Montana ho!
Since the last time we got together in this space, Sharon and I have trekked back to the past. Ours. We flew into Bozeman, Montana, a few days ago to spend some time with old and great friends.
Paul and Sharon Finlayson were neighbors of ours at Quail Run in Paso Robles for years. We did lots of things together over those years, but perhaps the most important was that Paul and I used to spend weekday mornings at our nearby Starbucks. We’d get there around 8 a.m. nearly every Monday through Friday — easily more than 1,000 mornings, during which we got to know each other and talked about everything under the sun. Sports. Politics. Culture. Kids. Pets. We had a great time, and it always kicked off our days the right way. See, we were retired — so we didn’t have to check in anywhere.
Well, things change. Paul and Sharon bought some property way up in the hinterlands — Montana, to be exact. They bought a two-acre parcel next door to their son’s two-acre lot. He already lived there with his family. Paul and Sharon started building a “vacation” home next to Tim’s — the idea being they’d spend summers “up there” and winters on the Central California coast, in Paso Robles.
You can guess what happened next. They spent a few weeks up there after their home was finished — fell in love with Montana — and decided to live there full-time. And once they sold their place in Paso and moved away, we lost some — much — of what had “moored” us to the neighborhood. So we decided to leave, as well. Not to go to Montana — way, way too cold. We decided to move back to our Valley roots — a bit north of those roots, to be exact — and build a home in Madera County.
And now you’re up to date. Dennis and Sharon live in the new Tesoro Viejo “village” being built next to the foothills of Madera County, California — and Paul and Sharon live in the Wheatland Meadows subdivision being built in Three Forks, Montana. We are 1,100 miles apart. Even so, we’ve driven up to see them twice. This past week was the first time we’d flown in for a visit. Trust me — it’s a lot easier than driving.
So there we were, this past Wednesday evening, at the lovely Bozeman-Yellowstone International Airport. Paul and Sharon graciously had offered to save us the expense of a rental car and drive us the 30-or-so miles to their Three Forks home. Should have been an easy trip — except, of course, for that monstrous thunderstorm that greeted us halfway to their place. That baby put on quite a show, even by the standards we’d become accustomed to over the summers we’d spent at our “vacation place” in Ames, Iowa. Streak lightning, both horizontal and vertical, flashed ahead of us along the I-90. Then on top of us. Thunder-boomers, seemingly shaking the highway and our car. And rain. So much rain that we couldn’t see much, even with the wipers at full speed.
Trust me — we all stopped talking for the last 30 minutes of that unforgettable ride, so that Paul could concentrate on such things as saving our lives. There was no place to turn off — no exits for miles. It was us versus the storm. Somehow, Paul won, but it was close.
Their dog Buddy greeted us when we got to their place. He seemed genuinely pleased to see us again, though his exuberance may well have been more focused on the treats he knew he’d be receiving. Buddy’s the type of dog who will eat anything, and eat it fast — so fast, that the vet suggested Paul and Sharon get a “puzzle” food dish. It has maze-like passages that force Buddy to use his tongue in a creative way to get the food that’s in the passages. It slows him down from gobbling all that food in just a few seconds — to gobbling it in, say, a minute. Sharon (Mrs. Hart) is thinking about getting one for me.
On Thursday morning Paul and I did something we had not done in two years, since he and his Sharon had moved. We went to a coffee shop — this one in downtown Three Forks — ordered our medium blends, and sat at the only outdoor table. 
Three Forks is a quaint town right out of an Old West movie. Its people are extraordinarily friendly. Everyone who passed us said hello, and we didn’t even have a cute puppy there to lure them.
Paul and I went over a lot of ground on our first morning coffee. We had never stopped talking after he and Sharon had moved away — in fact, we converse by phone, virtually every morning at the same time, as if we were there in person, at a coffee shop. But we’re not — and we miss those up-close conversations we used to have.
After coffee, Paul and Sharon drove us up Highway 287 about 60 miles to the state Capitol in Helena. Along the way — it being lunchtime — we stopped at a place in the tiny burg of Winston called The Big Bull Bar and Grill. Their son had told them that for the price, you get “a lot of stuff.” Oh, my. That was quite the understatement.
You see, The Big Bull specializes in burgers — and their featured offering is this gigantic bison burger. We’d never had a bison burger. I was leery. But I must tell you, it was excellent. And, yes, the burger came with a tremendous order of fries and chips. Sharon and I shared one order, and Paul and Sharon shared their own order. If you’re ever in Winston, Montana — and why wouldn’t you be? — be sure to drop into The Big Bull.
And then just keep driving north into Helena, where you’ll find a magnificent state Capitol building that you can tour on your own. It was finished in 1902, and the legislature still meets there. Heck, the governor’s office is still there. As for Helena itself –it’s a handsome city with lovely homes in hilly neighborhoods. The city was founded as a gold camp, and it became so wealthy that there were about 50 millionaires living in the area by 1888 — more per capita than in any other city in the world. It’s the fifth least-populous state capital in the United States. Go ahead and see it.
On Friday — after Paul and my stop at the coffee shop, of course — we all headed south on the 287 to Virginia City. Yes, there’s a Virginia City in Montana as well as in Nevada. This one is a National Historic Landmark. Of course, it was founded when miners discovered gold, and quickly became a boomtown and one of the most lawless and dangerous places in the West. It was so bad that the county sheriff was said to be the leader of a bandit gang. Naturally, it became the state capital — which it remained until lawmakers moved it, wisely, to Helena in 1875.
Virginia City was a ghost town when Charles and Sue Bovey began buying buildings there in the 1940’s. Eventually, they owned almost the entire place and started restoring it. You can see the grand results of their great effort today. Some of the restored buildings are just for display, but others have thriving tourist businesses. Among them — Bob’s Place, which has a fine array of pizzas — a candy shop loaded and ready for your sweet tooth — and an excellent ice cream parlor. We patronized all of them.
Our trek to the Far North ended all too soon, on Saturday. The four of us had one last lunch, this one at the Old Chicago pizza place in Bozeman — where there was such a shortage of employees that the outdoor dining area was, unfortunately, closed. Then it was back to the airport for some emotional good-byes, and Sharon and I flew home, into the present. We wish our “present” — at Tesoro Viejo — was closer than their “present” — at Wheatland Meadows — but if the best we can do in the future is to go back to our common “past” — count us in.