Big Sky Blog

Over at Dustbury, Charles has an entry about a list of the “Top 100 Oklahoma Embarrassments.” Among the guilty: Toby Keith, Dr. Phil, and the movie “Where The Heart Is.”

That got me wondering – if we were to compile a list of the “Top 100 Montana Embarrassments,” what – and who – would we include? But given our rather small population, maybe we ought to make it a slightly smaller list. Let’s settle on the “Top 27 Montana Embarrassments,” shall we? Throw out suggestions — politicians, athletes, events, musicians, whatever. Once we get plenty of entries, I’ll set up some sort of a voting mechanism and we can rank them.

Surprise, surprise: at the close of today’s market, the Canadian-$ is now at ‘par’ to the U.S.-$:

David may get the opportunity to take lots of pictures of Canadian vanity plates and Montana merchants may get to see lots of fresh faces over the coming weeks, hey!

I love seeing customized “vanity” plates on Montana vehicles, so I finally created a blog to showcase them: Great Montana Plates! Some are funny, others are creative, and a few are just plain cryptic – but they are always fun to see and figure out! Most of the plates that I post will be from the Great Falls area, but I’ll be sure to snap some when I’m on the road, too.

Well, here is a bit of shameless self-promotion. I recently wrote a guidebook to cross-country ski trails in southwest Montana (the areas around the Gallatin Canyon, Bozeman and Paradise Valley). There are 30 ski tours, plus ideas for snowshoeing, the best places to ski with kids and fun things to do after the skiing day is over.

Centered around the dynamic mountain communities of Big Sky, Bozeman and Livingston, and spread across four mountain ranges including Yellowstone National Park, Ski Trails of Southwest Montana features some of the most scenic XC ski and snowshoe terrain in America.

If you are interested, take a look at First Ascent Press.

Here are links to some interesting recent entries in the Big Sky Blogosphere; as always, you can view the entire roster right here.

- The Montana Main Street Blog, operated by the Montana Chamber of Commerce, considers the different “good for business” rankings that Montana has earned from various sources.

- Scoop Montana tells us why he believes that Jon Tester has been a disaster in his role as Montana’s newest Senator.

- Patia tells us all about her boobs – by the numbers.

- The new politics-free blog devoted to Montana recipes is chock-full of good ideas for making tasty dishes, with contributions from all over the state: The Spoon at MTDiner!

- G.P. tells us how riding and interacting with horses is good for our four-legged friends – and us, too.

- Over at Greater Falls, we learnd that the Ulm Pishkun Buffalo Jump has been renamed and is now known as “First Peoples Buffalo Jump.”

Take some time to visit these good folks and leave comments on their blogs – start a discussion!

Everyone is on a lookout for cheap airline tickets on the aloha airlines or the alaskan airlines or even the indian airlines, but a select few have the access to the free airline ticket guide.

What a great time! Drove out last weekend to enjoy the annual “What The Hay” festival, checking out the creativity of the folks in and around Windham, Utica, and Hobson. Lots of fun hay sculptures, and some good stuff (food, crafts, etc) at the Utica Days festival, too.

Click the pic below to see some of the hay entries!

What: BBQ (shish kabobs, etc.) for Montana bloggers and blog readers

When: 1-3 pm on Saturday, 9/22/07

Where: Big Mike’s Deck
More details: Bozeman, MT

(We might be pushing the season a bit, but I’m predicting great weather that day!)

The Spoon joins the Montana blog-o-sphere:

Dave Budge has added The Spoon, a food/recipe addition to his main blog, DaveBudge.com .

In Dave Budge’s own words, “I created The Spoon to share with friends and family all that is relevant to eating and drinking. We will discuss recipes, restaurants, equipment, eating anecdotes, where to get ingredients (in the sparse retail environment of Montana) and tricks and tips on how to prepare food.”

The Spoon is an ideological free zone and is open to anyone who wishes to become a contributor.

UPDATE from David: The Spoon now boasts its very own domain: MTDiner!

If you’re looking for something fun to do this weekend, how about a drive out to Utica to celebrate “What The Hay?” It’s an annual event that features dozens of hay-themed “sculptures,” as the folks in central Montana put their creative flair on display using one of our greatest natural resources!

These sculptures are displayed in central Montana in fields between Hobson and Windham, with the town of Utica as the midway point and center of What the Hay activities. Locals and visitors peruse the various hay bale masterpieces and check out the small towns of Hobson, Utica, and Windham that along the way. After everyone’s had a chance to see the hay bale displays, hay arists and onlookers gather for a big barbeque and vote on their favorite displays. Past displays have included a mechanized, musical Jack-in-the-Bale, a brightly colored Cook-Hay Monster, a Unicorn constructed out of hay, and two Finding Hay-mo fish. The thousands of people attending the festival cast their votes and hold an awards ceremony the next day at the Oxen Yoke Inn in Utica, where the winner is announced.

If you’re wondering where Utica is:

I took a drive out to Highwood last weekend and spotted what I think will be someone’s entry in the What The Hay festival; looks like it might be titled “An Apple A D-Hay!”

And if you decide to check out the hay-fest, might as well stop by Lewistown to enjoy the Chokecherry Festival, too!

Time for another edition of Small Town, Long Streets, the weekly podcast/talk radio show from mtpolitics.net. The show is live on Wednesday (September 5) at 9:00 (Montana time!). This week’s guest is Gregg Smith, aka “Gee Guy,” a blogger from Great Falls who has been trying for months to get some straight talk from the City of Great Falls regarding the controversial Highwood Generating Station (coal plant). He also has generated quite a bit of interest in the upcoming mayoral election, posing questions for candidates and posting their responses on his Electric City Weblog.

The show begins at 9:00 p.m. MDT, and you can listen live from the Blog Talk Radio site. You can call in to the show to talk to Craig and Greg, or try instant messaging or e-mail to pose questions or comments:

Phone: (718) 664-9769
Yahoo! IM: mtppodcast
Email: podcast@mtpolitics.net