back the Mongolian mosquitoes that own this place.  We've been told only “small swarms” of mosquitoes will come out at dusk this evening.  That's a comforting thought.

We wouldn't normally pay $28 a night for a campsite.  But this is special and spiritual to be here and $28 is a bargain.  Don't tell that to Montana, they might raise the price on us pilgrims.  I can see the entry sign now, “Normal Price $28.  Lewis & Clark Junkies pay double.”

And you know what?  We WOULD pay double.  It wouldn't matter to us.  That's the way it is with L&C Junkies.

Three Forks is a dinky little dusty Montana town.  It has just enough critical mass of stuff to make it more attractive than all its other dinky little dusty neighbors.  The 1910 Sacajawea Inn is a signature icon of Three Forks.  Without doubt, it puts Three Forks on a pedestal none of its jealous neighbors can ever enjoy.  The Sacajawea Inn transcends all else around it, sending a glow into distant counties and countries.

Meanwhile, there are two intriguing cafes down on Main Street—The 3-4KS and the Iron Horse.  Look them up on Yelp and prepare to be entertained.  We will be visiting them, as well as Wheat Montana and maybe that sausage supply place, too.

Tomorrow will be a full day here at The Confluence and in Three Forks as well.  At least our $28 bought us a Day Pass good for all day Tuesday.  Helena is only 65 miles away by MT 287.  We've already been checked-in by phone with Chateau Wal-Mart in Helena and received permission to camp in their parking lot tomorrow night.   Heck, who knows?  Since we will be in Helena Tuesday night, we might as well play pickleball there Wednesday morning.  The Helena Pickleball People only play on a strict Monday, Wednesday, Friday schedule: 8-11 AM at Barney Park.  We checked with them via phone and that's their gig.  Heck, if we're hanging out in the Chateau Wal-Mart parking lot on a Wednesday morning, what would be more fun?  Staring at early morning shoppers or playing pickleball in Helena?

Well, it's really fun to be here at the Birthplace of The Missouri River.

Happy Day & Many Cheers!  J&S

Which way to go?

 Above is the Idaho Falls to Three Forks route.  It's 200 miles through Classic Big Sky Country.

And here's the Three Forks to Helena route.  These two routes keep us off the interstates.

We obviously know where we are going but we don't know where we are going to get there.  We're conflicted between the EZPZ straight, Fun Route and The Pickleball Route.  Being as how we're kinda pickleballed out right now, we're swinging back toward thoughts of the EZPZ Fun Route.

That would mean we drive up through Island Park to Henrys Lake and then turn north to cross over the Continental Divide at Raynolds Pass.  There we would leave The Snake River Watershed and drop into the Missouri Watershed via the Madison River drainage.  We'd head up through Ennis and reach Three Forks, Montana about 200 miles from Idaho Falls.  We would camp at the Missouri River Headwaters State Park right smack dab where Lewis & Clark & Crew camped in 1805.  Chances are we'd spend two nights there because it is such a special spot.  But maybe not.

Anyway, then we'd head north on A Montana state highway to get to Helena and thence via more state highways to get to Saint Mary, Montana.  If we weren't worried about playing pickleball, it would be a relaxing and fun trip.  So, that's the way we are leaning as of Monday morning on the last day of July.  It's only 271 miles from Three Forks to Saint Mary and that's a pleasant amount of travel time.  We could probably leave Three Forks in the 9-10 AM range and easily arrive at Saint Mary at or before 5 PM.

We don't travel fast when we're towing the trailer.  Our trailer tires are only rated for use at 60 MPH max.  So, we're kinda pushing it to drive 62 miles per hour.  Anything over 65 is out of the question except in the Salt Lake City corridor when survival matters more than the integrity of our trailer tires...but we digress.

Anyway, as of Monday morning that's looking more and more like "The Plan".  We've had enough pickleball lately to last us a long time.  Maybe we oughta blow off pickleball until we make the return trip.  There will be plenty of places to play heading south.  Hum...we shall see.

 http://stateparks.mt.gov/missouri-headwaters/

Two and a half years!

I've already posted more in the past two days here on this blog that I have posted in the last two and a half years! Total.

Man!  We're BAAACK!  I love it.  I am so totally right with it.  I've been gone waay too long.  It's so good to be back.  My fingers are just itching to write.

FEELS SO RIGHT!

The Bear Nazis

The Glacier Bear Nazi Rig (clockwise from lower left): 1 = Rake & Broom; 2 = Step to assist entry to trailer; 3 = black box containing high volume air compressor; 4 = twin solar panels; 5 = black box containing trailer stabilizing jacks and shims and 6 = leveling block to place under a wheel.  The boxes disappear into the truck cab.  The other stuff is not considered "bear attractants" and is therefore exempt from Bear Nazi wrath.

Bear Nazis are one of the most, if not THE Most annoying species of federal bureaucrat.  Bear Nazis typically work together in a Storm Trooper Strike Force.  They drive around in a specially equipped Bear Nazi assault vehicle.  When they think they have spotted a "Bear Reg Offender," their crew cab truck comes skidding to a screeching halt and the Bear Nazi Storm Trooper Strike Force bails out in full attack mode.  They shout commands at each other and also at the purported Bear Reg Offender.

The Bear Nazis rush forward and surround the Bear Reg Offender while their Commandante shouts commands to "secure the area".  Bear Spray-armed sentries are  posted looking left and right with herky, jerky side-to-side motions of their heads.  Meanwhile, The Bear Nazi Commandante confronts the Bear Reg Offender in a loud, accusatory manner, putting his face as close as possible to the Bear Reg Offender's face.  Meanwhile, the phalanx of the Bear Nazi Strike Force stands poised and ready to tackle and handcuff the purported Bear Reg Offender.  If the Commandante orders a full confiscation, the Strike Force members will quickly gather up all the possessions of the purported Bear Reg Offender and throw them helter, skelter into the steel covered rear bed of the crew cab assault vehicle.

