Day Two Driving is Done.
Just into Chicago from Cleveland, which, incidently is a cool city. Dan showed us an amazing time and I can appreciate how mellow it is compared to a bigger show like NYC. Relaxing with some Internet before grilling out tonight.

USA Boundary Tour

Day One Flies By.
True to form my packing sprawl finally found it's way into my pack about 30 minutes before departure. I'm starting to realize that othr ppl don't travel this way. But as it happens, planning details melt into the fabric of the journey and the trip takes on a life of it's own.
This one is going to have a good life.

Anticipation

They laughed hard,
but I wasn't joking.
I really do consider one static year 'settling down.'
The hilarity of my accidental joke to them...
shocked me.

How differently we view the world.
I, whose sense of staying shifts just like my breathing.
And they whose house and job like walls
keep out the messy doubts of drifting.

We live on different planets.

Every day here, I feel more like a cruelly wizened outcast.
Stable jobs smell like prison cells to me.
But oh, for a reliable paycheck... maybe a shred of benefit.

We are told to live to work!
To get that awesome job and be enslaved.
Work to live, and you'll be punished.
Who are you to demand flexibility.
Pitted against each other,
gotta do better.
I'll work longer hours,
I'll never smell the flowers.

*I Sigh Alot At Planes*
Every piercing picture on my idle computer screen,
maims my fading memory...
reminds me of a dream,
that really happened.

This coulda been foreseen.
With such anticipation for such fleeting freedom,
I was an explosion.
Sprinting simultaneously in twenty-two directions.
And wound up right where I began...
with no less mysteries to understand.

It's nice to have a home that isn't a hostel.
I need this year to settle.
But I'll be off again,
just waiting for a change in wind.

Of mice and men

Leaned over the bar...
he was unshaven,
and his eyes squeaked mischief as he asked...
"Wanna see my little friend?"

Hands moved beneath his shirt.
He's no flasher, I thought, maybe it's a puppy.
But my face did not react.
"Why not." I said nonchalantly.

That's when I met Luanne,
the sewer rat.
This eccentric intellectual
was a rat enthusiast.

Ah the hobbies.

I say, "From looking at ya man...
I never would have guessed
you had a rodent on your person."

"That's nothing,
I've taken her on airplanes before.
Rat's don't set off metal detectors"

Wow, I thought, Wow.

Switching Gears

Rereading sparks reflection.
---------------------------------------
Shocking feeling:
To realize you stand
over your own corpse.

An older version of myself
has passed,
like shedding snake skin.
Outgrown...
the remains are cast aside.

I recognize the face at my feet...
decaying, as a memory at rest.
Dead lips part... in fear, I start.
"Bury me"
pleads my poor old body.

And so I do.
-------------------------------------

Returning to the Southern United States has been a rocky landing.
Like,
who would put enormous speed bumps on a jet's runway!?

The observations, conversations, and general maturation of ideas
during my sprint abroad...
provided plenty of momentum
for a smart sting when I
walloped back into America's concrete defenses
face first.

Pissed,
I naturally grabbed the nearest pick-axe to pummel the offending cement
in a fit of rage and frustration.
Vis-a-vis the tone of my recent posts.

I don't make a good political pundit,
wouldn't want to be one anyway.
Vomiting venom onto my keyboard
doesn't exactly complement my style.
And is not gratifying.

I have two different kinds of writing.
Starting now, my metaphorical spitting shall be grounded
with other such rants in my journals.
The private ones.
At least until they can count to ten
and learn to play smart.

So expect my political jabs to flirt in and out,
as opposed to taking center stage.

In its place, I intend to continue writing stories as before.
Now from my home in Durham.
With occasional wanderings, of course.
Yes, the unthinkable has happened.
Nate is Nesting.

So to my readers,
Thanks for suffering through my soapbox sermons.

I now present:
The Diaries, Observations, and Musings of your Barman.

