Dispatches from the road day 3-4

 Dispatches from the road, by Bill Poindexter 

(Season 2: Diaries of a bicycle traveler and novice saloon keeper in remote Montana )

Day 3 and the beginning of day 4

6:46am -40f’s -light rain

 Slept well in my little cabin/shed:) it rained a little bit during the night, but I love the sound of the rain on the metal roof. It’s very soothing, and I have a window open right next to my head so I can hear the wind in the trees and the sound of rain in the forest. It also soothe my soul that there are wilderness areas surrounding me and critters lurking in the darkness to feed themselves. If you were to look at a map and look at the air, I am in, you’ll see a river that’s just to the east of me called north fork. And then if you look to the west of the north fork, you’re going to see the N. Fork Rd. and then you’ll see the Flathead national forest you will see a Hay Creek Road which is Forrest Road 376 and I’m just 3 miles to the south of that. One of my objective this summer is to explore the Flathead national forest and just a small area I’m in so I’m also basically just off the Pacific Northwest trail. So if you look up that you’ll see it outside of glacier national park going over to Eureka Montana plan to explore part of the trail to in this whole area is full for forest service roads that I plan to explore and some really nice hiking trails as well. I know that later in the summer it could get pretty warm here and I’m not sure if a small plywood cabin with the metal roof it’s going to be the best place to sleep, so I’ll probably head up into the mountains every night after work And find a nice piece of dirt to lay my bedding.

So I’m on day four right now but day three was yesterday and it turned out to be a pretty good day. Actually I’m waking up with the sunrise so I’m getting up about 5 AM making coffee and a little bit of breakfast and just doing some chores around the camper area taking a shower And I make my way slowly up to Polebridge and yesterday. I had to do some paperwork early and had a coffee and walked over to the Mercantile, which is really quite an extraordinary place. You should look that up and it’s like an old general store with the hardwood floors they also have a bakery in there with exceptional baked goods And they make other food sandwiches things like that they have really good coffee my friend Bill Fordyce , who you are a know of for me talking about he told me he was up there, so I walked over there and sat down with him and an employee of the Mercantile we had a good chat. I met some other people, so it’s kind of like my coffee shop for this wilderness area but it has a flavor of a 1900 old general store were locals would gather around a woodstove and tell stories some true some not. They’re famous to further huckleberry bear claw. I don’t think I need to say anymore about that :-) Work yesterday was good it’s still pretty intense because it’s it was only my second day and it’s just a lot of information. I feel willfully underqualified because I’ve never bartended professionally before so there’s just a lot a little things to learn but I did make some drinks. send learned a little bit more yesterday. And then we had a food tasting of all the things on the menu yesterday and that was fun. It’s really good food here so I’m really impressed with the chef his name is Ryan and he’s been all around the world. He calls his home, Rome, Italy, but actually, which is kind of funny his home is Kansas City, Missouri where I live he want to Rockhurst high school. So he’s probably close to my age. If I were to describe him I would say think of Anthony Bourdain personality type and actually this guy kind of looks like Anthony Bourdain with short hair he’s fairly lean tattoos wear his glasses, how’s that kind of Italian look walks with a little bit of a limp he said because he was injured because of Covid. Smoke cigarettes. And he and I have had some pretty good conversations yesterday shared with me that he lost his dog to a pitbull where he was living I’m not gonna go into the details of the story. It’s heartbreaking so. But we all have our demons and we all have our stories and I was appreciative that he shared his with me. He’s a hell of a good cook. I can tell you that so if you make your way up this way, he has food trust me you’ll like it and the prices for the restaurant up here are pretty reasonable compared to other places I’m impressed with that. Before I started working yesterday I did meet a couple Bob and Deb they’re from Pittsburgh. They’re exploring the area they’re traveling around this part of the United States right now and it will complete exploring all 50 states I’m assuming they’re retired couple and so they are just exploring this area and yesterday I sent them up to Bowman lake as they were waiting for the Mercantile to open and then they came back as I was talking to Bill Fordyce can I introduce them to Bill and we had a nice chat with them really super nice people and I’m glad I got to meet them and I’m sure they will be the first of many people I will meet that are traveling It’s so funny to see people traveling. How do you know? Relax, they are from ““ real life. So Bob and Deb I know you were going to look at this post today. It was fantastic meeting you and I hope to see you on the road again and you’re always welcome up here. Anyway, yesterday went well and it was a long day. I think I worked from 10 to 730 and then came back and just went to bed and slept really well so and today and tomorrow I’m actually supposed to be off and then I start bartending on Sunday, but I’m gonna go back up to the saloon because this is their opening day and just ask Heather what I can do, so there’s always work to do so I’ll probably yesterday oh by the way yesterday I planted flowers and cleaned up the tables outside in the lawn so that was a lot of fun. I love planting flowers and gardening. So and then last night on my ride home and I should talk about my commute so my commute basically about 4 miles or 4 miles back and I take my time part of it’s on pavement part of it’s on gravel. It’s really beautiful, as you see in some of the pictures if you see me on a long road or a picture of a long road that’s my commute and the views are spectacular and last night it’s just very peaceful very little traffic and you can just smell the pine and I usually stop at one or two of the creeks that I cross and just watch the water flow… You know what I’m talking about I know you do. Peace and love from the road Bill Poindexter.

