Just Before Summer In Big Sky

With summer still over a week away, we headed up to Big Sky, Montana, hoping to escape the madness engulfing California and most other blue states.

Montana, it should be noted, has a Democrat governor, but Democrats in Montana are more like Blue Dog Biden 30 years ago rather than Old Joe reading left-wing talking points in his basement to an audience that ignores his declining acuity.  In Montana, they aren't talking heads who make perfect puppets for special interest lobbyists.

Freedom of speech, the 2nd Amendment and love of both God and America are still in fashion with pretty much everyone in Montana.

On the Fourth of July, American flags wave proudly rather than dragging Old Glory on the ground, like the preppy college-aged guy who flashed a peace sign with a smirk when I told him the flag shouldn't touch the ground while walking along Redondo Beach the other day.

I guess that's better than setting the stars and stripes on fire or kneeling in disrespect of all the good our country has done, but not much.

As once was the norm throughout the USA, Montanans vote for the candidate, not necessarily the party, and everyone is free to state their opinions as long as they don't cause damage to another person or their property.  If you choose to hurt others, you will learn to respect Law and Order here.

However, the reason for going home to Big Sky has little to do with politics.

Possibly because of the Democrat governor, Montana has also been in modified lock-down because of COVID-19 like blue states long past the initial 14-day quarantine to "flatten-the-curve" and presumably helped stop hospitals from being overrun, but not to the extreme like California.

Montana has had eighteen COVID-19 related deaths in a state with a little over a million citizens, and as elsewhere most of those victims had significant co-morbidities and/or advanced age.

Unfortunately, while not as over-the-top as the Left Coast, Montana's prolonged lock-down has led to many businesses going under, including the Lone Peak Theater where we saw the new Star Wars movie on our most recent visit.  At least one of the nearby art galleries seems to have been shuttered permanently.

Restaurants are allowed to open at 75% capacity, though many including Alberto's Mexican Food in Town Center remain shut down until July.

In the big city of Bozeman, about half the shoppers in Albertson's Grocery Store wore masks, but that is not mandatory.

Perhaps the biggest blow for Big Sky this summer is the Arts Council cancelled the entire Music In the Mountains season of free concerts in Town Center Park due to a restriction of public gatherings to no more than 50 people.  We've always treasured walking over to these Thursday night free concerts where we've been introduced to awesome, national-touring bands playing a wide variety of music.

We were shocked to find the park surrounded by chain link fence covered in green mesh privacy screen.  Behind that fence, the lawn has been dug out and huge piles of dirt excavated to lay the foundations for a new community center, according to the buckboard driver we met.

Last year, the concerts were admittedly becoming overcrowded, drawing people from bigger cities in the area, including nearby states, rather than the locals and Big Sky vacationers, so perhaps this was destined to happen regardless of the virus.

We were happy to find a local band playing on the porch of the Buddha Lounge by the smaller park in front of the Wilson Hotel.  It was much more like Concerts in the Park were fifteen years ago, with a couple dozen people and some dogs at the beginning and then others drifting in and out.

The Wind and the Willows sang nice harmonies, and once their instruments were tuned, put on a good show.  They reminded me of Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks, who used to perform occasionally at the Golden Bear in Huntington Beach when I worked there as a door man, but without the lead male vocalist.

We arrived on a free buckboard ride courtesy of Lone Mountain Ranch.

Despite the current shut-downs, construction continues unabated in Big Sky, testimony that optimism for America's future remains high.

The main summer draw to Big Sky is nature.  We love hiking the beautiful trails, including the one to Ousel Falls.  As with the concerts, last year that hike had attracted more people than we would have preferred, including Disney Vacations tour buses that dumped packaged tourists there a few times a week.

It was nice having the Ousel Falls hike relatively to ourselves like in the old days, although that might be more because it is still early in the season.

The river water levels are high as the snow melt-off picks up steam with the passing of the Mud Season, but there's still snow on Lone Peak and other surrounding mountains.

We remain wonder-struck by the changing of the seasons in this beautiful world.

Yellow Mule Trail