Lookout Pass photos

Ok, now I'm getting excited to go skiing myself. Here are a couple of pictures I took at Lookout Pass last year.

Forest pictures

Here are a couple of more pictures from hunting camp. A brief break in the weather allowed the sun to shine. It made for a pretty morning in the forest, but it wasn't long before the next weather system moved in.

I like to walk up this trail. It used to be used as survival training, then it became an ATV trail. Now that ATVs are banned from this area, it's just a trail that I like to hunt on. That big tree in the foreground is a cedar. There's a creek below to the right. There wasn't much color in the forest here when I took this picture so I removed what what color was left.

Retro camper pictures

I wanted to post a couple of more pictures from my weekend at the late hunting camp. It was really cozy in my 1974 Bell slide in camper as the snow closed in. I could hear the snow coming down and hitting the side of the camper and like I said I was snug as a bug in a rug in there. (and there were probably a few real bugs in there too..) Now the camper is off of the truck in my back yard and covered with a tarp, and my hunting buddies are still up at that camp in the snow.. Wish I was there with them. I might drive back up with the truck for the last day of hunting season, but we will see. If my guitar is ready I might drive back to Montana and spend the night at the cabin on Flathead Lake. I'll sit by the fire and play my guitar as winter closes in. It doesn't get much better than that.

Below is a picture of the forest view outside the back door of my camper the next morning as the sun came up. It was really something as I drank my morning coffee. Nabob coffee from Canada BTW...

Vintage Camper

Don't you wish that some things would never change?.. I love to camp, but I'm not a big tent camper. Don't get me wrong I have a small tent, and I like it unless it rains. What I really like is camping in a vintage camper, from the 60s or 70s. There's just something about them that is different than the new campers. There was an economy about them and well, the price is a lot lower now than a new camper, I couldn't begin to justify the cost of a new camper or a new pickup truck for that matter, but I don't think I'd enjoy a new one any more actually. The systems in the old campers are simple and work well. Of course nothing lasts forever.

Last weekend I took my pickup camper hunting and I was snug as a bug in a rug in there as the weather closed in around me. The sun came out after the storm and it was beautiful in the woods for a while. But another weather system moved in and I think winter is starting to take hold of the mountains in the northwest. I really like the way the picture above captures the snow coming down. I was looking through all of the pictures I took on this trip and this one really stood out to me.

The sun came out the next morning and it was really beautiful in the forest. But the weather didn't last very long and another storm system moved in.

Vintage camper countertop repair

I've been spending all of my free time building a new countertop for my 1974 Bell slide in pickup camper.

To avoid confusion, now I have two vintage campers, the 1968 Aristocrat travel trailer, and the 1974 Bell pickup slide in camper. I got the Aristocrat travel trailer, because the countertop on the Bell was falling a part, and I wanted something nice to take Queenie camping in,.. (so I got an even older trailer house..) Anyway I decided that I needed to fix the counter top in the Bell as I figured no body would buy it, and I'd keep it for the time being to take hunting, as I don't want to abuse the Aristocrat on hunting trips in the snow.

So here is the result of my countertop work on the Bell. My friend gave me the teal oven out of his old Eldorado slide in when the roof on that old camper finally gave up the ghost. But the oven was too nice to just throw away so he took it out and gave it to me. All I had was a cook top, and since I like to bake bread and such, I wanted an oven. I've made a table top to match and still have to trim the formica on that and install the metal edging. Then I should be good to go hunting, and I'll save the Aristocrat for smoother roads.

Bone nut for my Martin D16

Last week I drained the water in the cabin so the pipes wouldn't freeze this winter. Then I stopped at Paradise Montana to meet with Rick who agreed to put a new bone nut on my Martin D16 guitar. I don't think he usually does this sort of work as he's busy building beautiful guitars, but a rancher friend of mine turned me on to him, so I think he's doing me a favor. Anyway, it was making a weird sound on the high E string when played open. So a new bone nut is in order. I can't wait to get the darn thing back as this issue was keeping me from playing that guitar, and it's really my best guitar. You'd think that Martin would have cut the nut better on this level of guitar but I guess nut.,, I mean not..

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Got my guitar back and the problem is solved. So now I can get to know that guitar better as it pretty much sucked before Rick fixed it.