The Inevitable Trial

People are afraid,
Wealthy customers frazzled
Approach my bar with purpose.
Booze is recession proof.

I try being sympathetic...
me: How's shit?
them: I still have a job.
me: Alright! So shit's good then.

I lost nothing in this lemming run.
I have no 401K, no money in stocks,
not even a savings account.

Nevertheless, I tease out drunken opinions
From the political left and right.
Consensus: group consciousness has
resolved itself to wait and see.

See if Obama can say "ta-da!"

I know this song and dance.
Eight years ago,
The herd was terrified of terrorist,
So Bush got a blank check.
Now in Obamaland,
The evil's the economy.

Granted, our current leader's hands are more capable than the last.

That said, I have to call out the President
For encouraging the nation to move on too quickly.

We came damn close to a dictatorship... where the commander in chief made unilateral decisions on torture, personal liberty, and secret military actions.

This is no witch hunt... we need to find out exactly what was going on.
So this type of thing can't happen again.

Somebody in Washington apparently had a hearing on Wednesday about forming a truth commission to get to the bottom of things. Declassified documents revealed that a US citizen on US soil had been held for five years by the military with no trial.

Obama's assertion to just move on is meant to keep things friendly, I know that.
But this is the same short-sightedness that got us into this mess.
A country can't just barrel blindly forward and pretend it didn't do anything wrong.
That's Bush's non-reflective personality, not America's.
We must hold our leaders accountable:
Bush aint God. And even if he was, I would say the same thing:
Put that Asshole on trial!
This truth commission will only be effective if it has the power to prosecute.

And here's the really cool part.
If we don't prosecute Rumsfeld, Cheney, Bush, and the rest of them...
Then smart people from other countries will.
Our leaders fucked with international human rights law,
As much as they fucked with domestic personal liberty.

I don't know about you,
but I'd rather put ole' yeller down myself.


http://www.democracynow.org/2009/3/5/lawmakers_begin_debate_on_commission

How the Bush Administration made me an Alcoholic

I was a freshman in college in 2001...

Didn't know what the World Trade Center was...
Because I was a child in a foreign country...
Without Upper-Lower-White-Middle-Class American news
or Upper-Lower-Middle-Class American people around.

I didn't care that I didn't know.
Blissful ignorance was the only thing Upper-Lower-Middle-Class American
about me.

What started as a radio
rushed in and mounted like an antenna'd idol
in chemistry lab,
Turned into multiple mutually-worshipped
televisions.
Each plugged in and improvised
all along my campus walk.
They sprouted tiny crowds...
obediently bowing their heads.
One woman was crying.

At first I thought the plane was a glider or a tiny two personed doctor-wing.
Why else would a plane accidentally fly into a large building?

I had no idea that passenger jet liners were actually
stealable usable fuel-loaded, winged bombs.
I had no idea that the WTO was a symbol
of American economic neo-colonialism abroad.
I had no idea that the attack was not only predictable
but warrented.

I found all that out later.

It was not an attack on America.
It was an attack on America's greedy self-appointed owners.
Once again...
Poor men are fighting off an attack on the Rich.
An attack on years of shitty CIA
sneaky-assed selfish
cock-sucking shortsighted
foreign policy.

Think about it,
everything I just wrote is more offensive than
language ever will be.
Yes, even the fuck word.

Bush didn't see it coming because he didn't think
America was capable of wrong.
Just like he thinks about himself.

That's what happens when the History Of Golden Unicorns is taught
Instead of the history of American History.

I saw the building fall, people died live
for me on a big screen
The news anchors were cuming their pants live
for me in Hi-Def.
I was sitting alone
back row of an auditorium.
There hadn't been anything else to do...
my classes were canceled.
And so I saw it
all come down,
Watched my fantasy world go pop,
and thank _insert-dead-guy-of-your-choice-here_ for it
cause I deplored it.

