Shopping, going and arriving

Shopping in Kalispell for riding gear for the ranch turned out to be a doddle under the careful guidance of Singing Snake who knew the ropes from the previous pilgrimage. We did boots, jeans, gloves, jackets and stuff accompanied by patient and cheery Pete (SS's other half) and Matty (their son).

Matty. In my hat. Draw dude.

The first stop was Brizelda's (Shéltsal) Big Horn Chic, a collection of previously loved must haves in her garage and greetings with several other pilgrims; Quelle Fromage (Florian), Asterix (Zhal’med) , Amadeus (Wolfgang) among others. Tried on boots, belts, resisted the dakini leopard print Fredericks of Hollywood jacket. Arranged dinner meeting. Struck out to Murdocks which has every kind of work wear and horse wear a gal could need, got boots, jeans and slickers, went to Corral West for something else and Western Outfitters for some other something else. Kept on bumping into pilgrims a shopping, wearing big hats and slick boots.

Horse trailer/luxury pad outside of Corral West.

Horsetrailer inhabitant:

Dinner

Me, Nasrudin, Quelle Fromage, Zhal’med, Matty, Sis Vicious, Pete, Singing Snake.

The next day the Singing Snake family came to collect me at the hotel, we crammed my luggage into the hire car and set of for Laughing Water, stopping in Whitefish for some classic American breakfast because we obviously hadn't eaten enough during the previous nights dinner.

The excitment of driving towards the ranch, the mountains and in the Hidden Land was moving, electric and damn happy. As we drove away from the smokey air in Kalispell, the montains rolled into view, we passed a crystal lake perfectly mirroring it's edging of trees.

Waffles and strawberry stuff.

French Toast, with everything.

We got to Laughing Water about 2 and unloaded, Pete and Matty leaving me and the snake lady there whilst they went off in the car to have their own adventures elsewhere.

We had a big room in a large cabin about 5 minute walk away from the main lodge with a stunning backdrop of mountains and trees.

Room with a view

We unpacked, and unpacked, and unpacked some more.

Singing Snake's Laughing Water pics

Singing Snake has put up some dazzling photos from the Montana pilgrimage at:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/81386866@N00/sets/72157602030915321/

Just ignore the ones of me with my eyes closed.

Me and Miss Onion

Photographer: Bad Girl

Unpacking is yielding alot of white hair on riding stuff. The cause is Miss Onion, the mount I had for the entire two weeks at Laughing Water Ranch. She has a pretty figure and a right marish personality; for the most part sweet but throws evil eyes at any horse who gets too close behind her. Two deadly warnings and then a kick for good measure. "So sweet she'll make you cry". However she has dreadful double standards and will tail gate the horse infront of her. We tried to ride out in Aro colours most days, her providing the white to my red and blue.

Back

I have now a tonne of back publishing to do on this blog - which I will do over the next week or two. The longer I was unable to get online the more I relished it and declared a much needed computer holiday with accompanying perks of email and blog abstinence. Divine.

But I am now returned to the UK as of yesterday and eager to get some iamges up and some bits of pieces of detail about the Montana pilgrimage and the subsequent visits to the SF bay area, LA and Palm Springs.

I survived

Rode horses
Shot guns
Polished boots
Cleaned guns
Ate
Slept
and got up to do it all again.

Marvellous!

To Kalispell

I've arrived in Kalispell. I left Karen, Steve and the little ones early this morning. Karen's mother Suzanne drove me to Portland airport whcih was lovely. She gave me a cucumber just picked from her garden and Karen sent me off with homemade musli in a tuperwear box. I'd got up early to savour the last morning under the fresh bit sky and some damn fine coffee. Some kind of bird of prey, eagle or vulture - they have both and I didn't see it long enough to I.D., caught it's epic wing span in the deep yellow golden sunlight like some bold mythical thing. A great send off. I was sorry to say goodbye to Rowan and Amelia but they'll be in the UK for Christmas. In the short week I've been there I've watched Amelia's face come into focus the way small babys do, like watching a photo develop.

The journey was via Seattle on a tiny, propeller driven place. I counted 9 or 10 rows. I sat by the window but the clouds were obscuring the views of the mountains. I'd already seen Mt Hood shrouded in haze from fires. Mt St Helen I'd seen previously as it's near the house, it looks like a Japanese wood block print. Traveling with the hat is a practice in it's own right. It was too large to go in the overhead locker so I had it on my lap and tried not to dent it with the huge edition of US Vogue I'd bought. There was a three hour lay over in Seattle, time for a big chowder lunch and lots of wondering around shops, then off on a marginally bigger plane to Kalispell.

We flew over the mountains east of Seattle then the rectangular crop fields of Idaho, then more mountains spotted with tourquoise lakes every now and then before the haze of smoke and Montana. They've had really bad fires, and the smoke has got particularly severe in the last few days according to Jim the taxi driver who collected me from the airport. A guy on the plane who looked like he knew a thing or two reckoned the fires wouldn't stop until the snows later in the year. He had a great shirt on covered with horses and and a face with lines that also spoke weather and horses. I got to the hotel, the Grand and noted it's very conveniently beside Western Outfitters. Bingo. Lets go shopping.

French toast and PB & J

Today is my last day with Karen and Steve before traveling to Kalispell tomorrow.
Rowan and I picked apples with his Mum as well as some blackberries. These were to go with the french toast (eggy bread) that we had WITH butter, WITH fruit. WITH yogurt AND with maple syrup. Awesome. As was the PB and J we had yesterday - peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (made with last years blackberries).

THE hat