BetterMost Community Blogs > Shakestheground's Rumblings

Shakesthegrounds Rumblings

<< < (221/1161) > >>

Shakesthecoffecan:
It was the coffee and the dance music that got me to Bragg Creek that moring. I am not sure how many kilometers it was, maybe a 45 minute drive and RouxB & Fabienne's direction were perfect. The findingbrokeback bunch was in the parkinglot booting up. With them was an additional memeber, Barry from Ohio, who is also in the Giant catagory.

Our wrangler was named Allen, a friendly retired rancher and former bronc rider in the Rodeo. Just as nice as could be. His son is taking over the business from him next year, and I feel it will be in capable hands. Along with them was Harley, a mountain of a man and two women, one of who is either married or closely connect to Harley and the other a supermodel who was going to help her brother skin long for his new cabin the following day. There were also two dogs that accompanied us, a black one, mostly Lab, and a balck and white sheep dog that never tired and was always happy. "That" I told myself "is what I am coming back as next go round."

Tamarak had hope we could also visit some sights on Canyon Creek, but it proved to be one of those places that even though you could see it from our destination on Moose Mountain, you could not get there from that point. We could return from the trip, truck the horses to another spot and go there, but it would mean a 12 hour day. I began trying to calculate how that would work with my energy level, and it would not.

The day before Fabienne had her run in the a horses hoof and Mouk had her run off a saddle. Allen was keen tknow how they were doing, and I hoped they were well. The only horse incident we had that day involved Allen himself, leading the line, my horse right behind his, almost trying to stick its nose up the otherin's butt, they were crossing a small branch and his horse became spooked and reared, then fell back on him. His bods came running, got the horse up, got him up. He said that he thought he might have broken a bone in his foot, but he was not headed back.

My horse, Doc, was a good mount. He never got excited goin up unless he say a mountain bike coming, we had to keep our eyes out for them. They would stop and let us pass, "how you doin" eh?" a plenty. I felt right at home, like I did this every day inspite of wth my thighs were tellin' me.

The switch backs goin up the mountain conspired with the pine trees to rob me of my Jack Nasty ball cap, which Allen's son returned to me when I reached the top of the hill. I had figgured I might have to let it go so it was nice having it handed back to me. In the high meadows the dragon flies swarmed like a plague, none of them really bothering us. After about three and a half hours we rounded a bend to head up above the tree line and my attention was called to the valley to might right.

There, was the long upward trek of the computor generated sheep, where they ascend an make a hard left, a thousand of them. The angle was slightly different, but recognizable. Onward, up the trail we went to our final destination. There stood a carin of rocks. On flat one painted on it in red: Jack + Ennis. Here, the spot, this the direction, and with Nova's and Barry's help, there the rock that had sat behind Jake Gylenhaal's butt when Heath Ledger came up beside him and squatted down.

"This is a one shot thing we got going on here."

Out in the distance, some 40 km. away, you could make out the skyscrapers of Calgery. I laid there on my right elbow in the Huquerco made my Jake, in his spot. It was a strange feeling. More than seeing the scene, but being in the scene. That vast, lonely mountaintop, the wind blowing, the bear bell bedecked hikers walking by, oblivious to this as the sight where a famous movie had been filmed.

Barry took me over to the other side of the path and showed me where the camera had sat, at a different angle, and captured  Ennis, the fall, Ennis, the sinner on horseback, finally going back to the sheep when he hears the dogs bark. Here I started to learn things, like the trees in the background are the same trees you seen in the frontal shot of the "You know I ain't queer" scene. Where ever they found a place, they shot a scene, if it could work at all. My minds eye searched and imagined the cast and crew, maybe a hundred people, and the sheep,  all in this spot. There are photos the forst service took while they filmed there, you can find them on findingbrokeback.com.

"Over there" Barry told me, and before he could finish it I recognized it, the cliff they are driving the sheet along when they move camps. "It is about a 15 minute hike over there, and it is steep on the other side". My sore legs and feet didn;t want to attempt it, it wouldbe 15 min there and 15 min back, and I still had to eat my lunch of pepperoni, powerbars and apple and water.

Shale rock covered the ground.Thousands of them. I found two irredescent rock twinkleing with shinney points for Judy and Lisa, found two grey shale stones for Paul and Juan. Found an old Black Cherry Soda can from way back in the day, but left it there. The dogs enjoyed my pepperoni scraps, like they needed a reason to be my friend. 

