I'll Show You Mine... If You Show Me Yours!

[BIAD]

So when the time was right I settled down in western Montana.

A quiet place with not a lot of people...

I'm certain my family and I met the ghost of an old woman in Virginia City in Montana!
It was one damp morning in August and I'm sure I have the story of it somewhere.

[Wallfire]

Who am I ? thats complicated, you could say I would bring a whole new meaning to the original meaning of bastard. Names have power, self knowledge has power, both I protect and treat with care. A person who has knowledge of themselfs and is at ease with that knowledge is often feared if not hated. So who am I. Finland is my home, my soul is from the mountains of Norway, my heart belongs nowhere.
Perhaps im the Wolf, perhaps im the Troll , perhaps im the hope that is in the word "perhaps"

A troll sat on a mountain, beside him was a wolf, the troll told of the 

mountains, that mountains are trolls and we have been here from the very 
start and will be here at the end, he told the wolf of how trolls can 
take pain and fear from humans, how mountains can carry great pain and 
never brake, he told the wolf of how trolls sometimes take human shape 
to be with humans, and of how trolls are loosing hope for the world 
because of humans.
A wolf sat in a forest and beside her was a troll, she told the troll 
about how the forest is alive, how trees give life to the world, she 
told that man can destroy a leaf, but only a tree can make one. She told 
of how the forest is full of hope and life, she told that the forest gives 
thanks for yesterday, believed in to day and has hope for tomorrow.
The troll hugged the wolf, the wolf was brave because the troll is 
powerful and ugly and could easily kill the wolf.
The wolf gently bit the trolls neck, the troll was brave because that is 
how a wolf kills
The troll and wolf looked at each other, and they knew they had found 
something, this something humans had not found so there was no human 
word for it, perhaps humans will sometime find it and give it a name, 
perhaps in time humans will come to understand it, perhaps,,,, perhaps

[Wallfire]

Some time all I need is the silence of the evening

[Chiefsmom]

Do you have vampires that come out at night over there in the rural areas?

LOL no, but I love that movie.

[BIAD]

...So when the time was right I settled down in western Montana.

A quiet place with not a lot of people...

My yarn from my Virginia City visit.

On one of our visits, we went to Wyoming and Montana.
There's a couple of places optimistically called 'cities' and they are far-removed from what we had expected.

Virginia City in Montana is a small town that still hold Main street buildings from by-gone years, wooden-sided stores and boardwalks
that creak underfoot. It became an Historical Landmark and  in my view, it's quaintness warrants more investment.

In it's past, a number of guys wandered down a nearby creek that hides in thick bushes and trees. The town wasn't there then and
these hard-weathered chaps just happened to stumble across the largest deposit of gold in North America!

Oh they devised plans to not reveal their discovery, but as history as always shown, someone always talks and when exchanging the
nuggets for cash, someone is going to ask themselves 'where are they getting the gold from?' Mining Camps grew up overnight and
then 'companies' formed and claims were filed. The site became a place where those who enjoyed fewer lawful restrictions moved on
and the companies took over.

When we visited, The Mining Company had closed the mine because of the current price of gold... they wait and now it's a place one
can go and take the tour around the site. Just as a factoid, they removed today's equivalent of $40,000,000,000 of the yellow metal.
A steam locomotive and a two-horse carriage takes you through the thin alder trees and undergrowth to a place where Eldorado
supposedly hides.

Nevada City is just up the road and it's one of the oddest places I have seen. It's an accumulation of buildings from the days of the
'Wild West' and when we arrived, I must admit I fell in love with the place. On that day, it was raining... let's be honest, I'm a Brit and
so you always take the weather with you!

It was early morning and as we paid a couple of bucks to a dreary-eyed youngster in a kiosk, I panned my gaze around the soaked
-wooden structures that sat morosely across from a steam train with an unlit-boiler and a solitary road. We wandered from leaning
building to shadowy construction and it seemed if any ghosts still remained, then that rainy weekday was their time to put-up their
spectral heels and cool their pioneering jets.

But I was enjoying the walk, Blacksmith's quarters offered aromas of tired leather and long-forgotten toil. A School House gave the
visitor hope that even out in the wildest of prairies, the children would be given the tools to thrive in a country that was still growing
up.

Glass cases contained dust-husked bodies of long-dead animals that may have prowled the surrounds of the once-thriving town and
collections of musty-smelling knick-knacks sat on desks, ornaments that once proudly adorned rickety tables of the small houses.
Time is the killer... isn't that what they say?

We entered a gloomy Saloon that held no Barkeep or spirited piano player, the drizzle was keeping most of the tourists away and
being a workday, I reckoned that had a bearing too. An old woman sat there playing solitaire on a gnarled wooden table and with
a kind weary smile.