This is not fiction.  We have seen the Bear Nazis in action...right in our face.  Where and when?  Why in Glacier National Park in 2003 at the Apgar Campground.  What we described above is precisely what happened to us when we were subjected to the rude, insulting behavior of the Bear Nazis right in our own campsite.

What was our purported Bear Reg Offense?  Well, we knew all about the Bear Regs.  So, I told Susun we would take our beer cooler around behind our tent and sit beside it with our two lawn chairs while we enjoyed some cold beers after along day on the road.  I know enough about the Bear Regs to know that you are legally entitled to have a cooler out in plain sight if it is in "actual, immediate usage" by the owner.

Well, that didn't stop the Bear Nazis from assaulting and harassing and threatening us.  I had to get really assertive about the Bear Regs and stand my ground and state emphatically over and over that what we were doing was totally, 100% LEGAL!  It went in one  ear and out the other ear for their Commandante.  He so badly wanted to confiscate all our stuff, arrest us and take us into custody.  But I stood my ground and told him to call the Chief NPS Ranger to arbitrate the situation.

The Commandante knew I had him on that one.  He knew dang well the Chief Ranger would side with me because I was on the right side of the law.  So, the Nazi Commandate backed down, huffing and puffing and being full himself every blow hard step of the way.

Just before he mounted back into the Strike Force Assault vehicle, he shouted a warning at us, "You better have that cooler out of sight unless you are standing right next to it when we come back around this loop!"  Well, YES SIR!  I was very tempted to give the Nazi salute and shout Sieg Heil at the top of my lungs.  But I knew better and I bit my tongue and kept my restless right arm at my side.

We were so upset with the Bear Nazis that day.  We were positively fuming.  Luckily, a few cold beers took the edge off our fumes.  We were able to settle back down and enjoy the remainder of the evening.  But it's a vignette we obviously never forgot.  And we have forever since feared the Bear Nazis.  We known danged well and good that the Bear Nazis are alive and well in Glacier National Park.  If they were that gnarly in 2003, imagine what they will be like in 2017!

So, we have planned our entire Road Trip rigging specifically for the Glacier National Park Bear Nazis.  There will not be one single item exposed outside of what the Bear Nazis call a "hardside" vehicle.  There will be nothing under the trailer, nothing in the rear bed of the pickup truck.  Nothing.  Anywhere.  Not even lawn chairs unless we are actually sitting in them.

We are leaving absolutely nothing to chance.  We have "proofed" out our Bear Nazi rigging over and over and we have this drill DOWN!  We started working on this rig very early this year and we've spent months refining and perfecting the Glacier Bear Nazi rig.

That 2003 incident is still very fresh in our minds and memories.  We're ready for the Bear Nazis this time around!

Ditching a B-17

Luckily, my Dad never had to ditch in the English Channel but lots of other B-17 crews weren't so lucky.  Ditching was almost a daily occurance as crippled B-17's returned from missions over Germany.

B-17 crews in the Blue Water Pacific also had to deal with ditchings and many of those incidents turned tragic.

This is an excellent 1944 training film on how to properly ditch a B-17.  It's almost 43 minutes long.  It starts out sadly with 9 out of 10 members of a crew dying in a ditching.  The survivor determines his next crew will be thoroughly prepared.  https://youtu.be/N4xTjvtS5W0

Mirror Photos

The mirror of which we speak.

We're turning over a New Leaf on this Road Trip.  We're actually going to rerfresh our "Mirror Photos" on a regular basis.  Imagine that.  The photos on the trailer mirror have remained the same for over two years.  Stale?  Yep, you bet.  This past two-day trip to Alpine, I looked at those stale photos and said, "We MUST change out those photos on the mirror more often!!!!"

Well, one of the really nice things about taking Sunday off and not blowing outta here by 10 AM is that I had time to go through a ba-zillion photo folders and pick out 100 pictures to form a photo pool to use on the mirror.  Why 100?  Well, out local Walgreens three blocks away has a coupon code for 9 cent prints if you order 100.  Since the normal price is 20 cents, that's a smoking deal.

Anyway, it took about an hour to scare up 100 pictures and they will all be printed by about 10:30 AM today.  Sweet.

Trip's a GO but we're lazy

See all Glacier NP webcams here: https://www.nps.gov/glac/learn/photosmultimedia/webcams.htm

This beautiful Sunday Morning view at Many Glacier inside Glacier National Park is just one of the many reasons our Road Trip there is still a GO.  Yes, record crowds are congesting Glacier.  Yes, there could be hazy air from regional fires.  Yes, the heat wave could break the all-time high temperatures ever recorded in Glacier.  But, yes, we are definitely going there this week.  We will check into the Saint Mary Campground Wednesday afternoon.

However, we're turned lazy.  We had planned to leave Sunday morning about 10-ish.  But we're lazy and that means we're leaving Monday morning, probably pretty early, actually. And, if this lazy streak continues, we might even leave Tuesday.  Who knows?  Who cares?  That's one of the many benefits of being retired.  Other than the fact that we MUST check into Saint Mary campground Wednesday afternoon, we don't really have a schedule.  Plus, if we shine off playing pickleball in Butte and Helena, Montana, then we really, truly don't have a schedule.

It's just too nice a morning here in Idaho Falls to get all in a hurry and last minute frenzy to leave in 2.5 hours from now.  Nope, ain't gonna happen.  We're lazy and that's that.

