June 5th - Helena

I checked the weather report for Yellowstone - 20 degrees, rain and snow. the extended forecast was rain and more rain. So - being the flexible guy that I am - I decided to head to visit my friends Anne and Jerry in Helena. Unlike the day before, the weather on the ride to Helena was great for the entire ride.

Like a lot of the areas I've been riding through, there are not a lot of people in Montana. I was getting a little tired and a little sleepy, not good on a motorcycle so I pulled off I15 and stopped at very small town - Dell Montana, population 35 and went into what I believe is the only store in town.

Jeannie, her husband and a friend Paul are the owners of the store and have been in Montana for 18 years. Jeannie moved out from Iowa and Paul from New Hampshire. Jeannie has two daughters that grew up and graduated from high school - graduation class 8. Jeannie said that her daughters always complained about not having anything to do but yet always found something. Her daughters moved away, went to college and thought they would move to a bigger city but once country was in their blood - they moved back near mom.

Why live here? Clean air, great place to bring up two daughters, great people and a business that is thriving. Their store is the market, fast food, post office, and a rental office for some log cabins they have for tourist / hunters. Montana is a big hunting state and Jeannie said that a lot of their business is processing and packaging the meat for the hunters.

Jeannie and her husband own a 500 acre ranch about 10 miles from Dell. She said they will never leave. What Jeannie is doing to make the world a better place is giving a great start for her daughters, with good values and a safe environment.

Jeannie pointed to the mountains in this photo and said their ranch was at the base.

My second stop was in Butte. I went to a small espresso place for coffee and a sandwich. The waitress, Addie, (only one working) was great, friendly and eager to please. I wanted turkey, they were out, I settled on ham. The ham was so thin you could see through it. Addie was so nice that I just couldn't say anything. As I was leaving, she said, "thanks for coming, this is my first day working here."



As I got closer to Helena I started to notice more and more Pine trees that were turning brown and looked like they were either dead or dieing. There were thousands.

I called Anne when I arrived, parked the bike at Carroll College where Anne is a professor, and joined her for some errands she had. I asked her about the trees and she said it was Pine Bark Beetle and that it's a major concern. If there is a lightning strike, it could mean a major fire. The Pine Bark Beetle destroys a layer just under the bark and then moves on. The wood in the trees is still good and they are trying to log as much and as fast as they can.

Anne has started a new program at Carroll using animals, mostly horses and dogs, to train students in how to leverage animals in treating people with certain psychological mental health issues. The program has been so successful that Anne has been asked to go to Greece to speak about the human animal bond to a group of Europeans. The good news for Anne is Carroll wants her to expand her program.

I plan to be here for a couple of days to visit with Anne and Jerry and also to visit Cathi, the sister of my first girl friend, Sue Ann (We were 12 and it only lasted a week). I need to find out how Cathi ended up in Helena from our home town of Fort Bragg California.