Looking up from her focus of putting the red seven on the black eight, she asked us where we were from.
We chatted and she was informative of the collection of buildings, but on that grey day in August, I could tell you she would have
preferred to be somewhere else.

"Do you know how to tell gold from the fake stuff?" she asked suddenly and our smiles waned as I realised the mood in the room
had changed. I shrugged and looked to my wife for assurance, this seemed a little awkward. The white-haired woman held a wrinkled
hand up and showed with her kind face that nothing was wrong.

"When in the business of running a saloon, yer' gotta know what's real and what isn't" she said with a slight wink. Those pale-blue eyes
alighted on the third finger of wife's left hand and with a slight gesture, she asked "may I?"

The smart-one of my family weighed up the situation and then with a narrow gaze that warned of cunning and a rage that I have only
seen once, she passed her wedding ring over to the seated lady.

She did something... she touched the metalled surface of the lantern on the table and then drew the ring across the coarse fabric of her
ankle-length dress. Making a 'hmmm' sound, she contemplated the circular piece of metal in her lined-hand, we watched with held breath.
The prairie rain watched the incident through the spider-webbed window.

"It's gold, honey..." she murmured "...it's good gold" and passed it back to my wife's eager clutches. Smiles cracked again and after giving
a decent piece of time, we nodded our leave and stepped away from that dingy building. I would have traded her there-and then, my family
would have somersaulted for the visitors and even in the roughest of storms that roll north, I would of gladly fixed the shingles of the old
habitats and smiled in the deluge and laughed at the thunder.
A smile of someone happy.

The strange thing was that as we trotted back to the car, some newly-arrived tourists were handing their money over to the teenager
in the windowed-booth.
"We're open, but none of the performers are here yet" he informed the large couple with colourful baseball hats on their heads.

Well, maybe the old gal had come in early to miss the rain... yeah, that must be it.

[LSU2018]

Born in the USA, raised in California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Arizona, Oklahoma, British Columbia, Yukon Territory.

When I came back from overseas I lived in Florida, Texas, Oklahoma again, Colorado.

I was always looking in the USA for something that reminded me of the best times of my childhood... like a BC in the States.

So when the time was right I settled down in western Montana.

A quiet place with not a lot of people.

Beautiful! Whoever that is in the Milky Way toights in the first pic, those are badass. There used to be a girl who would always work out in a pair like that but they looked like legs with the skin peeled off and showing just muscle. It looked so real that you wouldn't want to look at them with a full stomach lol.

[LSU2018]

Do you have vampires that come out at night over there in the rural areas?

LOL no, but I love that movie.

Ha! It's a good one!

[guohua]

@"BIAD" 

Well, maybe the old gal had come in early to miss the rain... yeah, that must be it.

I think she came in to see all the Colorful Baseball Hats you guys were wareing, her and her Spirits Friends needed a good Laugh.

[Lumenari]

Well, maybe the old gal had come in early to miss the rain... yeah, that must be it.

Awesome family story!  



Where I live there are ghost towns nobody even knows about and hundreds of abandoned mines that are not on maps anymore.

One of my hobbies is tracking them down and visiting them.

They are scattered all over 1.7 million acres of National forest that mostly has no roads, much less paths.

There is one we go to that is a 4 mile walk up a mountainside, it isn't on a map.

When you go into the mine it goes straight into the mountain for about 200 yards and opens up to a circular area that was once a huge ball of quartz.

They drug everything out that they could, but left a pillar in the middle to support the space.

So you have an 80 foot space with a huge column of quartz in the middle.

We go camping there sometimes... it's about 60 degrees in there no matter what the temp outside and is absolutely stunning to see if you light a campfire up in there.

A billion points of light from the quartz.

I've some stories to share too eventually...

[gordi]

...There is one we go to that is a 4 mile walk up a mountainside, it isn't on a map.

When you go into the mine it goes straight into the mountain for about 200 yards and opens up to a circular area that was once a huge ball of quartz.

They drug everything out that they could, but left a pillar in the middle to support the space.

So you have an 80 foot space with a huge column of quartz in the middle.

We go camping there sometimes... it's about 60 degrees in there no matter what the temp outside and is absolutely stunning to see if you light a campfire up in there.

A billion points of light from the quartz.

I've some stories to share too eventually...

[Anathros]

Okay...Arkansas. Its pretty simple to sum up. The state where men are men and the sheep are scared.

[Sol]

Okay...Arkansas. Its pretty simple to sum up. The state where men are men and the sheep are scared.

There is still a place where men are men? Here in Montreal, men...shutting up....

.

[Lumenari]

Okay...Arkansas. Its pretty simple to sum up. The state where men are men and the sheep are scared.

In Montana there is still a law on the books that states you cannot drive a truck with a sheep in the front cab without a chaperone.

As an added bonus...

Guiding sheep onto a railroad track with an intent to injure the train can get you five years in prison or a $50,000 fine.