As a believer in the History of Golden Unicorns,
I had voted for Bush in '00.

* I will never forgive myself for that *

I had voted with my parents because Bush was a Christian...
and so was I.

My world view was a tree
with pretty leaves that changed color
in season.
I became very large suddenly and
pulled up my tree
by the roots.

Grew another tree.
Taller, stronger, brighter, more beautiful...
But much Sadder.
A Weeping Strong Tree.

I learned how to self-medicate.

It was easy to distance myself from this land.
America was as foreign to me as Africa.

I was the UN the ANTI
Amerikkka.

But now I see
America needs a voice like me.

Like the rando who accidentally insinuated
that Americans were blue-haired, blonde-eyed
un-tye-dyed.
Arianated...
Made me realize I hated
it when people told fibs...
without knowin it.

I AM American... and I am taking it back...
out of uncapable hands.

Back from Bush
who made it patriotic to invade
Like a band-aid
out of pain.
Cool to use bomb-smoke to screen...
Who tortured...
TORTURED... a brown farmer from Afghanistan
brought in by ex-Taliban.
but somehow forgot
to waterboard Madoff.

American Foreign Policy = Rape the Unrepresented, Undefended.

This Prince is so detached
He can't hide his nepotistical ass.
He said FEMA did a solid.
He said Mission Accomplished.

He wanted to help people in this "part of the world"
standing in New Orleans, with sleeves rolled up.

You can take the businessman out of the government,
but you can't take the business out of anything.

A guy once screamed at me...
"America is the best country!"
He believed it Fair,
Had never gone anywhere.
Expert.
Like our President.

Bush, I didn't know how to deal with you.
I drank a lot, cussed a lot.

But I'm finding my voice.
So watch out.

Upcoming: Why Bush Should Be Arrested and Put on Trial.

Night Life

Back to quiet mornings
Three a.m. sweeping binges
Sore feet.

The life of a closing barkeep
once again belongs to me.

Some new things to try:
--Waking up early and taking naps...
to keep a little sun in my life
--Making a few new drinks.
--Job searching on the side.
--Writing every day... expect some posts on beer and food.

First Kill

Last night, I watched a documentary on Hunter S. Thompson.
In addition to writing, hallucinating, and starting gonzo journalism,
he enjoyed guns... hated the NRA (of which he was a member)... but loved guns.

It reminded me of my first gun experience:
Dusk in Montana...
bouncing up a mountain road after work.
The sun plummeted below tree-spiked ridge lines.

Pam propped the 270 rifle on pillows atop her car hood.
I remember bracing for the recoil, listening to instructions,
through stuffed ear-holes.

The trigger obeyed smoothly
And my scope encircled target briefly flamed...
Like a match...
becoming the sun in my eye.
BOOM - Boom -- boom the canyon announced.

I knew I hadn't flinched and ran to find the two holes I had punched
through cardboard
from 50 yards away.

"Getting one as soon as possible"
I noted to myself and grinned.

The twilight was all but gone,
Shadows spilled out onto the open ground...
pooling like rising water...
and all were shades of gray and black.

The last shot was mine,
and the cross-haired target was barely there.
I exhaled waves of an echoing Crack
laced with the odor of spent gunpowder
and then came the tiny white flakes.
From above
they floated all around us.

"Is it snowing??"

Couldn't be that cold.
Nope, it wasn't snow.

A tiny corner of the support pillow had reached up to block my barrel,
leaving the scope sight free.

Of course,
the hungry bullet ate through CAMO fabric with one jagged bite,
launching a sack of Styrofoam pellets skyward
and freeing them to cascade down in stillness.
Like so many snowflakes
or falling stars.

I bagged my first kill.
Proudly I strutted my prize
through the kitchen.

"Hey hey!" said chef Brian,
"Got a Grouse?"

"Nope"
I raised my trophy with flourish.

"I shot a pillow."

Consume

Curious,
she looked at me with half a smile
Somehow knowing my intentions were not the obvious.

