Blue Creek Retreat

The breadth of experiences available in the WWOOFing catalog is amazingly broad, from the tiniest, ten member CSA to a 3600+ acre wheat farm, from more than fifteen years of farming experience, to...well, its a little hard to say.

On the Blue Creek website one sees a sort of fantasy Alpine Chalet in the Montana Rockies, with visions of fresh organic foods and pure mountain air. On the ground it is a bit more of a fantasy than a reality. Or perhaps it would be kinder to call it a dream, sadly not yet entirely realized.

So here I find myself, not in Heron, Montana (which is a "town" only by the greatest courtesy, consisting, as it does, of about ten houses loosely distributed along a rangy side road), but in Newport, Washington, just across the Pend Orielle river from Idaho, and about two hours drive from Montana.

And what am I doing here? Crawling and Grubbing? Driving monster combines? No, actually, I'm hanging sheetrock in a remodel that is another of the many projects that the dreamer of Blue Creek Retreat has going.

Newport is a small town (not really much different from Plentywood, MT, seat of Sheridan County, fourteen miles from Reserve, and home to the nearest public library). Newport doesn't have a web-enabled java joint, but it does have Owen's Deli, Fountain & Grocery (since 1915), where you can get a great malt or shake to sip while you're online with their free wireless. (And, by the way, if you're ever in Libby, MT, stop in at the cafe in town for breakfast - free wireless there too.)

Anyway, sheetrock this week, maybe painting next, basically passing the time (and getting paid for it) until my next stop in Omak, WA. Oh, and there's "Timber Town Days" this weekend, just down the road in Priest River, Idaho. Three weeks working should be good for about three more months on the road. Perhaps it will go on forever.