Speaking of record crowds, the photo above shows the Logan Pass parking lot shortly after noon Saturday, July 29.  This is what we're  facing for this Glacier Road Trip.  We did a screen clip of the Glacier Twitter that's also attached to a separate post.  Basically, it looks like all the popular spots inside the park were totally max'd out Saturday.

Bear in mind, we actually had to book this trip back during the first week in February.  I think I booked it on Susun's February 2nd birthday to be exact. The Saint Mary campground was half reserved even six months ago.  The entire 142-site campground is completely and totally full right now.  Not even one night is available for any of those sites.  And get this, it's completely booked full all the way into early September.  And it's been full all summer long!  So, if we hadn't booked out site six months ago, there would be no room at the inn, so to speak.

We felt lucky to be able to find a site at Saint Mary with at least some partial shade.  The vast majority of the sites there have nary a speck of shade.  Little did we know six months ago how valuable shade would be during the first week in August!

Here's the Sunday morning webcam view from Saint Mary Visitor Center looking west.  Note that the early AM temp is already 74 degrees.  Yep, it's gonna be a cooker for sure but we will make The Best of it.

Practice

Sweetie Susun is practicing for The Great American Eclipse!

Sweetie Susun's Flowers

Wouldn't you know we're leaving The City just as Sweetie Susun's flowers began to bloom today.  The hollyhocks bloomed around July 4th.  They just keep on blooming.  The zinnias just started popping blooms today.  Ditto the pseudo sunflowers.

We never even unhitched

We came back from Alpine, Wyoming, locked and loaded.  We never even bothered to unhitch.  All we did was hook up electricity to the fridge  so we would not have to empty stuff out of it during the two day transition.  We will be pulling out of here tomorrow morning roughly 48 hours from when we parked it Friday.  We didn't even refuel coming into the city Friday.  We're planning to refuel on the way out of town tomorrow.

It's a lot of work

We take special delight in crossing stuff off The List!

What might seem like a lot of "fun & games" belies the substantial amount of work behind the scenes.  Getting ready for a trip of the distance and duration we are about to embark upon tomorrow is a lot of work.  It's pretty much non-stop from when I get up until late in the day, often into the early evening.  Yesterday, today and tomorrow are no exceptions to that regimen.

Today was fun because we actually crossed everything off The List that we made while camped at Alpine, Wyoming, Wednesday and Thursday nights. There isn't all that much left to do before our departure tomorrow.  What's left to do can fit on two index cards and they have been taped to our main door (facing inward) so that we can't possibly forget those tasks.

It's always a little daunting for me before everyone of these types of trips.  Have I remember everything?  Have I taken care of the critical stuff?  What might I have missed?  These sorts of things always wake me up in the middle of the night before departure.  Luckily, the things I've forgotten in all our past trips have been very minor.  We pray that it is "so" for this trip, too.

I think we're in really good shape as far as Road Trips go.  The Alpine two-nighter was the perfect shake down cruise.  It really helped us focus on some kinks in our travel system.  And we quickly ironed out those kinks.  We also saw some opportunities to make certain things a lot better and quickly jumped those tasks these last two days.

It's ALL about efficiency and having everything right at your fingertips when you need it.  It's all about knowing you are as fully prepared as possible in every aspect.  When you get to that point, you achieve a peace of mind that is hard to describe but very, very comforting.  That's pretty much where we are as Saturday evening begins to evolve.

Dear Friend Karen is coming over for cocktails and Special Bean Burritos.  We're having both a salad and coleslaw on the side.  Although it's been another uncomfortably warm day here (high of 88), the shade of our tall trees is delicious.  We expect to be sitting in the courtyard this evening as the light begins to fade.

Tomorrow begins bright and early as we have to give our self a haircut and then give the lawn a haircut (AKA: mowing the grass).  Then it's off to smite the last items on our departure list.  We're hoping to pull out of here about 10-ish, plus or minus.

Sunday's a medium long day's drive to Three Forks, Montana.  Our goal there is the Missouri Headwaters State Park.  Believe it or not, "if" and when we camp there, we will be camped right smack dab on the VERY SAME SPOT that Lewis & Clark & Crew camped waaay back in the day.

Sometimes you have to wonder

What are we doing?  Why are we going to Glacier?  There are a lot of signs that this might not be a good time to go there.  Should we stay or should we go?  The graphic above is from the Saturday morning GNP Twitter feed.  YIKES!  Logan Pass full at 8:37.  Meanwhile, record breaking heat is forecast.  Meanwhile, they've staged a DC-10 tanker in Helena because of the escalating fire danger in Montana.  Meanwhile, there are already quite a few fires burning in Montana and upwind in British Columbia.  One wonders...what are we doing?  Why are we doing it?  Too many questions, too few answers.

What a way to start a Saturday

My ancient LG305C.  At least it still works.

I sure can think of better ways to start a Saturday than how it went today.  Maybe I am a glutton for punishment.  Anyway, to get to the point, I spent over one full hour between roughly 6:15 AM and 7:30 AM trying to activate a dormant cell phone via the Tracfone system.  If you've ever worked with Tracfone you know how inscrutable and arcane they can be.  Trust me, this one was Classic Tracfone.  Anyway, we got 'er dun and we now have a backup cell phone for when our so-called smart phone doesn't have a signal, which is more often than not.

I've lost count of how many cell phones we've owned.   I'm guessing it's at least 20 between the two of us.  Naturally, they had to assign me yet another "new" number.  Those numbers really aren't "new".  They are actually used numbers.  We all know that to be true, especially when we get calls from creditors of the person who used to own that number.  Every single "new" cell number I've ever had was once owned by some dead beat who ran up a bunch of debts and then disconnected their cell phone.