"Can I help you find anything, sir?"

Just browsing.

Perhaps I had failed to hide my amusement
dodging jostled single-purposed bodies.
I watched and took notes.

The distant back corner of Target was busy.
Shelves were dismantled
And random merchandise
had consolidated themselves
in diminishing space.

The "Chili Cook-off Champion Set" neighbored disco ball ornaments.
An entire stand was nothing but Italian novelty chocolates.

What an odd cornucopia of Christmas commodities.
The Island of Misfit Toys may have survived this year's wrapping,
But were in danger, invaded by next year's deal-hunters.

Like nausea from eating too much candy,
The plastic poinsettias framed bad gifts
that had lost their luster...
replaced by 75% off signs.

The clash erupted
an air of panic and earnestness.
Bloodhounds craze bound to the scent.
Quick to get their fake snow-dust fix.

No harm meant to them who smartly shop.
They expose such holy materialism
By cutting corners,
shopping after others
are eggnog hangover hazed.
Supply and no demand:
The All-American Morning After Holidays.

I watched and smiled
seeing our culture's shroud
part to reveal the mating dance
of such relevancy:
Religion and Currency
Christ and Economy.

I happily waved adieu
to the Christmas Shopping season of '08.
Blood at the beginning,
Rich people still bitching
That we didn't buy enough.

This post is dedicated to the memory of Jdimytai Damour:
Trampled to death in a Wal-Mart by crazed shoppers on Black Friday '08.
“It was crazy,” said a worker in the electronics department who was in the store during the stampede. “The deals weren’t even that good.”
MSNBC article

Inside camping

Unrolled the sleeping bags in front of the fireplace.
Uncorked the bottle of wine.

Our eyes and the blank walls made wild plans
of the domestic persuasion.

The home where I hang my toothbrush
now tangible
grows lumps and piles of boxes in corners.

It grows a Christmas tree.
and slowly the home on my back
unfolds itself around this crackling fire.

Base Camp.

How to Sew

Written Saturday November 29th
.................................................
I feel extremely lucky.
Today I realized what it means to be without health insurance.
Yin and I did a little doctor shopping.
Take a guess.
Question: How much does it cost for 10-15 stitches on a Saturday night in Durham?
.................................................
While the skin on my leg was still one, I waited for a phone call.
The ring came while I was mountain biking down Suburbia Street.
We got the apartment.
Translation: passed the credit/background/criminal/employment/rental history checks (standard these days)... we had the apartment.
The most perfect, tiny, walk to work, sun-baked writing room, fireplace apartment.
All I needed was dough for the down payment, and maybe a little something for ramen.
But life was good, I had a week of solid work ahead of me.
Cakeride.
Time to work on my bunny-hop... ride good fortune's wave all the way home.
If I could jump half as high as I was, I'd clear the vinyl-sided burb-box beside our wood-planked hurdle.
Mountain bikes have spiky pegs on the pedals.
Purposed to help your feet lift your back tire over the crocodile pit, or whatever you aim to clear.
This is called a bunny-hop.

My feet didn't stay on the pedals.
Instead of staying on my feet,
the pedals carved a canyon in my shin.

Pretty deep. Wanna See?
(Not for the hemophobiacs)















Time to shop for medical attention.
Yin spent an hour on the phone describing my laceration to walk-in-clinic and emergency room receptionists.
We got a decent number of quotes for extremity sutures before saying screw it.
Answer: Stitches by a doctor cost anywhere from 400 to 750 bucks.
Now there may have been a tinsy $130 first time visit fee, but you also got a special!
Pay up front, get 30% off.
Goody Gumdrops.
Incidentally, if you can't pay upfront... shouldn't that indicate you need the discount more than someone who can pay? Ahhh the smell of capitalism in the morning.
And, god bless em, emergency rooms won't turn your distressed ass away. But they will at some point during your happy stay with them, introduce you to their financial "advisor" to set up a payment plan.
I know what that is, I'm still working on a couple payment plans for the diploma.

