A few weeks back my wife and I ventured westward to give musician Sierra Ferrell a listen at the KettleHouse Amphitheater in Bonner, Montana. As is often the case, when you go to a concert of this sort, there is bound to be an opening act…some good…some not so much.

Musical taste, like many tastes, is quite subjective. Basically, we like what we like, and although we can say why we liked or didn’t like something, I’m not so sure we really know why. Much of it can probably be attributed to the nature/nurture cocktail we find ourselves being marinated in during our formative years.

The Brudi Brothers opened for Sierra Ferrell, and I tried to nurture a liking for their music, but by their second song I found myself heading for an extended nature break and a fresh cocktail to marinate my mind in, hoping that both would take about as long as the setlist they had planned for the evening. Subjectively, Dawn liked them. So it goes.

There is something about Sierra Ferrell’s music, and Sierra herself, that appeals to a wide range of people, and this eclectic gathering of humanity dramatically illustrated that you can wear whatever you want to a concert. We’re all a bit odd in our own ways, but at this concert there seemed to be a disproportionate number of people that were disproportionately odd fluttering about.

Good music…tremendous people watching.

The concert was Saturday night, so we stayed at a cabin by Seeley Lake on Friday night. I chose Seeley Lake as a destination because it is where one of my favorite authors wrote one of my favorite books. Norman Maclean and his father built a summer cabin at Seeley Lake in the early 1920s, and Norman, born in 1902, got his first book “A River Runs Through It” published in 1976.

I wanted to see the places, the trees, the mountains, and the rivers that Maclean saw. For whatever reason, I wanted to be where he had been. Why do we seek to see these places, to be in these places? Places where lives were lived and stories were written.

The Maclean cabin sits dwarfed amid a grove of massive Larch trees, the oldest and grandest of the grove being “Gus”, which is 153 feet tall and estimated to be around 1,000 years old. Dawn and I walked under the canopy of these trees that many have walked under for many years to get a closer look at the cabin.

The cabin is still in use, and still owned by the Maclean family, some of whom were occupying it as we lurked about the Larches while day faded to dusk. Perhaps the family is accustomed to weirdo’s making pilgrimages to the place that a book was written 50-years ago by a guy that has been dead for 35 years?

I was a respectful weirdo and didn’t move any closer to the cabin than the public lakeside path allowed, and as we stood there, legally lingering and leering, someone emerged from the cabin. Perhaps to come and ask a weirdo if they would like to come in and look around…sit in Norman’s chair…stretch out in his bed…shuffle around in his old slippers…write with his favorite pen? No…they walked down to the waters edge and were either taking a picture of the setting sun or looking for a cell signal to call the authorities.

I came and I saw, and now I know the rest of the story. “Good day.”