Dispatches from the road… Remote, Montana

 Dispatches from the road, by Bill Poindexter 

(Season 2: Diaries of a bicycle traveler and novice saloon keeper in remote Montana )

730am Wednesday 5/24

Day 1 and 2 of my summer adventures living in a cabin in remote northwestern -Montana four miles outside of the -off the grid- town of Polebridge, Montana and 6 miles to the northwest entrance of Glacier National Park and…for my Bikepacking/ Bicycle Touring “tribe” -10 miles from the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route… specifically the road that goes up to a Red Meadow Lake. 

This is an extraordinarily beautiful area -the town of Polebridge I’m not sure of the population size but it has a Mercantile store/general store and a saloon, the northern lights saloon and that’s where I’m gonna be working for the summer. I flew in from Kansas City yesterday. Had my friend Bill Fordyce pick me up In Kalispell-I met Bill back in 2017 when I came to Polebridge the first time to explore the area. He’s an interesting man and friend -75 years old tough as nails and spends his summers in solitary mode doing fire lookout tower (with his cat) for the national park, service or national forest service… I’m not sure which. He lives in a fire tower and is helicoptered in and they fly him in supplies for the summer… he’s in places you and I will never know. In winter he usually is a caretaker in the Polebridge area. An extraordinary man. He knows a lot about the area so I asked him to give me a ride from the airport. That way I could get up and get the lay of the land and get settled and sure enough he did we made our way to North 

Fork cabins where I have a small cabin OK not really a cabin as you’ll see in the pictures - a shed, made of metal and plywood -but I like it and it’s home so that’s all that matters -

when I walk out of my cabin. I have a view of one of the mountain tops and glacier national park as you’ll see in the pictures and as I found out this morning and this is my first morning waking up I went, took a shower came back, made some coffee and eggs, and found that I had two visitors two deer-

young ones that were just curious about me as I was them. I love this. It’s about 7:30 in the morning overcast it’s sprinkling right now so you can hear the rain pitter pattering on my metal roof and I’m sitting in front on my little dirt porch listening to the birds chatter drinking coffee, and doing a spot of writing.

I really like this place very remote -yesterday afternoon after I got settled in and put my bike back together. I had a box it up for the plane. I did a ride for about an hour and a half and saw a mountain lion so when I say -this is a remote wild place, it is in its most naturalistic way. The people that live up here are tough. They have -50f below winters and lots of darkness and solitude when summer comes, everybody’s is full of smiles and good moods. I’m supposed to be here until mid September, working as a bartender/cashier at the front of the house of the saloon, I met my fellow workers yesterday and seem to be a good group of people. Good mix of young and old people. I like that everybody’s here for their own reasons… Definitely a gypsy tribe. I’ll talk more about them later. Everybody has a story. I’m supposed to start a yoga class up here as well -that will be good. I haven’t taught for a couple years because of the weirdness of the last couple years. But I’m excited about teaching again. OK the rain starting to pick up a little bit. I can barely see the mountain now -I can’t tell you what the weathers gonna be like the rest of today cause I don’t have any cell service. I’m gonna have to get up to the saloon later and get on their Wi-Fi and send this out if I can. I’ll talk more about where I’m living and what the set up is what the amenities are… And are not. I’m just glad to be alive and be in the middle of the mountains in Montana -

I encourage you to look up Polebridge and get a Better idea where I’m at And if you like this writing, I’m gonna be posting this primarily right now on wholeearthguide.blogspot.com my Facebook page-and I’ll start posting videos fairly soon. You can subscribe on the blogspot and get email updates every time I post I just have to get the lay of the land so to speak on what kind of access to technology I’m gonna be having. Although if I had my druthers, I would just shit canned the phone all together, but I feel like I need to share my words with you all.