Basically my first month's rent (and therefore any future rent) was on the line.

Now, many Americans don't have health insurance. I'm guessing less have a friend willing to sew up an un-anesthised gashed and grinning Nate.
Strangely, I feel lucky saying that.
But hey, people have done this type of thing before,
in times of war on battlegrounds I'm sure.
I prepared myself by drawing a booze drenched curtain over dancing nerve endings.

Fortunately, via a connection, we were able to pick up supplies from a medical supply store.
I now keep surgical strips and tegaderm readily available. The tape worked, and the wound stayed closed.
I was drunk for nothing now, but felt genuinely pissed anyway.

Now, what happens if you don't have someone who can buy medical supplies for you?
This health system is bullshit.
Americans, the first step to fixing a problem is admitting we have one.
A-greed?
Yeah, there's nothing wrong with privatized, free-market run health care...
as long as you're cool with shopping for docs while you bleed all over the place like you shop for auto mechanics.
Or maybe you prefer paying every month for insurance and still paying for an injury because of a legal free-market-backed loophole in your coverage.
I chose neither, but I was lucky.

We are so afraid of the big bad socialist under the bed that we let capitalists get opportunistic on very important things:
Homes, Health, Education.
In this get-now-pay-later cosmos only one outcome remains.
Debt.
I'm not asking for all out Red, just a little Pink regulation maybe.
Draw the line somewhere. Behind that line no person can be exploited in present or future.
Let's start with the children.

Enough preaching, I'm going to go heal.

By the way, I only ended up spending $40.

Does Unity Exist

A while since last I wrote...
More humor to laugh...
Too much to candy coat.

Like a PC with too much back noise
slows.

Do you ever freeze,
See the moan
fear the crow...

Of ghosts and king.
Of martyred mass and upturned pinky toe.

At times humanity
Tastes like bile's dry heave.

And then you see something like this:

Musicians on streets
Sway to the same beats.

Like Grandpa Elliot
in the French district,
no talker can compare.
Politicians beware

the day the masses sing in unity.



http://www.playingforchange.com

Steer Riding

So here we have a video edited by Lindsay Ludwick, one of the wranglers, of some steer riding.
I am so jealous I missed this by a few days.
Brittany, my badass woman, is the one in the converse with the long hair about midway through.
Her ass has recovered.

Emigrant Peak pics

Clip from the top of Emigrant.

A few Pics

Me and Tonto






Me on Tonto
Dusty on Shy

Dos Stories

First of all: very sorry folks for the delay in updates.
It seems the working season has declared a free for all on free time: sleep, hike, ride, read, write, so much to do with so little time.
My deepest apologies.

Nevertheless, even in my silence... I have been busy.

------------------------------------------
1. My first horsey ride (in a very long time):

"Maybe I should have started at the beginner level."
The thought barely existed before being immediately replaced.
"Too late now."
Joining the advanced group made sense at the time.
The front wrangler gave the signal to start loping and the riders ahead of me took off.

I tried my best to appear calm and confident.

A definate challenge considering my inner voice was doing an impressive impression of the Home Alone Scream.

Hands barnacled to the saddle horn, body bent forward, mouth set, teeth grit.

We were hoofin it.... fast.

I knew I had a rational sense in me somewhere because at that moment it was rather loudly insistent on my certain impending doom.

Sure, a possible outcome... but again, too late now.

The wind-press on my eyeballs reminded me of driving my motorcycle.
But this was no machine.
Machines don't huff and grunt, fart (a lot) and bite other machines, stumble, or spook at scary pieces of shit on the trail.
Horses do though.
Loveable, skittish, hilarious, and terrifying.

