7-13-09
National Folk Festival
I was invited to come over to Roberts house for supper and to stay the night. I was pleased to find that Rebecca was there with her baby, or maybe toddlers would best describe him. I left in the early morning and had to snap this picture of Robert’s Hummer Limo. Amazing eh?
I took the back way over to Butte and had to stop and take this photo of where I used to live. I have a family relative that owned a ranch up in the foothills of these Tobacco Root Mountains. He let me stay up there, and I was snowed in for the winter.
I made it to Butte and set up my tent in Keith’s girlfriends yard. I took off on the bike and went up to see the mining museum that is nest to the old School of Mines or as it is now called Montana Tech.
They had a few mineral samples, but really not much of a display.
In the ultra violet light room.
They have gathered old buildings from all over and made a little ‘town’ of them with displays in each building.
I really liked this display of how the mining timbers were cut to fit in the mine tunnels.
I took a stab at hand drilling at the Jim Butler Days event in Tonopah, Nevada when I lived in Goldfield. I think I only drilled down less then three inches in ten minutes. I had been hammering in nails and thought I was in pretty good shape for this. It turns out that swinging a four pound hammer and hitting steel is a lot different than a nail into wood. My arm cramped up so much that I finally had to quit.
This was one of the toughest job in the mines, drilling uppers with a double jack or single jack. You might notice that in the single jack photo the guy is opening his hand on the back swing and letting the sling ‘hold’ the handle to his arm. I think that may be the secret to get the blood and toxins out of the mussels to keep them from cramping up.
There was a nice head frame on the grounds but they wouldn’t let you climb it……. Boo…..
These were sure heavy built ore carts. I think they were underground carts and were hinged to go around corners.
A section of wood water pipe with the iron rings around it to hold it together. When we lived in Arcata, CA we had one of these pipes that ran across our back yard and my brother and I would ‘walk’ the pipe.
More ore carts, but I thinki these were above ground carts or wagons.
An old well drilling rig, or maybe a test hole drilling rig.
This is an interesting rig. It is made to scoop up material and then hoist it over the operator and dump it behind itself. Probably into an ore cart. Little ones down in the mine are called mockers. I have never seen one this big.
This had an interesting dump method that was mechanical rather than hydraulic.
An old hoisting machine that was just beautiful in design and detail.
Instead of a wire rope or cable, this machine used a flat woven belt.
I liked this homemade cement mixer. I suppose it had an old one cylinder motor when it was first built.
This is a really slick Stamp Mill powered by an old Fairbanks Morris one cylinder engine.
They have a little underground display and thought this was pretty neat rig. An iron Thunder Bucket…..
I like this chair.
When I stopped to see Iwill (Willie) in Oregon at his farm, he was telling me about his Sauerkraut business that he is building up. He does very well at it and has become locally famous for his Kraut.
A very early Snowmobile.
This photo is a real optical illusion for my eyes. At first look it looks like a depression in the ground but after a while I can see it as it really is. An iron drift block used in the blacksmith shops.
I liked this little smoke stack cap. It seems like every ‘tin’ man had his own way of making these caps.
This is an old Cradle for washing gravel and sand, looking for gold.
I had just been to the dentist before I left on this trip. Things have changed a little over the years. I might add that the prices have changed a little too…….
I couldn’t get a good picture of this truck as it was in a long narrow room. I paced it off and I think it is about sixty feet long.
I liked this eye doctor sign on this shop……. (paying attention, Dr Toast?)
It seems all my life I have heard about Pork Chop Johns in Butte. I called my brother Dan who is living in Michigan now and told him that I was in Butte. Dan went to the School of Mines when he first went to college. He said I ‘needed’ to go down to Pork Chop John’s as my dad used to go there as well as he went there to eat. So now there have been three Mongold’s that have eaten Pork Chop sandwiches there. My Grandfather probably at there as well, so maybe four M’s’
I actually wasn’t that impressed as they now serve a patty of pork glued together and deep-fried. I bed that a ‘real’ pork chop would be better and is what made them famous.
I finally made it down to the Festival and this is a picture of the crowd heading to the main stage, and the crowd that was already there. Whoa……… This is about as far as I got, as it was overwhelming for this country dog to get into this many people. When it gets to where I can stand in only one small spot and not move, it is TOO much for me. I left there and headed on down into town where there are other smaller stages and the crowds were not so severe.