8:48pm 5/24 Wednesday 

day 2 -the bicycle commute to and from work is extraordinary heading to work on the left-hand side of the road is the Flathead national forest where in this area all the way to Idaho there’s about 1500 grizzly bears, and then to the right is glacier national Park, that you can see in the photos that I took the peaks off in the distance are just extraordinarily beautiful and there’s about 500 grizzly bears there. Those are quotes from fish and game -looking forward to exploring the park in the national forest this summer there’s a lot of forest -I’m excited. The owner Heather Matthews, of the Northern lights Saloon told me today she wants me to work primarily days only because there’s so many mountain lions at night. But I think I’ll be OK. They don’t want anything to do with me. It’s a good day of training- on operations, the bar, bear training by Montana Fish amd Game as well as the Glacier Institute on use of bear spray - it was excellent… Although I do disagree with fishing games, killing of some of the grizzlies in the area and why they did it but that’s a story for another time also.. I learned a lot was able to go on a short ride after work into glacier national park and then just turned around and came back home as I was hungry and needed to do a little bit of homework. But a lot of great people today Megan who was the bar trainer who is also, an astrologist was really fun to work with. We’re gonna be having some really cool drinks this summer that she created. Everything here just feels good environment for people just the whole vibe. There’s a lot of universal synchronicity going on. I came back had a light dinner made some coffee read the employment manual that’s my homework, and filled up my water bottles do a little bit of cleaning and I’m gonna probably read for a little while go to bed here in a few minutes. So signing off day one and two. If you’d like, what I write, let me know!

By the way, it ain’t all good, there’s a lot of mosquitoes in the early morning, and in the evening, especially in the evening. I fall asleep to the Hum of mosquitoes , I’m laying in bed right now and there’s probably 10 in here with me. Just taking a deep breath and ignoring them sticking my head under my sleeping bag. Typically after a couple of days you get used to it, and for some reason they just leave you alone well we’ll see if that theory works :-)

Peace and love from the road Bill Poindexter.

Disclaimer: for those new to my writing, I write very simply, and usually by hand or dictate on my iPhone in the notes and then I edit a little bit. This is primarily free writing so it’s very flowing-so if you read it and don’t get the vibe of it right away. I just keep reading it think of it as nature poetry. And think of it as me just sitting down with you having a cup of coffee or a beer and telling you a story. :-)

Weather manipulation over Kansas City…

 I am so sick of all the cloud seeding (poisoning) going on. The powers that be whoever they are are putting silver oxide into the skies to create weather. Somethings been going on for 70ish years- it has been increasing recently and I’m unsure why, but I actually have some ideas. There’s a ton of research out there. Just Google it and I put a couple links at the bottom of this post. 

I’m not trying to convince you either way. I’m just telling you what I see and what I hear and what I feel. If you don’t believe me, just look up at the sky if you see trails in the sky and then it rains two or three days later it’s cloud seeding -it’s pretty simple. There’s no conspiracy theory it’s true. I’d like to know who’s doing it and who gave them information to do it because it’s my world too. “You” do not have my permission to do this and if you’re reading this, you think I’m being harsh, tell me if you gave these people/ pilots permission to put poison in the air. It is poison because it’s silver oxide- so little particles of silver. And you keep doing this to the environment to the earth it’s going to have detrimental effects to the environment to the animal life, plant life and to people including your children. You might want to read Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring.

It will help you understand a little bit better. If you want to engage me feel free to I’m open to debate anytime any day but it’s going to be face-to-face. I have no interest in doing social media debates. Also, if you live in the Kansas City Missouri area and want to engage in public debate or conversation, feel free to reach out to me.this country was founded on good open dialogue with opposing views happy to engage any time.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/mar/23/us-stated-cloud-seeding-weather-modification

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/eight-states-are-seeding-clouds-to-overcome-megadrought/

And truly, they are spraying us like bugs

https://m.youtube.com/live/xEgFsB_pf9s?feature=share

If you want more proof go for walks every day, look up at the skies, watch the trails of poisons, and then pay attention to what happens the following days. Pay attention to your body how it reacts is it tries to purge out the toxins, pay attention to the animals the wildlife And the grass in the flowers and the bugs and the bees. Everything’s related this is all cause-and-effect. Karmically we’re screwed. But we can fight the good fight. Feel free to engage me anytime you can reach me at bill@poindexterrecruiting.com. 

the seedling

 the seedling

By Bill Poindexter

 A story inspired by Iohan, the bike wanderer and a man with kind dark eyes.