The heat from the working horse-muscles made my saddle hot... I could feel the huge lung bellows pump... hear the metal horseshoes pound and clack on rocks.
Yes indeed... I was hurtling forward atop a moving blacksmith shop.
Release the saddle horn, move with the rhythm, grin... I caught on. I got hooked.
Have been trying to ride a lot lately.
Last ride I was practicing my posting and totally sat on a testicle.
Yeah it hurt that bad... but everything still works, so don't worry.
--------------------------------------------------
2. Solo Summit

Yeah, noon is a little late to start up a 5,000 foot ascent.
But I had slept in, and was going to climb Emmigrant anyway, dammit (a 10,900-ish ft. peak).

I had my bear spray, lunch, gps, and four bottles of water.
Hot day... the water was done by the summit.
Emigrant was a fairly strenuous hike with steep inclines on loose shale.
This meant that, until I got the hang of it, one step up slid me two steps back. That is unless I slipped off one of the dramatic drop offs skirting knife blade ridgelines... but that didn't happen.
The trick is baby steps.
There were at least six false summits.
Which means the inner monologue went something like this six friggin separate times:
" I can see it!
The TOP!
Almost there... pant* pant*... I did it!
[behind a rock the next false summit murderously reveals itself well above and beyond]
... shit."
But after 4 hours I made it.
The peak was very exposed, which unfortunately didn't mean much as the weather was perfect.
If you know me, you know I like a little rough weather or at least some wind at the top of a mountain.
A six hour solo hike, complete with a summit, is a wonderful thing. I highly recommend it.
I practically ran down the mountain, racing the setting sun and reached the car just as the light went out.
Shavin it close.
----------------------------------------------------
Coming next:
Skinny dipping in Yellowstone

Bear Sighting

Finally happened.

I know you're supposed to stay away from bears...
but we were kinda excited so we ran toward it.
For pictures.
I will post them when I can.

Coarse and shiny black,
His coat seemed heavy
as it rolled with lumbering
paw steps.
Muzzle of gold,
he panted throught it.
Saw us and ran...
and didn't seem so heavy any more.
He nimbly bounced over the grass, head up...

right toward the softball field where Jenn was about to sit down and enjoy a cigarette.
A shriek and a rather impressive fence hurdle later,
Jenn was standing on top of Brittany's car
yelling if the bear was gone yet.

Sorry bout that Jenn.

After a few days and a few mischievous bear visits,
the head chef made an announcement as follows:
Now we all know there's been a big black bear hangin around,
so lets step up the cleaning
and try to clear the outside grill as best we can.
We don't want any incidents with the guests.

I love working in a place where "bear safety" is an agenda in staff meetings.

-----------------------------------------------------------

I drank a Fernet con Coca at a bar in Montana.
The taste,
bitter sharp and herby.
The buzz,
heat emitting vines crawling up arteries to flower in my brain.

The whole experience was an amputation.
I was in Argentina again,
but all I could see were cowboy hats and glowing gridirons above them.
I was suspended between two times and two places.

I am no stranger to the paradox of position:

The most random insignificant stimuli
feeling rather ambitious
passes through its choice of my sensory organs
and arrives in my brain.

This is where most good little insignificant stimuli
are assigned a predetermined meaning and promptly shelved.
Not our little rabble-rouser.

Yelling "stick em up"
He holds up my Memory Bank
and high tails it
to the forefront of my consciousness.
Where, after an epic gun battle,
our outlaw goes down in a fiery ball of glory...
spilling his stolen memories before my eyes.
Becoming a legend.

This is why a smell,
rice ready for harvest.
A laugh,
forced guffaw or tinkling cascade.
A sight,
setting sun glint on the tiny-veined wings of millions of insects in a grass field...

Can each hijack my static here-ness
to another time and place.
No one can see when this happens.
You can never be prepared for it,
You can never force it.
but you can ride it.

And so I call myself wind...
with my brothers and sisters like me.
We are always going somewhere.

Contact Info and Videos on Ice

As requested folks, my contact info in Montana.

