04 april 25

very late, please forgive me.

April was a blur and I suppose so is May, being that this post is a month late. If we weren’t at our 9 - 5s we were working at our house in town and if we weren’t doing that - we were sleeping. But folks - we did it. After 14 months of renovations, we finished our little house on the Northside and our first renter moved in May 1st. It’s a weird feeling spending so much time in a place, getting so attached and passing the keys off- not knowing the next time you’ll be back inside.

We spent the last month playing catch up- on aspects of life left neglected - including having a little fun. Here’s April’s fuel, May’s will follow in a much more timely fashion.

Coffee

My typical coffee brewing method is an Aeropress or a pour over if I’m at work. I used to strictly use a Mokapot, but the gasket blew on my old one and I started to see sparkly (metal?) floaters in my morning cup. I got scared and tossed it out, but sometimes I miss the strong, concentrated, espresso - like brew that it produces and the sound it makes as the the pressured steam pushes the water through the grounds and into the top chamber. My friend has one and brought it along on a weekend camping trip. Clean up is similar to an Aeropress. One hard tap and the coffee puck is deposited into the trash. If I were to get another I’d try this one, not your traditional Bialleti, but still Italian and fun and another way to diversify your morning cup.

Location

In dire need of some guilt-free time to yap, a friend and I loaded up the truck with little direction and too much stuff. Girls & trucks & the open road. The possibilities and mischief are endless. We had plans to soak at Gold Bug Hot Springs the next morning, about 160 some miles south of Missoula. Under the spell of the vast sage brush and tall red rock surrounding us, we drove south of the hot springs, eager to see what was around each bend. Towns were few and far between and kept saying we’d stop in the next one for firewood. We eventually settled on Ellis and when we got there, there was nothing but a shady post office and river access. Our poor service led us to believe something different. We took the nearest fork in the road and followed it to find some BLM land to call home for the night. We pulled off the 2 lane highway onto a narrow washed out road path where we immediately flushed out two chukars. We chugged up the trail in 1st until it flattened out, opened up and 6 antelope went bouncing away above us. There wasn’t another sole out there. In true girls-in-trucks-fashion we tried to take the Tacoma higher than it had business being, killed it, and backed it down ever so slowly in fear of rolling off the road. We found a flat spot to park out in the high desert, surrounded by mountains, some high enough to hold snow, where we made dinner and a fire fueled by sage brush. We got stoned and talked about how wild the west is and how much of it we have left to see. Stumbling upon spots like this one make me want to keep exploring -

Read

Christian Pung’s Midnight Run. Easy on the eyes and a good read - every time.

Record

CCR’s Creedence Gold. The get shit done & road trippin’ all-in-one - soundtrack this month.

Photo(s)

From a ski up St. Mary’s peak

Shot on Canon Sureshot Telemax | Kodak Porta 400

Misc

Spring skiing. Just when you think you’ve had enough - that sun cupped slush is irresistible. Sunny ski days in the winter are hard to come by around Missoula, the valley is almost always socked in. When spring rolls around skiing feels like a different sport - different season and that sun feels so good.

Talk soon-