 

Far away, long ago, there was a man who traveled the Earth on his bicycle and his name was, Iohan. He was of average height, had dark hair and dark eyes that looked very kind. All he wanted to do was explore the Earth and see what it was like from atop a bike.

 To earn a living he took odd jobs, one of the jobs was planting trees in an area where old trees had been cut down.  He said he enjoyed planting trees in the summer. He would walk all over Canada planting seedlings to fund his bicycling adventures. One of the seedlings grew into a fine very tall tree.

 The young tree grew and grew. Enjoying the fresh mountain air in which it lived, loving the mild summers, colorful autumns, fresh new springs and even its harsh cold winters when it mostly slept. Even relished playing with the wind, feeling the sun, and drinking the life giving rains, and it never felt alone as there were many birds and insects, and squirrels which made their home on the tree. The tree was very happy.

 One day the tree was cut down and was sad and scared. But the tree had a soul that was spread throughout its trunk, limbs, branches, roots and the tree, no matter where it was, always had a connection to the Earth for the tree had roots underground into the soul of the Earth and the tree would always be a part of the Earth, forever.

 The tree was turned into many things: paper and pencils for school children, comfortable chairs, a table or two, a park bench, and finally some paper that was placed into blank journals. It liked the park bench best because it felt loved as people would sit and talk on it and eat their lunches, children would climb all over it, pets slept next to it, and sometimes at night someone might even sleep on it. All was wonderful.

 But the tree had no water since it was not in the ground and it became old and brittle and there was a crack in one of its legs. One day it was removed from the park and placed in a small shed. The tree became very lonely for there was no one around besides the spiders and their webs, and the sparrows that lived in the rafters and the mice that lived underneath the floor.

 One day the door to the shed opened and an old man, with gray hair and a beard came in and sat on the bench that was the tree. The tree was happy. The man slowly ran his hand all over the tree to see if there were any breaks in the legs as the tree had been without water, except from rain for many years.  The tree felt the touch of the man and remembered the side of the mountain from which it came, and the man, Iohan, who planted the seedling, who was now the tree.

 “Hello my old friend!” The old man with kind eyes said with a soft gentle voice.

  “I am glad you are here. I will fix your leg and replenish your wood with some natural oils from the Earth so as to give you strength.”

 The old man and the tree worked together over the next week. Every day the man would come by in the evening and sand off the old stain, fix the break, and apply the new coats of refreshing oils for the tree. The tree was very happy and felt loved.

 The tree, one day, was taken to the mans cabin, on the side of a mountain, and placed on the front porch. It was a good place to go as now the tree was in the woods again; with clean air, other trees, and all sorts of critters to watch as it sat on the porch.

 Over the years the tree grew to love the cabin and the old man, with kind eyes, who gave it a life again. It had been so lonely in the shed, unwanted, rotting away. But now the tree was happy again.

 Everyday the man would ride his bicycle to town and every night he would ride his bicycle home. But one day he did not come home. He was an old man, and old men die. The man had been very kind to the tree, the tree was sad.

  Then the tree had a new friend who bought the cabin. The new owner, a young woman, a writer, whom, everyday sat on the tree, on the front porch and wrote stories about what she could see from the porch and then would read the stories aloud, to see how they sounded and would rewrite them over and over, then read aloud until she was satisfied. The tree liked the stories and was very happy again.

 One day the woman brought out a dusty old box which had been the old mans, and on top of the box there was a note:

 “These are blank journals which came from a tree I planted many years ago when I was a young man. I followed the life of the tree and was there when the tree was cut down and the wood harvested. Some of it was made into paper- these journals here and a bench, the same bench on my front porch of my cabin on the side of a mountain, the same mountain I planted the seedling on that became the tree. If you find these please write about what you see for the tree energy is the bench and on the pages and the tree will take you back to the Earth if you are lost, its energy, and mine will always be alive.”

 Time moved on and the tree and woman enjoyed their time together. But as with all things, change came about and the woman grew old. But the tree is still there on the porch.

 I write this, from paper, on one of the journals Iohan had saved. It was in a box I found that was my mothers, who had lived on the side of a mountain, and who was a writer, who sat on a bench, that was once a seedling, planted by a young man with dark hair and kind dark eyes named Iohan whom traveled the world by bicycle until he satisfied his wanderlust and just wanted to sit on the porch and feel the good Earth and be with the tree, his friend, the seedling.