As soon as we started back Doc wanted to trott, I had to continually hold him back. I wanted that ride to be overwith too, but my rump had done took all it was gonna take for one day. It seemed like forever to get back the way we came.

Once stopped for a break Allen told me about wintertime hunting trips he has to camp way back in the wilderness, saying "for tuff guys like you." I turned around and looked all over. ME? thought, I took the compliment and kept my mouth shut.

Shakesthecoffecan:
Our Wranglers: :D

Kelda:
Tru, I love love love these stories - keep em coming! And I would be very happy to have a regualr Travels with truman story to read!

Shakesthecoffecan:

--- Quote from: Kelda on August 06, 2007, 08:20:11 am ---Tru, I love love love these stories - keep em coming! And I would be very happy to have a regualr Travels with truman story to read!



--- End quote ---

Well I'll see what I can do about that!

Shakesthecoffecan:
Meryl told us we had to be up and away from there by 7 am.

It was Friday, and the heard of cats was moving south. This would require removal of smashed bugs and dirt from the windshields of vehicles. Packing and claiming and carrying away of food stuffs. Lee had taken off that morning, headed back to Colorado, thinking about her departure I played Emmy Lou in my head singing "can't remember if we said goodbye". We had our directions and took off according to our readiness. I saw the pimpwagon headed out and fell in behind. Judy and Mouk behind me in a PT Cruiser.

The TransCanada Highway was the same as when I had been the day before, the exit toward Bragg Creek the same. RouxB and myself hunted for the gas door release leaver only to find you need to give it a little push. We got turned around a couple of times before reaching Longview, but nothing catastrophic. I could tell when the call came in to RouxB's phone, she passed me on a mission. I held on and followed.

Out, down below in a valley I saw the vehicles I recognized, turned off on a dirt road, there at the intersection a studly cowboy in a white hat was waving us in that direction, was he our guide for something, no wait a minute, that's Eric! Come to join us at last.

Those of you who have never met Eric in person, you should. There are few people I have ever met more comfortable in their own skin, more properly filled with their own being than this man. He is gregarious and charming, infectiously happy and outgoing. I hope his folk are proud of him.

Up the hill we went, and parking on the side of the road we congregated, I looked back where we came from, and in a fit of deja vu recognized where I had been.

I had waited a couple of months to see Brokeback Mountain. I had first heard about it on NPR when it was at the Toronto film festival and told myself I would need to remember that name so I could rent it later, it sounded like a great movie. Then the buzz followed, the sound clips on NPR, the trailer on TV and that music, that beautiful music from Shawshank Redemption, I knew then no matter what I had to see that movie as soon as I possibly could, which was at an art house theater, a one hundred mile round trip. My partner had to ask me if he could go with me because I was so single minded in my mission. The sense of pride and apprehension that came over me when I saw that marquee say "Brokeback Mountain" was just the beginning of a long sorting out of things. It was about the third showing, the largest theater full of people. The lights went down, Focus features and River Road Entertainment showed off their logos and then the title came up, came up against the very rolling hills I was looking at now and I though: "I cant believe I am finally going to see it". Now, all these months later, there before me, was a car headed south on a road toward Signal, a town that never existed.

Kat's husband, hell he has a handle now: U/C Flyer, had his portable DVD player going, playing the scene, and we, once we got quiet, listed to it, soaked it in, and then was shocked back to reality by a passing train, in the movie that is. Judy, in a foreshadowing of her role to come in my story, gave me a big hug as the tears filled my eyes.

From there, we made our way south still, saying a prayer to whoever/whatever listens to prayers in that part of the world that Judy, low on gas, would have the Hanukkah Miracle performed in her gas tank. It worked, Many kilometers later we pulled into a little town where a woman was pumping gas at the pumps. I had not encountered such since approximately the 27th of August, 2004 in Taylor, Nebraska. This place was much the same, a crossroads in the middle of nowhere. I talked with Fabienne about how it was starting to look like those towns and we wondered what it must be like to live there.

Inside, the woman pumping gas told Judy how her brother had met Heath Ledger during the filming. Had his picture made with him. She was just smiling and happy about it and I thought that was so cool. If they had filmed it where I live, no one would admit being associated with it. I heard the train passing nearby, a sound so familiar. We were close I remember thinking.