Well, it's pretty annoying to be out someplace and not be able to make a phone call.  With this backup phone, I won't be having that problem anymore.  Whatever else you say about Tracfone, at least you can say their service is reliable and you can make calls from anywhere.  Since I reactivated a pre-existing phone, my total cost this morning was a mere $10.72 for 90 minutes of airtime and 30 service days.  That will get us through our  Glacier/Waterton trip  no problem.

Yesterday was a classic grunt day.  We left camp at Alpine, Wyoming a little before 9 AM and got home about 10:30 AM.  I was on the go all day until well after 5 PM.  Whenever we go camping, we always make The List of "improvements" for the next trip.  Even though we were only gone two nights, The List completely filled an 8.5 x 11 piece of graph paper with many notes in the margins and between the lines.  Just looking at The List was daunting.

So, as soon  as we arrived home, I began tackling The List.  Made pretty good progress, actually, and hav about half of the items checked off.  One of The List items was "reactivate old Tracfone."  So, now you know how I got started this Saturday morning.  Just dutifully trying to cross things off of The List.  Lots more to do today before all of The List items are crossed off.

This new "return to my blog roots" is working out great.  I think it will be a real nice way to find a "happy medium" with Facebook.  I will still share other people's stuff on my Facebook, still click "Like" and maybe comment once in awhile.  And I will still use the Private Message function.  But I am definitely NOT going to be  writing about stuff we do.  All that stuff we do will be here on this blog.  That way I can write to my heart's content and not think or give a diddly about whether it's too long or too boring or too esoteric.  After all, I am writing here primarily for myself.  It certainly is a refreshing change and one I will embrace ever more with each passing day.

Now, finally time to drink some coffee and smell the roses.

The List from this last trip is typical.

Olathe Corn

Down in The Verde Valley, the onset of Hauser Farms sweet corn is a ritual marked by much celebration.  Up here in South East Idaho, it's Olathe Corn that gets us all excited  Olathe is to us what Hauser is to The Verde.

We actually got to see the Olathe Fields in 2003. Yes, they were a sight to see.  The growers there ship north because we up here are "corn deprived" while the south latitudes are "corn rich".  Heat is Corn's Dear Friend. Olathe is in a "heat island" that also has special soil and favorable water to grow incredible ears by mid to late July.  And that's when the far northern latitudes are "corn starved."

Olathe Corn is selling here in Idaho Falls this week for 4/$1 at Albertson's and 3/$1 at WinCo.  Those price points tell us that Olathe is having a bumper crop this season.

LSCM Alive Again

This long dormant Live Simple Came Much blog is Alive Again.  It was reborn at 5:45 PM, July 28, 2017, when we realized we were suffering from Facebook Overload & TOFABO.  This is pronounced TOO-FAH-BOO.  TOFABO = "Total Facebook Burnout".

Once you get TOFABO, you can actually check out of Facebook Hotel.  EZPZ, the valet opens the door for you and you are free to go.

I feel a HUGE weight lifted off my shoulders and spirit.  I will no longer be posting about "My Life & Times" on Facebook.  I will return those types of things back to where they began--HERE, on this blog.

Yes, I will still share stuff on Facebook.  I simply won't be writing about me,myself and I on Facebook.  I am returning to my roots here.

So, what was the tipping point?  Well, it was a new bucket.  Strangely.  And, yes, I found the perfect lid for that new bucket.  And, yes, we will be writing an Ode To The Bucket soon.

Life Lessons

A Dear, Dear Friend drove down our dead end road today.  The second he rounded the curve, we knew who he was.  He drove a signature truck in a signature style with signature apparatus attached.

We sat in our straw house he helped build swapping Old Timer Stories of Days Gone By.

And that's when we learned of his Life Lessons and Life Challenges,  We celebrated him during our visit today.  His courage in facing his challenges is awesome and inspirational.

And after he drove away we were left with our own thoughts and wonderings.

How would we deal with his challenges?  Would we be as gallant and cavalier as he?  Would be as quick to forgive and forget as he?  Would we move on as courageously as he?  Would we see the illusive light at the end of our own personal tunnel as he?

Aye.  Those are our questions this evening.

Best Beans

A Bowl Of Beans...

Oh, how rich a bowl of beans can be!

We're don't talk often of foodie stuff here, so please cut us some slack and forgive us when we do.  Like tonight.

I am eating a Divine Bowl of Beans.  I learned how to make these beans 50 years ago in West Lafayette, Indiana.  I don't fix 'em very often...but when I do...Oh, My Gosh!  They are Beans To Live For!

They start out in the bulk section labeled as "Small White Beans."  And, yes, they look small and scrawny.  They simply don't Shout Out to You and announce themselves because, after all, they are SMALL White Beans.  Maybe if they were BIG White Beans, people would pay more attention to them.

The first thing you do before you cook up Small White Beans is to have a Bacon-A-Palooza.  Yep, it's counter intuitive.  Cook up a skillet full of bacon FIRST!  Cook the bacon LOW and SLOW and let it simmer under cover for a really long time.  Do not overheat your bacon.  Encourage your bacon to retain its fullest possible flavor.

By and by, after you have finished your bacon and set it aside to drain, THEN and ONLY then can you begin to deal with your beans.  The first and MOST important step is to sort them for rocks and foreign matter.  Gawd forbid that you would bite down on something that would cost you $3000 at the dentist!

We take SUPER, Extra Special Care in sorting, culling and inspecting our beans.  We put them them through a two-stage inspection so we can be absolutely certain SURE there is no foreign matter in the beans.

