Blog

Ah Montana, Big Sky country, cowboys, mountains, fly fishing, skiing, county fairs, horses and cows grazing everywhere, guitar playing… whoa, wait a moment there partner.  Who is this mountain man in the lead picture.  Scott Pemberton is his name.  I was just searching through a lot of pictures I took the last few days that scream Montana, but you can find similar ones on the internet and in books.  This one seemed to scream “Montana???” and so it gets the lead.  After writing this post, it seems to be a bit music centric, although there is so much more to the flavor of Bozeman.  Anyway, we begin…

I traveled through Montana a couple of times.  Last year I happened to pass through along the upper northern Route 2 along the Canadian boarder on my way to Glacier National Park.  All I really remember about that drive is it was just rainy enough causing misty mud that covered my  Fat Boy in tow and the smell of smoke as there were some large fires happening at the time near Glacier.  Before that I rode through MT on a motorcycle trip and although I did pass through Bozeman on recommendations of my eldest son, I ended up continuing on and staying over in Billings.  That memory was of a Motel 6 that had a boom box, beer induced dance party burst out in the parking lot, that buying a bottle of bourbon was like going on a quest for the holy grail and that when I stopped at Starbucks in the morning I stepped in a pile of vomit from someone’s good time the night before.  This was more like memories of a Jersey shore weekend when I was a teen then what I thought Montana was going to be. 

So while touring Yellowstone I was close enough to Bozeman, MT to take the ride and see what this place was about.  I am very happy that I did too.  Not much to talk about in the camping department as I’m still trying not to pay for a hotel or camp site and I’m right around day 45 of zero spend on accommodations.  That’s right, Walmart again.

First morning I was there I went for a drive down the Main Street of Bozeman and I parked near the end of one side of town and about a block in.  Tough to find city parking with towing the Fat Boy.  I saw a music shop on the first block with a small front and wanted to buy a set of strings for my travel guitar.  I opened the door to this little shop and my head nearly exploded!  It was a small front but a huge inside and full of guitars.  New guitars, old guitars vintage guitars and a side room with guitars that were mostly priced $10,000 and above.  They gave me a tour of that room and I actually got to play a $12,000 custom made Martin acoustic guitar.  For pedestrians this is probably no big deal, but to a guitarist this was better then a day at Disney.  I was there about a hour playing all sorts of guitars and was so happy that I almost walked out without buying the strings that I came in for. 

So I started doing the “tourist walk” around town and it just seemed to be getting better and better.  Yes, some touristy stores, but really most of the places were there to serve the public that lived there.  It’s hard to quantify, but I was feeling like I was in a place that was part Greenwich Village, NYC, Austin, TX, and Phoenix.  The first two places were for the main part of town and the Phoenix part is for when you drove out to the where the mall sprawl was happing.  To give you an idea of how much I liked the look, feel and vibe of this place I stayed here 4 days and never once took the Harley out for a ride in the surrounding areas.  I ended up staying around town everyday.  This is also a college town (Montana State University) and it’s summer and still has a large population on of young folks.  Seems the combination of year round outdoor sports, a progressive mind set, a cool town and some affluence makes for a draw of good looking people.  Not trying to get creepy here, but I don’t know if I’ve ever seen this many really good looking, toned people in one spot before.  If you’re looking to come to Bozeman, MT to live and date, I’m guessing that you need to bring your “A” game.  To encapsulate, lots of nice trendy restaurants, brewery’s, clothes shops, outdoor stores in town and just about any major store or restaurant chain you ever heard of is within the city limits.   

I am also starting to get serious about working out again so wherever I go now I look for a YMCA and Bozeman has one.  So I plugged the address into the GPS and proceeded to drive straight out of town and into a bunch of fields.  Darn GPS is broken I guess. Oh wait, what’s that building in the middle of nowhere,,, it’s the Y!  Okay long story short, it’s a beautiful new building plopped in the middle of nothing and is waiting for the sprawl to catch up with it.  This photo is a view looking out from the workout room on the second floor and if you look out in any direction from that floor, this is pretty much the view.  Nice facility and they have a 24 hour rule so when you time it correctly you can get two visits, workouts and showers for $10.00. 

Where I was camping (Walmart) happened to be right near where the Big Sky County Fair was happening for the next 5 days and nights.  I went for a walk one night and saw this sign which apparently meant “me too” and went in to walk around.  Ran into a woman that said “you look kind of lost” and she gave me the inside scoop on what was going on for the next several days.  She turned out to be a transplant from Maryland and realized from my dialect that I was from NJ or NY.  The other thing that probably gave me away was I didn’t have cowboy boots and Wrangler jeans on.  Anyway interesting walk on the back end of the fair. 