[WonderCow]

https://youtu.be/3UP5eAOQuo8


 I grew up in the Cannock Chase area, which now seems to be paranomal central for the UK  for some reason. Anyhow, I spent many happy hours playing in this little wood when I was a child.

[BIAD]

https://youtu.be/3UP5eAOQuo8


 I grew up in the Cannock Chase area, which now seems to be paranomal central for the UK  for some reason. Anyhow, I spent many happy hours playing in this little wood when I was a child.

Oh... so you'll be familiar with Deborah Hatswell and her YouTube videos? DH links:

[LSU2018]

Well, maybe the old gal had come in early to miss the rain... yeah, that must be it.

Awesome family story!  



Where I live there are ghost towns nobody even knows about and hundreds of abandoned mines that are not on maps anymore.

One of my hobbies is tracking them down and visiting them.

They are scattered all over 1.7 million acres of National forest that mostly has no roads, much less paths.

There is one we go to that is a 4 mile walk up a mountainside, it isn't on a map.

When you go into the mine it goes straight into the mountain for about 200 yards and opens up to a circular area that was once a huge ball of quartz.

They drug everything out that they could, but left a pillar in the middle to support the space.

So you have an 80 foot space with a huge column of quartz in the middle.

We go camping there sometimes... it's about 60 degrees in there no matter what the temp outside and is absolutely stunning to see if you light a campfire up in there.

A billion points of light from the quartz.

I've some stories to share too eventually...

That's awesome. With my luck, I'd go into one of the abandoned mines and it would cave in. Montana or Wyoming, maybe the Dakotas, are the only states that could successfully rip me from my roots here in rural Louisiana. We don't have mines or mountains, but we have voodoo, Bigfoot, ghosts, and lots of other mystical & mythical things that you'll see if you hang around long enough.

[BIAD]

That's awesome. With my luck, I'd go into one of the abandoned mines and it would cave in. Montana or Wyoming, maybe the Dakotas, are the only states that could successfully rip me from my roots here in rural Louisiana. We don't have mines or mountains, but we have voodoo, Bigfoot, ghosts, and lots of other mystical & mythical things that you'll see if you hang around long enough.

And the dolphins at Gulfport who did a runner before Katrina hit! Yer' got to give it to the fish-that-thinks!

[LSU2018]

That's awesome. With my luck, I'd go into one of the abandoned mines and it would cave in. Montana or Wyoming, maybe the Dakotas, are the only states that could successfully rip me from my roots here in rural Louisiana. We don't have mines or mountains, but we have voodoo, Bigfoot, ghosts, and lots of other mystical & mythical things that you'll see if you hang around long enough.

And the dolphins at Gulfport who did a runner before Katrina hit! Yer' got to give it to the fish-that-thinks!

I'm too far from the Gulf... My Parish borders Ar-kansas and it's 2 Parishes away from Tex-ass. I've never seen a dolphin. Been to the Gulf in Florida a few times but I only got in the water to pee. 

Here's a shot from our condo we rented. I don't know why it says 1 year ago, we went in June 2015. Most of my time was spent watching the stars at night from the beach. 

[BIAD]

I'm too far from the Gulf... My Parish borders Ar-kansas and it's 2 Parishes away from Tex-ass. I've never seen a dolphin. Been to the Gulf in Florida a few times but I only got in the water to pee. 

Here's a shot from our condo we rented. I don't know why it says 1 year ago, we went in June 2015. Most of my time was spent watching the stars at night from the beach. 

Aw man, I walked out into the darkness in that stuff in the image. Warm, still and looked down on by a starry sky.

The dolphins were kept in a pen at Gulfport -along with a seal that barked at everyone and some other marine animals.
If memory serves, we visited an Aquarium further east on Highway 90 (near Biloxi, I think) and was treated to watching
a large shark die in the tall tank!

I told my kid it might be tired!

[LSU2018]

I'm too far from the Gulf... My Parish borders Ar-kansas and it's 2 Parishes away from Tex-ass. I've never seen a dolphin. Been to the Gulf in Florida a few times but I only got in the water to pee. 

Here's a shot from our condo we rented. I don't know why it says 1 year ago, we went in June 2015. Most of my time was spent watching the stars at night from the beach. 

Aw man, I walked out into the darkness in that stuff in the image. Warm, still and looked down on by a starry sky.

The dolphins were kept in a pen at Gulfport -along with a seal that barked at everyone and some other marine animals.
If memory serves, we visited an Aquarium further east on Highway 90 (near Biloxi, I think) and was treated to watching
a large shark die in the tall tank!

I told my kid it might be tired!

Biloxi, MS? You were only 5 and a half hours southeast of where I live then. That picture I posted was in Panama City Beach, Florida. Here's another one of an airplane that flew by with a banner on it. It's crazy the things you'll see when you snap a photo and then zoom in.