After washing the beans and blessing them, we put them into the electronic pressure cooker pot.  We add one can of low sodium chicken broth and then bring the fluid level to "8".  That roughly equates to a four to one ratio for the beans.  We also add two tablespoons of bacon grease.

Then we pressure cook the beans on high for 35 minutes. Meanwhile, we cut up the drained, cooked striped into 3/4 inch pieces.

By  and  by, the electronic pressure cooker finishes its job.  We let off the steam and then insert all the cooked bacon and pressure cook for another 15 minutes.

Then we offload the pressure cooker's contents into a real stove top cook pot and we're good to go.

THIS is now you make The BEST Beans of Your Life!

Intuition Saves Day

Intuition Rescues Another Bad Decision

Summary:  We should have been (and probably still would be) badly stuck in a muddy bar ditch on a lonely road we shouldn't have traveled.  Intuition once again saved the day.

Long Version:  We needed to run a brief errand to The Village of Oak Creek (VOC) to close out a dormant bank account with a whopping $47 in it.  We figured a rainy day was perfect for that errand.

Meanwhile, we decided to take a Carril prohibido, a Verbotene Autobahn....a route about which Susun says, "Just don't go there, John."

Well, I had a hunch the forbidden road had just been graded by the Yavapai County Blade and so it was.  In fact, the road was in such good condition, I began mentally composing a text message to Susun: "Well Road AWESOME--BEST EVER!"

Meanwhile, a couple of miles from VOC, it began to rain so hard, you couldn't see a trace of the iconic Red Rocks.  Everything was blotted out by the rain.  I didn't think much about it.  I ran my errand, got the $47 and then  returned toward Rimrock.

As I approached I-17, Ye Ol' Intuition grumpily mumbled, "We better stay on the pavement, Buckaroo."  But, no, I ignored the intuition because The Well Road had been in such good shape only mere minutes beforehand.  Meanwhile, I reasoned that the rain I experienced in Sedona never touched the Rimrock area and was an isolated cell perhaps spawned by a local vortex.

Sure enough, I turned right onto The Well Road and it was in fine shape.  Nary an issues whatsoever...until...

As I began to approach the Bar D Ranch intersection, I noticed the road getting slightly muddy but didn't think anything about it.  Hey, I still had fine traction and no mud was building up on our all-season tires.

And then...there's a special tight, blind curve well known to driver of The Well Road.  The curve sits in solid bedrock so you have to slow down to a crawl to safely navigate that curve.  If you pull too far to the right and someone's coming too fast, BAM...you know how that goes.

Anyway, I dutifully crawled over the bedrock and around the curve and then began the half-mile downhill past the Soda Springs Ranch road intersection down to the flats beside Montezuma Well National Monument.

And that's when Ye Ol' Intuition woke back up again and started shouting at me.  SLOW DOWN & LOOK, it shouted.  So, when it shouts like that, I obey.  Sure enough as I peered into the gray afternoon, I could see a small sedan buried nose deep in the bar ditch about a quarter mile ahead.  And meanwhile, I saw lots of lights and what looked like a possible vehicle pileup.

By that time, the surface conditions of The Well Road changed dramatically and I was in free fall mode on the hill.  Regular drivers of The Well Road know instantly what I  am talking about.

For the rest of you, here's a kinda of description of it.  All four of your tires become thickly coated with a sticky, clay gumbo and all your vehicles systems become totally useless.  Steering, braking, acceleration, you name it, you don't have it any more.  You are at the mercy of gravity.  All you can hope to do is to turn your front wheels fully in one direction or another and use them like friction devices.

So, that's what I was doing as I was surfing downhill, pretty well knowing I was going to slide into several other vehicles and make a great big wreck and THEN get stuck forever in the bar ditch.

And as I was sliding down that snotty, gawd-forsaken slick hill, I remember the cheater route to Soda Springs.  Even though I could see the cheater route looked like a world class mud bog, at least it was better than a car wreck.  And somehow I was able to lodge my front wheels into the deep ruts of the cheater route and then accelerate and fish tail down to Forest  Road #121 where I knew there would be some life-saving actual, real gravel.

Whew.  Sure enough, I surfed through the mud bog and slide slipped out on Road 121 and came to a stop with tires completely caked with 1-2 inches of the slickest mud you've ever seen.

And that's when I thanked my intuition and got out of the truck and decided I was calling that place home for awhile.

Meanwhile, I walked up to the scene on The Well Road.  The sedan was completed augured into the bar ditch.  But meanwhile two honest-to-gosh cowboys were working expertly and diligently to unstick the sedan.  

Frankly, I didn't give them a snowball's chance but they know what they were doing and expertly managed to unstick the sedan.

Meanwhile a tourist sedan cam around the slick corner and almost slid into the same bar ditch.  And then another pickup truck got into the mix so there were FIVE vehicles perched on the same, steep slick curve.  I smiled as I looked at my truck safely tucked far, far out of the way down on Road 121.  ANd, yes, I thanked my intuitioin yet once again.

Meanwhile, the young woman who had been in the sedan got out and we struck up a conversation.  Turns out she lives at the Bar D Ranch.  The second she got stuck she called the ranch for  help and her wrangler husband and the ranch owner rode to the rescue.  That's how I know they were real cowboys who knew precisely what to do.

Any how, while the cowboys were still there, they unstuck the tourist just for good measure and then they rode off into the muddy sunset.

Meanwhile, the guy in the other pickup turned out to be The Phantom Cowboy I've always wondered about.  As chance would have it we had a chance to swap talk, too.  I've seen him going back and forth on The Well Road for at least a millennia but never knew who he was.  Turns out he works for the Forest Service as a "horse exerciser!"  Seriously.

