Lake Phelps, grand teton park.

the Teton Range. That big beautiful teton in the middle is the Grand Teton. Tops out at 11.5k ft. i wanna climb it! Weather and the death of an Exum guide kinda put a damper. 

tetons at dusk

Lake Jackson

dirt bike chi'c

Its our preferred form of travel these days. The dirt paths of Montana have us captive. We never want to stop riding. The dry summer has the dust thick in the air. Or maybe we are robbing the noon stagecoach? Ride motorcycles have fun. 

Totson Dam, Missouri River, Montana. Free camping. 

The property we stayed on near the tiny burg of Mammoth Mountain. Its an abandoned gold mine. I went through the old miners dump and found some relics. The green grass was backlit by his ranch light. The light cannot be turned off with cutting all electricity to the entire camp. Worked out here though. One of favs of the milky way.

Sailor lake. Mammoth Montana. 11,000 ft.

If you ever have the opportunity to crash a Christensen/Swaby family reunion, do it. The jerk pork, rum punch and company can not be rivaled. 

Sometimes you gotta take chances....

Dont do it, they will tell you. You won't make it, You might fail, embarrass yourself or get hurt. Don't listen to those cowards. Try, succeed, fail, all are better than "i wish i woulda". take chances! If you haven't go read my post about my interaction with two supreme court justices during my time on Capitol Hill that  I posted earlier. Im not telling you to go ride your dirt bike naked, although it was exhilarating. I stuck to gras and dirt roads though. Gravel got a little bit too real. Foot note: I have also re upholstered the seat since the photo. 

Rafting with friends

Even rafting the home river of your seasoned river guides can horribly wrong. 

So its a new raft? I say. Yeah, had it out a couple of, or maybe one time. My salty river rafting friend tells me. Alicia and I,  happy with the sounds and smells of a Colorado summer, gleefully go along. The river was lower than it had been and we enjoyed what started off as a lazy sunday river cruise. Craft beers, belly laughs and perfect surroundings were enjoyed by all. The new boat was a cataraft, a special boat designed to haul gear, lots of heavy gear. With the weight of the gear, the boat is a solid raft that can withstand worst of the worst rapids. A contender in just about all whitewater. Without the load the lightweight boat becomes a mere cork in a boiling cauldron of white water, as we were about to find out. Probably 3 minutes before the great unpleasantness of the Animas river 2016, A thought burned through my brain. This is fun, and boring. We had missed all the whitewater, so I thought. The creek we had been camping by certainly had slowed in the mountains above this river. Oh well, sit back crack another beer and enjoy the lazy river ride. What happened next is a bit of a blur. The boat lurched back into the first big hole, smelter they call it, and then catapulted forward slinging my buddy, and his buddy, a paid river guide, on this very stretch of water, aloft over the front and sides of the raft. Alicia and were the only two left in the boat, which had also lost one oar. With just one oar and beer in the other hand I was ably to right the boat, rescue the two experienced river men overboard and steer us to relative safety in a river side eddy. So if you need some one to help you learn the ropes of your new Cataraft, Alicia and I are your team. 

Silverton Colorado.

Splitting wood for the fire.  Outside silverton. It was a place of ups and downs. Mostly ups. 

Sweetie and her dad mining for gold. Thats dads river sluice. You shovel material into the chute and let the current move it through and over the catch mats. The heaviest material, gold, sinks into the fiberous mats. You do this for a few hours. Then wash the mats into a bucket to free out the pay dirt. Then we blue bowled the remaining material to sort the heaviest pieces. About 4 hours later a fraction of a gram of gold was his reward. The lesson here, It all adds up. Starting small is still starting. 

This is Mineral Creek outside Silverton Colorado. A wild little mining town with one paved road. 

1995 TW200 fully restored. Its kind of our R2

I found a beat up old bike in some ladys front yard in Moab. Bought it, restored it and now its our scout bike. It rides on the front of the F350. Gets about 150 miles to the tank. Turn signals and the passenger seat up make it ideal for our situation. They have been importing this bike since 1984. You can go buy one today and the only difference is that the 2016 will have a disc brake instead of a drummy on the front wheel. And you can no longer get the rocking teal slash graphics, which I have declared officially Retro. I reupholstered the seat an restored the plastic. Slapped on a fresh carb and tuned it up. Runs like a top. The rear tire is a massive 180mm wide ballon. fun little two wheeler. Ive already sunk it in a mud puddle up to the exhaust pipe up in the Bitterroot Mtns. That big floatation tire powered right through like a giant paddle wheel. Have fun ride motorcycles. 

Just the one fall off and run over incident. We have put that behind us. get it? hehehehe