Mountain Man Scramble

   

   The morning of our last day in camp we had Mountain Man Scramble for breakfast. This appears to be a recipe designed to avoid waste. As such it includes all the leftovers from five days of camping. George prepared an excellent meal that combined sausage, bacon, roast pork, cheese, eggs, mushrooms, green peppers, and onions. When served with a hot cup of Cowboy Coffee on a cool morning outdoors it is an unbeatable meal.

    This will be my last blog about my trip to Montana so I am going to serve up a Mountain Man Scramble of photos.

   

    If you make the drive 10,000 feet up to Sawtelle Peak you can see this FAA equipment.

    I thought it just cried out to be painted to resemble a soccer ball. But since the FAA is not known for humor it will never look like this.

   

    One afternoon the wranglers saddled up and rode the horses so that we could get some action photos.

    Keith splashed across the stream for us. Some of you may notice he is using a bit-less bridle.

    Even though it was his day off one of the mules insisted on joining us.

    Craig packs a manny so that our equipment can be loaded onto mules. This is hard work as each manny  weighs as much as 100 lbs. He has to wrap them snugly with rope, and tying the knots is an art.

Leaving our first camp.

Pack mules, like people, have personalities. This one is reluctant.

This one, mischievous.

Mule Deer on Main St,  Ennis, Montana

    This photo was taken in Nevada City. While there is a Zang's Beer brewed in Colorado, I suspect this building was not native to the ghost town. It was probably used in one of the many movies filmed there.  Little Big Man, Lonesome Dove, Missouri Breaks, and Thousand Pieces of Gold were all filmed in Nevada City.

     TheNevada City Music Hall houses the largest public collection of automated music machines in North America. Many are in working order. They are decorated with ornate carvings. Some are beautiful.

   

Some are just plain creepy.

    I almost forgot that the same thing that makes a good HDR photo also makes a good black and white photo. This shot originally perplexed me because the fence in the foreground was new and it clashed with the old train. I wanted to keep the photo because I loved the landscape in the background. Thank goodness I finally remembered to convert to black and white. With the color removed the fence is not so jarring to the senses.

One more black and white from the ghost town.

Ending with a bit of humor and a nod to the Talking Heads.

"You may ask yourself, 'How do I work this?'"

    I hope you will save the address to my blog so you can visit again. Next time you can see the photo that had the unusual effect of making Honey Bunny raise his voice to me :(

    And remember, if you click on any of the photos they should "grow" to full screen for you.

Ghost Town

    

    During my trip to Montana I was able to visit Nevada City, the site of a gold rush town from the 1860s. This was not the corny tourist attraction I feared. Rather it was a serious attempt by the Montana Heritage Commission to preserve buildings and history from that era.
    The town lent itself well to high dynamic range photography. HDR, in a nutshell, allows us to use software to bring out tones that we can't capture with "normal" photography. If the HDR software is used more aggressively it produces surreal photos like the top one.
    Photos that are "color-ie" or "textur-ie" work well in HDR, according to Ben Long. He teaches (on Lynda.com) that with HDR we make photos "crunchy." I can't think of any better way to describe it, so I am not going to argue with Mr. Long about his choice of words.
    These train cars are about as color-ie and textur-ie as it gets. I feel as if I could get a nice reddish-orange splinter just from looking at the photos.

    This house was built in 1873 by a rancher, gold miner and legislator named Stedman. Like many buildings in the town, it was moved to Nevada City from its original location by the state of Montana as part of the historical preservation effort.
    The trees are Cottonwood and have the most beautiful bark.

    One interesting story from Nevada City's history comes from a newspaper called the Montana Post. In 1864 the Post reported that three sisters with the last name of Canary were begging in the streets while their father gambled in the dance hall. The oldest sister was probably Martha Canary who grew up to be Calamity Jane.
    Calamity Jane was a fascinating person according to an article in Montana Outlaw by Hunter Rothwell. She could easily have an entire blog devoted to her story. Jane could ride, shoot, and drink whiskey by the age of thirteen. Three years after the newspaper reported her father's gambling escapades she was an orphan. With no one to care for her she tried her hand at a variety of jobs including stints as a dance-hall girl, ox team driver, army scout, and as a Pony Express rider.
    She also had many run-ins with the law. Drunk and disorderly conduct, shoplifting, and running through the streets naked while drunk were a few of her offenses.
    To be fair, Calamity Jane was also known for her kind heart. She helped many people and even volunteered to nurse small pox victims.
    Calamity Jane was so unique, even her boyfriend had a unique name, Arkansas Tom.

    Most of you probably already know this, but if you are viewing my blog on-line you can click on any of these photos to see them at full size.