So, that was a real fun conversation.  Anyway, I told the cowboys and the horse exerciser I planed to stay put until The Well Road dried out.  They all kinda chuckled the polite way cowboys can do.  I knew what they were thinking, "Dries out, yeah right, buckaroo."

But I know The Well Road as well as anybody and I figured it was a very brief rain and since the road had been dry less than an hour beforehand, the rain water would get soaked into the clay and the clay would swell up like it always does and get tacky but not snotty.

So, I just  kicked back for 30 minutes and kept walking the road testing the slipperiness and waited until I felt like it was tacky enough to drive.

Then I found a little spot on Road 121 to drive in high speed circles on some non-muddy surface.  By doing several 360's, I was able to shed all the mud from the truck tires.

Meanwhile, I had scouted out The Well Road and figured out a way that I could drive in the wrong lane to "high side" the steeply sloped curve.   That part of the plan worked to perfection and I was able to avoid sliding into The Bar Ditch Of Oblivion by driving a blind curve high side at a high rate of speed.  But I had scouted it and was confident the plan would work and it did.

And once I got back on a firm surface, I speed up and threw all the remnant mud off the tires and came home and let out a HUGE WHEW!

Seriously, that was a close call and Ye Ol' Intuition saved the day once again!

Some Sunday Stories

Yea, verily, we sallied forth this Sunny Sunday to find some fun stories.

First things first.  What's a Sunday Morning without a Bloody Mary?  I mean, really.

From the Kalamazoo newspaper comes this amazing quest: "Michigan's Best Bloody Mary."

If you thought you knew Bloody Marys, well, maybe you need to think again.  Those Michiganders REALLY get into the Sunday Spirit with some incredibly righteous Bloody Marys.

Here are the links to fully savor the story:

http://www.mlive.com/dining/index.ssf/2016/04/michigans_best_bloody_mary_our.html

http://www.mlive.com/dining/index.ssf/2016/04/michigans_best_bloody_mary_31.html#0

ENJOY!

Alright, let's move on to our next Big Find--Italians having a pasta fit over a French insult to a national dish.  But first, how the heck did we find THIS story?   Glad you asked.  One of our random points this morning was near Oswego, Illinois, and they do actually have a newspaper there.  So, we were reading about a young girl who won the Daughters of the American Revolution essay contest.  This year's theme was to compare and contract Christopher Columbus with Charles Lindberg.  I am not making this up.  That's pretty danged intriguing so I kept reading.  Turns out the DAR had partnered with the National Italian American Foundation for the essay contest.  So, I got to looking into the NIAF and that's where I found this delicious story.

Here is the direct link to the story:

http://qz.com/661055/when-the-french-try-to-beat-the-italians-at-italian-food-things-get-ugly/

And the NIAF Facebook where I found it the first place:

https://www.facebook.com/niaf.org

And, just in case you're super curious, here's the DAR Essay Contest Story:

http://www.kendallcountynow.com/2016/04/08/daughters-of-the-american-revolution-chapter-names-essay-contest-winner/ab6fdo6/

What would a Spring Sunday Story Sortie be without a Morel Mushroom story...or two...or three?

We stumbled into a morel story in the Lansing, Michigan, newspaper.  That led us to the National Morel Mushroom Festival in Boyne City, Michigan.  And then that led us to all sorts of other fun stuff.  I guess you could say this tangent just kind of mushroomed into a life of its own.

Here's the original Lansing article that got us started:

http://www.lansingstatejournal.com/story/travel/2016/04/14/5-rules-michigan-morel-hunters/83015086/

And then the Boyne City Festival gig:

http://bcmorelfestival.com/

And then to some hokey morel factoids:

http://bcmorelfestival.com/morel-factoids

And finally to some great morel eye candy:

http://bcmorelfestival.com/photos

So what's with this photo of a geeky lookin' guy?  Well, he's proof positive that you really CAN make a living doing podcasts.  Seriously.  We found this entertaining article in the Greensburg, Indiana, newspaper.   The guy shown here doesn't live anywhere remotely near Greensburg but, well, you'd have to understand Indiana rural newspapers...and that's too long a story to tell.

In the meantime, check it out:

http://www.greensburgdailynews.com/cnhi_network/lore-podcaster-scares-up-huge-audience/article_51becee0-d2d7-5dd5-b990-9d7b9cf02f71.html

Here's the map of random points that started all this stuff today.  We used Logansport, Indiana, as a starting point and asked for five random points within a 150 mile radius.

Thank for reading!

Fifty Year Kappa Sigma Reunion

Fifty years ago, the large group of young men you see in this photo were all hoping and working hard to become official "pledges" of Purdue's Chi Chapter of Kappa Sigma fraternity.  They were the best group of guys I have ever had the honor and privilege to be a part of.  We were united back then by our common bond to Kappa Sigma and to each other.  Those bonds have stayed tight for the past 50 years and will undoubtedly remain a defining part of who we were together back then and now.

All of the men in this group left Purdue and went on to illustrious and important careers and each of them created a Family that will carry their legacy forever into the future.  We all shared so many great times together back in the mid-60's  Oh, the stories we can tell (and often do)!

Many of us have kept in contact over the years.  Facebook, in particular has helped some of us stay in better contact. We can count a dozen of these men as our Facebook Friends and one of them, Roger Mayes, actually lives in Idaho Falls.  We visit with Roger often each year and deeply appreciate our Kappa Sigma Times together.

This fall of 2016 most of the 1966 Kappa Sigma Pledge Class will be coming together once again for a 50 year Reunion at Purdue in West Lafayette, Indiana.  Other Pledge Classes will join the gala festivities.  It promises to be a historic occasion the likes of which  happen only once in a life time. Reunion Organizer Frank Caputo has gone totally over the top in attending to every detail of this upcoming Special Time.