For Mail:

PO Box 1219 Emigrant, MT 59027

For Packages:

480 Big Creek Rd. Emigrant, MT 59027

I had to taste the ground to make sure it was salty.

Ever wonder what life looks like for a dog chasing a frisbee?

Coatis... the South American Raccoon. Watch out, they bite.

Iguazu: these falls in Argentina were mesmerizing. Like the Niagra of South America.

See how the jungle wraps the falls?

Rainbow by the falls.

Boat ride up the river to the falls.

The Boat ride under the falls.

Fear and Loathing

Below is a short piece I wrote in the airport, shortly after being overcome by sudden anxiety. The wave of terror passed as soon as it arrived, but it left an impression on me.
This is for anyone who has ever grappled with fear.

-----------------------------------------------------------------
A heart cramp.
Cool prick of a vaccine needle in some vague muscle
in some vague spot
in your torso.

It wallops into a tinkling crescendo...
the sound of an acme anvil dropped on a pyramid of beer bottles.
Jump Spasm.
You realize that there is something fragile in grave danger...
in your gut.

Creeping terrification.
Bland taste of ignorance.
Static panic:
Doubt.

Unbeknowst to you.
Tiny pranksters TP'd the tree limb-like tubes in your lungs.
Someone throws a maltov cocktail down your throat.
Don't choke on the smoke.

It's a good thing you are well practiced in dealing with the paralysis of fear.
Otherwise you wouldn't be able to wiggle your big toe.
Wiggle, toe...
------------------------------------------------------------------

I think I'm a cowboy, but I'm not...
I'm actually a housekeeper, dishwasher, driver, and waiter.
I did learn to dance the two-step in cowboy boots though.
So I'd say I'm heading in the right direction.

This is a high end guest ranch.
People pay more to stay here for two weeks than I did for my whole trip.

It stunned me like a coco butter smack to the face.
I have seen poverty...
Families shuffling through garbage.
I have been poverty...
stretching every last euro to the max.
Surviving off ham and bread and beer.

Some people live very differently.
Some people leave half of a $300 bottle of wine unfinished.

Don't get me wrong,
They are very nice... not uppity or snotty.
But the fact that they exist in the same world as the other extreme...
rattles me.
Somehow between Spain and here,
I must have entered a wormhole.
Too dazed and confused for loathing,
but I wouldn't know what to loathe anyway.
Who's fault is it...
the sprawling wasteland between really-haves and really-have-nots?

-------------------------------------------------------------------
Setting is epic.

The mountains reign here.
Commanding is their presence,
be it bright or brooding.
They bristle with evergreens and aspens tremble at their site.
Deliver down cloud swept frowns
or hawkish sunny grins,
on their back dwelling people-ants.
All we do is beneath them.

And the stars...
wow
It's like someone found a plug,
and singularly tiny-spark-summons
the building buzz of a million baseball stadium lights.
They drown out the black background.
They drown out words.

We are remote, and Wild is not far off.
Brittany has already seen several bears and two (yes TWO) Mountain Lions.
I have yet to see a bear here, but am repeatedly assurred that I will soon.

I like my coworkers.
We knock back brews and trade tales in the lodge with the guests at night...
stretching out beside sassy backtalking fireplaces.
Last night, after a brief tutorial from one of the wranglers...
I attempted and completed a rafter shot.
Ankle locked boots and hanging upside down from a crossbeam in the rafters.
Just picture my shit eating grin the other way around while shooting liquer UP my throat, and you'll have the picture.

The kitchen is top notch.
Manned and Womanned by golden characters,
it cranks out miracles.
I learned how to make pasta today.
That's a miracle itself.

Other things I hope to learn while here:
How to dance better (aka how to twirl the ladies till they don't know which way is up).
How to fly fish.
How to gallop on a horse.
How to hunt.
How to chop wood like a pro.

Pictures coming soon.