Dispatches from the road
By Bill Poindexter
Diary of a novice saloon keeper and traveling cyclist
Days 4-5-6 and beyond:)
The last three days have been good- on Friday I made my way into glacier national Park and up to Quartz campground area and saw lots of bear scat on the road so definitely know the Bears are around possibly even some wolf scat. I’m still trying to get my bearings on how to carry my bear spray carrying on my hand on the bike or even better. You need to carry it on your body on your sternum area or a sternum strap of a backpack is the best way to do it just in case you get separated from the bicycle. I’m gonna talk more about that later. Unfortunately, last year six bears were euthanized by fish and game up here for various reasons. I definitely don’t wanna be the cause of a bear being killed. So hence why it’s so important to carry bear spray.
I’ve been meeting a lot of people up here and I’ve been having a lot of fun. I met two couples on. I think it was Friday did Lorna and Paul and Joyanna and Bob, from Flathead Lake, I believe. Really nice folks. They were one of the first customers when we opened on Friday. Definitely enjoyed the burgers and I was just working for a couple hours. I ended up getting a burger too by the way, the burgers are fantastic here I’m a burger snob, do you know when I was a kid my mom was a gourmet cook so we had everything freshly made. My dad insisted on it. Everything was from scratch and she had taken Julia Child’s cooking school at a local school so she had a good background gourmet cooking plus she was a really good cook anyway. So when we went to restaurants when I was a kid and I have six older sisters, so it was a big deal to go out whether we were on vacation or just in our hometown of Kansas City we would go to a really nice restaurant and everybody else would order really fancy food but because my mom was such a good cook the fancy food at the restaurant didn’t impress me at all but what did impressed me was a good burger specifically a cheeseburger so I kind of became a cheeseburger snob so to speak as a child I would get an ice cold Coke and order a cheeseburger with fries fries -another story not too many people make it fries. But I will say that the northern lights saloon has an excellent burger this year.
So had a good ride on Friday into glacier came back and ended up having a couple of beers at the saloon with some locals so that was a lot of fun getting to meet everybody and getting to know everybody lotta people have different backgrounds different reasons for being here I met a guy name Clay he’s the one with the beard he and his wife have a Yoga Instructor studio about a mile up the street good people Austin’s been working in the area- He’s the redhead a guy for a few years and he works over at the Mercantile and runs the food truck. I think he does other things. Diana is a -well she does something for the EPA. I’m not sure but she works basically from the road. She’s the blonde woman in the picture and then there’s Tom who wears a kilt. Not sure what he does. Probably just odd jobs and I’ll talk more about other people later, well actually I did meet a couple from LA Gabriel and Jackie Gabriel, from Puerto Rico, is a professional documentary filmmaker just got done doing a film, dealing with agriculture and farming. I’m not sure of where it’s going to be, but I’ll write about it later, if opportunity arises met them up in or saw them up in Glacier when I met another guy name, Gary is a software engineer. He’s the guy on the bike. He lives down over by West Glacier and he is an entrepreneur to working on some kind of farming, start up for people to learn how to farm at home specifically with chickens I think. He has a YouTube channel called Flathead living so it’s Gary Paduana I think?
So that was all on Friday Saturday got up and made my way up to the Mercantile for some coffee set a little paperwork and some emails to catch up on. Then Bill Fordyce came up and we had a good chat. He told me a lot of stories about his life which hopefully I’m gonna get permission to share in the future. Very, very interesting man. He was telling me some stories about what happened to him in the 60s in the early 70s. So he even told me a story about meeting Rush Limbaugh when he was on a float trip in the Missouri Ozarks. Before Rush Limbaugh was famous. So it’s a good story I’ll share in the future then I went to the saloon, met with the owner, Heather, for a little while, and got through the rest of all my paperwork in just expectations of the job, which was good because I missed the original orientation day. Then I made my way back to camp. Ended up just taking a nap for a couple hours and then headed up in the Flathead national forest up hay creek (forest service Road 376)and spent-a couple hours biking in the rain made my way back down to Polebridge around 530 and her ended up going to have any coffee again and seeing Bill Fordyce and then I met Jill, who is a friend of Bill‘s and she’s a mule packer really cool background I’m gonna be writing writing about her. She basically works for the national Park service were the and forest service. I’m not sure which Bill met her because when he was at a lookout tower he she was the one who packed in all the food in during the summer with a group of horses -Sometimes she does it solo and sometimes she does it with somebody -tough woman. We then headed over to the northern lights saloon, and there was a good band last night and a lot of people just a lot of fun had a burger and a beer just hung out and had a good chat. Came home early to get some sleep because today -Sunday -
Day six is my first day of actually bartending -ever -so Ll I’m a little bit nervous it’s around 839 in the morning having coffee and going to head to the saloon in a little bit to get on their Wi-Fi because last night Aimee, my roommate in Kansas City, wasn’t able to get in Little kitten in last night -so I had dreams all about that last night and felt that I even visited the apartment in the middle of the night and I was walking through walls. I’m in an area where I am way north, only 20 miles from the Canadian border where the northern lights are visible at certain times of the year could be may be the magnetic ions in the atmosphere transported me back to Kansas City :-) so I didn’t sleep that well. C’est la vie. it’s all good though everything’s fine little kitten came home this morning. So I think that’s it for now. Peace and love from the road.
Addendum: well, today is June 1! Spent the last few days learning the ropes. These shifts have been good learn a lot the last two days the owner wasn’t there, so the pressure was off and I think I shined. Getting the hang of everything. And I think I’m really enjoying myself . Still have a lot to learn, but I have a whole summer to do that and a couple weeks to fine-tune everything before the crowds come. I’m enjoying working with everybody everybody’s super nice even one of the guys who lives next to me. Mike brought me a bike pump yesterday. It’s very kind. Had my first solo shift yesterday from start to finish and it went really well. It was raining when we first open so I was out putting up the signs and saw people kind of looking at the place and took a menu out and told people what kind of food we have so people came in for lunch. I really like bartending and hearing stories and telling stories. :-) I’ve been really just focused on the job and I’ve been having great conversations with my friend Bill. Also, a few other people mostly people who work at the Mercantile. It’s fun learning about everybody’s stories. 0h 2 nights ago on my commute home -it was probably around 630 and a couple miles away from my cabin on the main road, I saw a large animal, crossing the road -black bear -stop took some pictures. Hopefully I’ll be able to post them. It was just a black bear. Pictures aren’t that great, but it gives the general outline of the body. That was fine. Just another reminder of where we live. Also I’m including a map and this post of the national forest of where I’m at. That’s just behind my cabin in Flathead in National in Forest so you can get a better idea of where I am. I stopped at the restaurant that’s next to our camp, Home Ranch Bottoms last night. On my way home looked at the menu went took a shower and came back. I had a beer and fries don’t really have the extra cash to get a burger yet but it was just a nice way to end the night they have a nice deck out there and Flannery and Dan are super nice hosts. And I like the idea of having a bar and grill right next-door to her camp. It’s a good place for me to go and kind of just chill out on my own and do my evening writing, and reading. I am most likely have good chats with folks as well. OK well that’s the end of the addendum. I just wanted to get this post out. I’ll post again in a few days. I think I’m off on Friday and not sure my next day off.
If you like my writing, you can subscribe to an email notification on the blog. I’ll be posting throughout the summer dispatches, as well as videos and thinking about a podcast. Thank you for reading my words! More coming soon… last pictures are of my coworkers playing bocce outside her cabins
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