The alleys were granite cobble stones in the old days. Now they have paved over most of them but I found this little stretch.
Across from Keith’s girlfriends (Mary) place is one of the big old iron head frames. They have lights on it and this is what it looks like at night.
On Saturday morning Keith took Donny and I for a ride and showed off Butte and some of the little towns that surround Butte. This is a view of the mining area and the edge of the Berkley Pit which now has a huge lake (Keith says the deepest lake in Montana) of toxic waste in it. There is still some mining going on over on the far hill. This is copper country as well as some gold, silver and other metals.
This mine was the deepest of them and went down over 6000 feet, giving Butte the title of the Mile High and Mile Deep city.
I just loved riding and driving around Butte. There are some really nice well built places as well as down town some really magnificent huge buildings. Keith says that when Butte was in its prime, there were over a 100,000 people here. Now there are about 34,000 which is still a lot of people for me to be around.
I think the most unusual thing about this town is that when I went down every street, the houses were totally different from each other. There would be a modest wood frame house next to a big two story brick and on the other a mansion. They all seem to get along together and it is really refreshing to see the variety of building styles. I guess it comes from there being so many different nationalities of the residents. There were little towns all around here that were special for Germans, Finns and such, but Butte had them all.
Keith took me to a real gem of a little store called Bills Farmers Market. It is famous and people come from all over to shop here. as you can see if they don’t have it, you probably don’t need it.
This is about ¼ of the wine selection.
Some of the cheeses available with little tasting containers with a tooth pick.
A painting of the store.
We went over to a friend of Keith’s and he had this little bench that he was going to restore. It is really unusual in that the back of the bench will flip over so you can face the other direction. We had fun thinking up why they would want a bench to face a different direction. Has anyone seen one like this before? If so, let me know what the reason is and I will pass it along.
Donny checking out the sign on the neighbors yard.
This is a group that plays music from China. The guy on the left is from Mongolia and he sure was good. Actually all of them are really good and they took turns showing off their instruments as well as playing together.
On a couple of their tunes this dancer came out and danced for us. She is some sort of famous dancer in China and I can sure see why. She was a real geezer pleaser.
This is Sierra Hull and part of her band Highway 111. She was amazing and only 17 years old.
Otrov, they played amazing fast tempo music called tamburitza which is Eastern European Balkan music.
This was a special set where a couple of the musicians from several groups were on stage together. The announcer had them demonstrate their instruments and what could be done. This guitar type instrument is over two thousand years old in design while the hammer dulcimer the gal is playing came to China over the silk road XX years ago.
Amazing piano player and guitar. Jeff Little Trio with Wayne Henderson
This guy played a leaf while the gal played. He was absolutely amazing in this. He took his time selecting just the right leaf to play from a small branch.
A bumper sticker out on the street. It looks like they have been this way for a while judging from the age of the sticker.
I walked over to an area where they have people selling things made locally. Nice wood work always attracts my camera.
This is part of the Colombian group Los Macondos. They were amazing in the BEAT that they played. It was really hard to sit still while they were playing. I was at the stage that had a dance floor and it was absolutely jammed with dancers, moving to the beat.
The last band I saw Saturday night was this Cajun band called BeauSoleil avec Micheal Doucet. This was at the dance floor stage as well and it was packed just as tight as the Columbian band. Wow, that Cajun music has no brakes…..just fast and furious.
I got to hear a lot of different music and from all over the world. I forgot to take my camera on one music trip so there are bands I saw that I don’t have photos of. This festival will be held in Butte again next year. It was held there last year for the first time. The festival is moved every three years to a new spot and they hope that the community will keep up the music on their own from then on. This is the first time it has been held west of the Mississippi so we are really lucky to have had it up here in Montana. The whole thing is free but they have people with red buckets going around hoping that you will donate money for the major expense that this event must entail. When you donated, they gave you a little sticker and most folks had one stuck on their shirts. It was beautiful weather for the event. If there hadn’t been just so damn many people there, it would have been perfect for me. I sure am not comfortable in crowds, but I suffered through it…..J
Check out the website….. http://www.nationalfolkfestival.com/2009/
bios and little clips of their music here…..http://www.nationalfolkfestival.com/2009/festivalinfo_performers.php#kirchen
The ride home Sunday was about as perfect as it gets. I am in love with my Fatdog…….. 75-80 mph and smooth as silk.