This Place in Bozeman is a Rare Sight
Not many of these exist unblemished. (Don't be the one to mangle it.)
As a general practice, I try not to take anything with me when I run. It's just me, my shoes (no socks), a pair of shorts with the underwear built-in, a layer or two up top, and that's it.
I don't wear any jewelry or bracelets. Apple watches or anything with a screen that flashes or beeps or monitors my activity and stores it in some server farm only to be sold to the most mildly interested bad faith third-party bidder misses me.
And my phone I leave behind because it's big and clunky and I look at that dumb cracked in the corner screen too much anyway.
Running is my way to be unencumbered, untethered, and I suppose I try make a conscious point of attempting to feel that way even though something during that time invariably creeps into my head and brings me back to the present, or rather, the not-too-distant future where thoughts of the actual nightmarish loop of the present creep in, decisions have to be made, and reality sets in once more.
Running's a privilege that I don't take for granted—my ridiculous indulgence. But as much as I try, as many times as I attempt it, it's impossible to freeze time.
A week ago today, I attempted a longish hill climb on the trails in Palm Springs above the art museum.
If you take the serpentine rocky stair step system to its natural end, you'll wind up 10,000 feet later at the top of the tram where they'll take you back down to the valley floor for $14.
I wasn't going to go that far, but I wanted to make a dent in the route, so I got up pre-dawn—which wasn't tough for me, I don't really sleep in hotels much anyway; no matter how much they advertise to the contrary the sheets always feel like sandpaper, the air in the room tastes like a hangover, and the heavy water from the shower always feels like you're running late for something that doesn't matter, but you're going to get in trouble for missing anyway.
There's also the stale air of bad sex, or sex that didn't happen, or regretful sex, or sex that had trouble being anything because the pair simply did it out of some other need they couldn't identify at the time, or grudge sex (is there any other kind in a hotel?) that lingers long after the occupants in question and that's just—too much humanity to deal with for many nights in a row.
On this day, on this run, I figured I'd take my phone with me just in case. It was a strange trail and a strenuous one, and, well, if I were lost to a bobcat before the breakfast buffet closes, I'd at least want to text my last emojis goodbye.
Part of this rethinking comes from losing a friend and former coworker this past year who was taken out to sea by a sneaker wave on the Northern California Coast just a few weeks after her father, her closest friend, was taken by Covid.
I don't think she went on purpose, but also, things happen the way they happen, and never totally on accident. All of us in her circle knew that she, a long-time food critic and a writer with few peers, was ALWAYS even better in person. But after she lost her husband to sudden heart failure two years ago, the laughter seemed to ebb. She never didn't have a flare for the dramatic. A morning bagel and coffee run could result in an entire day's worth of stories—so it made sense that when she was ready, she let nature take her.
I've had my brushes with wildlife and nature's grand yet understated scheme to swiftly put an end to my precious few moments here— especially in Lake Tahoe, where treachery lurks around the corner so much it becomes a friendly companion.
But that day in Palm Springs I was rewarded instead with a family of desert bighorn sheep; only some 400 or so are left in North America.
Rounding a corner and seeing the boss of the flock out on a rock, surveying the slumbering small city beneath him—the reverse beeps of big delivery trucks the only sounds echoing up the canyon—was something I thought I'd never witness in my lifetime.
There he was, and there I was. So I sat on a nearby rock and tried to sync up my breathing to his. A morning mist shot out his nostrils and the younger of the sheep, his charges—not as steady-footed—rooted around his path looking for tiny shrubs or bugs to pull out of the ground to eat. He was blocking my path, and a couple of grunts, perhaps warnings, impeded my progress. I didn't even think of my phone till it slipped out of my pocket and banged on a rock as I got up to go away. So I snapped a picture and he turned in the other direction and let me through.
On my way down, a guy around my age lugging thirty pounds of professional-looking camera equipment stopped me, "Are they there still? I got a text." I smiled, happy to be the bearer of good news. "Yes," I said. "Enjoy." He looked at the peak about a half-mile up and said, "My god," he said, "I've been waiting my whole life."
309 E Beall St Bozeman, MT 59715
I made my first trip to Bozeman about 15 years ago to interview for a city reporter gig at the Bozeman Daily Chronicle.
Back then, it was still a small town on the edge of a dark and forever forest. It was, at least from what I could see, content with being a place where the Dairy Queen was the Friday night hang and the Applebee's was where you went when you got a sitter.
Downtown was miniature, spare, and nondescript but starting to change. A fancy running shoe store went in, and a little jeans bar with mountain town flair was next. A brewery, a little coffee roaster, and a sushi joint were soon to follow.
But overall, the plain-front frontier facade still had its banks, and old timey sporting goods store, and framing shop, and feed and tackle spot just opposite the last stoplight. The homes that sprinkled throughout this eight-block radius were well-kept, seemingly by generations of local gentry. And the college (Montana State) loomed over the whole thing as a consistent supplier of young or young-adjacent folks stitching, at least for a moment, into the local fabric.
The job didn't pay much, probably thirty or forty grand or somewhere thereabouts, and was a lateral step if anything. Still, the cost of housing (you could buy a little 3/2 cottage like this one for somewhere south of $200k) had its appeal. And there was a real undiscovered can-do vibe that attracted so many others from other West Coast metros. Even if it's a drill or some idyllic fever dream of a past that wasn't there in the first place, it feels real.
And you weren't sacrificing anything as far as lifestyle or outdoor activities. Twenty minutes outside of town one way was Bridger Bowl ski area, twenty minutes another way, and it was trails so deep and dense and vast, it scared me into turning around early at multiple turns.
In the end, the job went to a local, rightfully so. I'm sure I have the scent of a carpetbagger that follows me into a room like the scent of morning breakroom coffee.
I wonder how I'd feel today if I'd lived in Boseman that whole time, especially to see the Covid- and pension-infused brand of freedom-loving Californians mangling information their whole way up there to the endless tracts now being built around the town, redefining Gallatin County as some kind of similar strip mall nightmare as the one they left behind here.
My life not lived in Bozeman still exists, but now at a price. This one's about a block from Main Street in a quiet neighborhood of old-growth trees right off the main drag. It's been a rental for a long time. Long enough to do some Poison Ivy wall decor thing in the living area.
But it's also dodged the bullet of the Home Depot/Wayfair remodel, and that's something to admire along with the forgotten outbuilding on the back of the oversized lot. For under three-quarters of a million, you can clear out the clutter, refurbish the kitchen cabinets, and give it a fresh coat of paint and try to ingratiate yourself with your neighbors. Just make sure to switch out your plates before you roll up to the DQ.