We would dearly love to attend this unique and memorable event.  However, we will not be attending.  Why?  How can this be?  Well, it's certainly has nothing to do with my Kappa Sigma Brothers.  I am a Life Member of the Kappa Sigma Alumni Association and will forever cherish my time with the men you see here.  We are Brothers for Life.

No, the fact that I won't be going to the Reunion has everything to do with my Home Town, Lafayette, Indiana.  I was born and raised in Lafayette.  It was a natural thing to cross The Wabash River to attend Purdue.  However, there are too many memories and places I don't want to see again there.   When my Mom died in December 2011, I faced arguably a series of the most difficult chores and trials of my life in dealing with her Internment and Estate.   It was easily the longest and most difficult six week time period of my Life.  Many of the events and dubious milestones of that  time period are already chronicled here on this blog.  I do not wish to rehash them in this post.

When I was finally able to break free from those times, I decided I was never going back to Lafayette again,  As my plane winged its way over Tippecanoe County heading West to Arizona, I breathed the deepest sign of relief I have ever felt.  I gave heartfelt Thanks to God that I had experienced my Last of Lafayette.

There's simply no way I am ever going back to that place...at least in this lifetime.

And so, as much as I Dearly wish I could visit with my Brothers you see here, I can't go back.  It would be far too painful for me and the mere thought to once again setting foot in Lafayette makes me very ill-at-ease.

Frank has been very insistent that I  attend this event and has become perturbed that I haven't replied to his entreaties.  Well, Frank, it's difficult for me to even address these realities.  I have had numerous nightmares even while trying to think of a way to explain.  I know Frank won't understand or accept any of what I have written here about  my Home Town.  And that's OK.  I am the one who has to walk in my shoes and live in my skin.

I really can't write any more about this than what I have here.  I'm sorry and I apologize.  Please at least attempt to understand.

Thank You.  God Bless Kappa Sigma and may God's Grace be with my Brothers Forever!

Sincerely, John Parsons  AEKDB

Wildcat Nights

Here is a post put up on Facebook the evening of February 21, 2016.  We moved it over here to the blog because we want to be able to keep the story accessible.  As you know, by and by, stories get lost in the Facebook vortex.  Facebook is all about "here and now."  A blog at least allows us to know when and where we put stuff.  We also included some of the comments made on the Facebook post.  

Many Thanks to Carmen Kotting, Richard McCallum, Thomas Olsen, Tim Egan, Jerry DeBaun, Marti Bridges, David Ehmke, Connie Gilmore, Rex Peters, David Irvine, Alice Buddeke Fairfield, Richard Hauser, Steve Snyder and Phyllis Webb for their "Likes" of the story.

-----------begin Facebook post--------------

Back when I worked for the U of A as Night Production Manager of "The Daily Wildcat," I worked with lots of bright-eyed, bushy-tailed kids. Oh, how full of themselves they were. But there was this one young Mexican who made a compelling case to me that he was being discriminated against. We're talking 1980 here, folks. But this kid was A Bright Light and he was Shining Bright and, well, you'd have to know how it was in 1980.

I went to bat for that kid and I failed miserably and got my nose stuffed into a place where the sun don't shine. But that kid truly knew what I did for him and we bonded back then. He's long gone down that road that only shadows know. But, as we prepare to return to The Old Pueblo for the first true time in 36 years, these stories are swarming back.

Back then in early 1980, I was told FTF by the Old Man running The Daily Wildcat that they would NEVER allow a Mexican to have ANY position on Staff, Period. Case closed. Argument over. Go back to work.

Well, times must have changed. There's at least one Latina on Staff now and it's great to see her name on the roster! Makes me Super Happy!

Editor-in-chief -- Dominic Baciocco
Digital Managing Editor -- Brenna Bailey
News Editor -- Sam Gross
News Editor -- Lauren Renteria
Sports Editor -- Matt Wall
Sports Editor -- Ezra Amacher
Arts & Life Editor -- Alex Furrier
Arts & Life Editor -- Emma Jackson
Opinions Editor -- Graham Place
Science Editor -- Lizzie Hannah
Science Editor -- Bailey Bellavance
Photo Editor -- Tom Price
Asst. Photo Editor -- Sydney Richardson
Copy Chief -- Bridget Grobosky
Copy Chief -- Emily Hedges

I'm danged Proud of Those Days Long Ago. I stood up to The System. Yeah, I didn't make any difference but at least I knew enough to "Stand & Deliver!"

----------------------------------end of Facebook post--------------------

Commentary on Facebook post:

Peter Corbett:  "I know several UA grads. I wonder if they had any idea that went on. They would be so disillusioned."

Marti Bridges: "It never hurts to do the right thing."

John R. Parsons: "Peter, whoever might still be alive from those days would deny it and there would be no proof. Just my word against some guy long gone."

Steve Thompson: "I think you made a difference. Your friend knew what you did. Others saw you do it. You made an impression on those people. Maybe you did not accomplish the goal in that moment, but you started to erode barriers by being one of many who began to stand up. All change begins this way I think. Changing health care, changing prejudices, changing in favor of tolerance, changing in favor of the environment. Someone(s) have to begin it. and inspire others to begin in their own way. Thank you for beginning as you did."

BPR

Why do we have an deep and abiding fascination with the I-10 bridge failure?

Settle in for a long story.

Well, it dates back to our youthful days....all the way back to 1966, the year before that I-10 bridge was actually constructed.