The next night the fair was starting to have entertainment, so security tightened.  I’m sure they’re not worried about the celebrities getting shot, because probably most of these cowboys are packing, they just want to get paid, and so I went through the main gate with the other folks.  For $10.00 you get in and see livestock showings, get to wander around the rides and food stalls and the concert is included.  There were two bands playing and both were the clean cut Country and Western type guys you would expect to see, similar to most of the audience.  They were great and pretty much played formula C&W music, nothing surprising.  The dialog in between songs was about the flag, saluting our current servicemen and women, Vets and police.  It was a home run as the crowd Yip-peed and clapped. It was perfect.  Additionally this concert was where the rodeo and riding events are held and people were let in to the the arena floor, so when the dancing started it was a mini dust storm in some spots.  Great evening and interesting look at what most of America probably used to be like.  I’m one of those jaded northeastern people that have been to Disney probably one too many times and think that’s where it’s at, but they won me over here.  Very inspiring and everyone was having a great time.

Okay if you’ve hung in this far, here’s the cover photo story.  I decided after four days and one country fair with concert the night before, that it was time to leave Bozeman tomorrow.  My plan for today, after spending a couple of hours in the library, was to go to the county fair again and listen to tonight’s entertainment.  I mean besides being good fun, what beats a night out for $10.00!  How about free…  I was parked about two blocks off of main St, and when I came out of the library I threw my backpack in the camper.  I almost got in the truck, but decided to take one more walk around Main St.  Who knows when I may be back this way again.  A few blocks away the town had now blocked off Main St for “Music On Main” happening tonight.  You could drink on the street between 6:00 and 9:00PM and food vendors were setting up on the street.  Okay, so it’s Montana, I’m guessing more straight laced C&W music, Huckleberry jam and some basic food stands.  Nope.  Bozeman decided to throw me a curve ball instead.  No hot dogs and chicken fingers here.  There were taco stands, ice cream, shaved ice, etc as expected.  However, there was an upscale Macaroni and Cheese vendor, a sushi maker, Indian food cooked right there on the street, exotic grilled sausages, someone selling Poutine and my favorite this Paella vendor with four huge skillets making Paella right on the street… it was so hip and unexpected.  When I says these Paella pans were big, the chef told me that they get about 60 orders out of each one.  When I first got there they were just setting up, so I got a beer and walked around to watch this unfold.  A few people turned into dozens, which turned into hundreds and hundreds.  By 7:00PM the two block area was teeming with people.  The bars were packed and the street was crowded too. 

There was a flatbed trailer parked at a cross section and a band came on to play.  Okay, some more C&W music, I’m good with that.  Well the band gets on stage and doesn’t exactly look like your well groomed C&W musicians.  They start playing this music which is now scrambling my mind.  Wait, maybe the Paella sesoning has gone to my head.  No it’s these guys.  I can’t identify the music style, but it’s kind of funk and rock, punched up with some power chords and a few searing guitar solos… I don’t know what it is but people are packed in front of the stage and dancing and bopping to the music.  Leading this troupe is the cave man from the first picture.  First let me add that I know a little about playing a guitar and especially when you’re cranking on it… you should have a good guitar strap.  This guy, no strap but instead preformed a balancing act of using a stool to lean the guitar on, then playing the guitar flat on the stool while on his knees and sometimes just jamming in under his arm and playing.  He incorporated feed back, the sounds you get out of banging on a distorted guitar and fingerboard tapping into a great performance.  I never heard of  The Scott Pemberton Band before, but I saw a review afterwards where the writer called him the “Bruce Lee of Guitar”.  The bass player was really smooth and knew his stuff, the drummer was holding things together well and there was a percussionist who also occasionally played a key board.  Each song it seemed that he played something different to add flavor including steel drums on one number.  The crowd loved it all.  I’m not sure what this is musically, but it sure wasn’t what I was expecting to hear in Montana.

As an added musical bonus, when I got back to my camping spot (parking space) the C&W band had just started playing at the fair and I was so close it was like having a radio on in my camper.  So I got another dose of live music, with added effects of some ‘a hootin’ and a hollerin’ from the crowd, while I did a little writing.  Perfect.

With the above average looking people, this music, the street food, hip Main St and the place packed with people, if you dropped me in the middle of this scene and gave me 100 guesses as to where I was, Montana would not have entered my mind.  

So I’m very glad I decided not to write Montana off after my last two trips.  This place is really exceptional.  Unfortunately I didn’t ride the Harley around to check out more of the general area.  Also my account seems a bit limited compared what I believe to be around here.  There are so many outdoor sports stores, this no doubt is an excellent area to enjoy fly fishing, hiking, water sports, rafting, skiing and other sports in the winter too. 

So far in my travels I’ve been trying to stay away from the bigger more well known cities and towns, and stick with places that perhaps are a little smaller and less well known.  Pay off has been excellent so far. 

Bozeman gets a AAA rating from me.