We graduated from high school in June 1965 and immediately enrolled at Purdue for summer classes to get a jump start on what we thought was going to be an engineering career.  All throughout our freshman year at Purdue we eagerly sought leads and tips for a suitable engineering job the following summer.

One cold Indiana day in mid-January, we happened to be perusing the bulletin board at the Lafayette Post Office.  That's when we hit pay dirt.  There was a federal jobs notice that included all sorts of enticing seasonal positions throughout the Western States.

For whatever reason, the feds limited applications to only three potential positions.  Our top choice was the BPR.  Nope, that's not PBR (Pabst Blue Ribbon) that's B-P-R as in Bureau of Public Roads.  BPR long ago morphed into the Federal Highway Administration.  However, in the mid-1960's, the BPR was the go-to place to work for budding civil engineers.

I applied to the BPR immediately and was ecstatic when they sent me a notice of appointment a few weeks later.  I wound up working for BPR for three summers: 1966, 1967 and 1968.  In fact, I came with an eyelash of being a career BPR employee...but that's another story...and an even longer story to boot.

Here's how it worked:  The BPR actually paid my travel expenses from Indiana to San Francisco and then put me up in a hotel there.  I spent the first two weeks each summer working with the civil engineers at 450 Golden Gate Avenue...mostly doing "gopher" chores and listening to the wise old engineers tell stories.

Then I spent a week at the BPR's Treasure Island supply deport.  After that, I would be assigned to a field project.  Of course, the BPR paid all the travel expenses, etc.  It was a sweet plum job for sure.
My first summer was on a field survey crew running "rough line" for a new highway in the San Gabriel Mountains.  I lived that summer in nearby Azusa, California.

The second summer I was assigned to a road construction project from Mormon Lake to Clint's Well, Arizona.  The project office was in Happy Jack, Arizona, and I lived in a small cabin at Mormon Lake.

The third summer was on a road construction project at Carson Pass in the Sierra Nevada.  I lived in South Lake Tahoe that summer.

Each and every one of those summers is a long story unto itself.

Suffice to say I learned a great deal about all aspects of highway design and construction, especially the civil engineering aspects of bridges and culverts.

In fact, the civil engineers at San Francisco took a liking to me the first summer and they were all smiles when I returned the next two summers.  I learned more from those old guys in my three sessions that I could ever describe in a short blog post.

You have to realize that all engineering design back then was done by hand, the painstaking Old School way with primitive drafting tools, slide rules and pure human "smarts."  (Steve Jobs was 11 and Bill Gates 10 years old in 1966.)

There was a long-standing, generational tradition and hierarchy back then.  First, it was a totally male profession.  There were no females in the drafting room.  The secretaries never set foot in the drafting room.  It would have been a huge faux paus.  Second, there were no young people working in the drafting room.  The only young people allowed into the drafting room were people like me--young people being "exposed" to the inner sanctum...a hushed place where old men worked largely in silence.  Story-telling and socialization were only acceptable in the break room.

The old engineers trusted to design America's highways and bridges had spent their entire careers with the feds.  They were simply not allowed to begin to work up civil engineering plan sets until they were well into their careers and had many, many years of experience.  The idea of a young person being entrusted to create and draw plans would have been outright heresy, if not high treason.  It simply didn't happen.

These days, a young person can come right out of college and get a job on an engineering design team.  Back in those days designs were all done by very old men.  I met one engineer who had graduated from Purdue in 1922!  To me he was a living fossil but looking back he was only 66 or 67 years old.

All of the engineers I met told me stories about their careers and how hard it was to break into the design aspect of highways, especially bridges.  The old guys who designed bridges were held high esteem (if not awe) by their peers.  To be entrusted to design an actual bridge was the pinnacle of an engineer's career!

I learned a lot about bridges during those three summers--both from the actual engineers and from the field crews and contractors.  Both the design and construction of a bridge were really big deals, far more so that the mere design of a roadway.

One bridge engineer in particular took a liking to me and explained many of the nuances of bridge design.  I have long forgotten his name and he's probably long dead by now, too.  But his lessons have stuck with me over my lifetime.  Ever since those days, I have always looked at bridges with an entirely different eye and perspective.

I have actually gone far out of my way to look at old bridges.  Whenever I pass under or over a bridge bearing a pre-computer construction date, I smile inwardly and remember the incredibly meticulous detail those old guys put into their designs as they hunched over their drafting tables, pencils in hand.

So, to sum up this long story, I take is somewhat personally when someone casts aspersions on the structural integrity of a 1960's bridge.  By far the bulk of those bridges were designed far past minimum standards and overbuilt way past whatever you can imagine.

Concrete and steel were insanely cheap back then so those engineers really laid it on thick, so to speak.

Getting back to that I-10 bridge, I see nothing in the photos to indicate that the bridge itself failed due to some design problem or engineer issue or degradation of the construction materials.

What I see is very clearly a "channel migration" that took out the backfill behind the east abutment.  Pure and simple.

And now you know why I have such a deep and abiding interesting in "all things bridges" and highways in general.

Thanks for reading and Happy Trails!

Blog is dormant

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to tell this blog went dormant long ago.  We've only put up 4 posts for the whole year so far.  We're doing all of our stuff on Facebook now.  We had a great ride on this blog---1,772 posts altogether.  That's pretty amazing.

We're not making any apologies for letting this blog go dormant.  We're very proud of our work and our track record here.  We did a lot of great writing that will stand the test of time.  Many of our posts are like fine wine--they will only get better as the years pass by.

We appreciate all the wonderful support given to us by our readers and many Friends who loved the blog so much.  We won't be letting the domain name go away and the blog will live forever.

Who knows?  Maybe one day, we will fire it back up and start writing up a storm like we once did.

Many Cheers!  jp