Down the road we saw huge windmills. The kind used to make electricity. And then a sharp left off the main road into the little town of Cowley. When I turned onto that street, it was like I was coming home after a round the world trip by Yaris. 

We pulled off on the vacant side of the road, the side with the train tracks. Across the way the red church steeple behind a stack of fence posts, where Aguirre's trailer once sat. Where Jack had pulled his truck up was a store selling jerky of all kinds, with a plywood cut out of a male figure shooting an Elk. A woman sat on the bench there, taking it all in. What must she think? Oh Gawd, more of them, because of that movie, bunch of homos and hangers on come to disrupt their general peacefulness. Two young boys on a riding lawn mower went down the street at top speed pulling a third on a skate board, eager for attention. There was safety in numbers, until the towns folk poured out of wherever they were hiding.

Oregondoggie was there, in his aquablue Escort stationwagon, the same one he had driven last year from Oregon to Wyoming when we all got together in the town of Buffalo. He who had whined he would be unable to make the trip was suddenly coming in the last remaining days. He who had put my prayer from the casher out on the clothes line of the world had been to the Mint Bar, had pictures of the pool table and a tale of seeing the unknown man. Ten years older, and not alone. Let us hope it is so, I have no reason to doubt such a gentle soul.

I walked over to the store and checked out the parking lot. I was there with Phil and Paul and Kat when the stores' proprietor came out with something green and nylon in her hand. She asked if we were there because of Brokeback and we told her we were. She said she thought we would like to see this: it was the back off of Ang Lee's directors chair, he had given it to her himself. She was proud to be showing it off. Phil produced a microphone and began talking to her about the shoot there, and she invited us into her store. "We have the best jerky in the world" she told us.

Inside there was a poster of  the movie, and a younger girl at the counter made us feel welcome. She retrieved the chair back so Pete and Oregon could have their picture made with it. I told her her as I paid for me buffalo jerky that in many ways we felt trepidation going to these places and she looked puzzled and asked why. I said it was because of the gay thing. She said "That's not what that movie was about". She went on to say that people there saw the story for what it was, about love and struggle and loss. I exhaled, a little bit.

Down the street the alley where Ennis feels his guts being pulled out, just before the parking area for the rescue squad where Jack's truck was parked, I had always thought it was still in front of Aguirre's trailer. My own attempts to recreate the sound effects was still too familiar too me and I exited the little space as the kids were coming up the street again on the lawnmower. Unable to come to a complete stop they ran into the corner of building, giddy with excitement. I heard differing stories of what their take on Brokeback was.

Armed with some dry red meet in my stomach I staved off hunger for Ft. McLeod, about 40 km. away. My rear view mirror speaking more to the dirtiness of my car than anything I was leaving behind.

Ft. McLeod was a bigger place for sure. There we had a number of scenes from Riverton, the divorce court, the bus station cafe, the bar where Cassie just finished her shift and of course, the apartment over the laundry. Little places we had to seek out as 3/4 of them were concealed behind their veneer of real life.

The Java Shop building dates to 1912 or so, one half diner, one half Greyhound station. They are REAL proud of their roll in Brokeback. They have posters on the wall, they have a TV playing a continuous loop of Cassie and Carl entering, her confronting Ennis, the arrival of the returned past card and that chilly, gut wrenching phone conversation with Lureen. They keep a steady order of apple pie, and you can reserve table 25 if you call ahead, sit where Heath ledger sat, with you back to the TV while Jack is beaten to death. I am glad they included that sobering part.

Our waitress was a nice enough woman who gave us menus and then told us what our choices were. I got a big old red meat hamburger and a split a plate of fries with Oregon that nigh one of us could finish. They are looking for help BTW, Mouk.

Kat and Flyer, with the assistance of Kirk and Eric, worked on their own going project of recreating the scenes in the locations the originals were films. Kirk, I don't know if he was just pretending to eat that pie of if he actually was putting it in his mouth, sat at 25 while Eric escorted Kat in. There were towns people in half the place and I was giddy with excitement that they had enough nerve to do this in broad daylight, that it was okay to do. I was not prepared for what I saw. Kat is a natural. She was in character and she was Cassie. Not the first crack, she went Thur those lines like a pro. I was so impressed.

Out on the street, in true feline form, we ended splitting up into two groups, one headed for the court house another for the bar. I followed the latter, as far as the door. The smell of stale beer and old tobacco smoke hit me before I entered, and a life time of self preservation kicked in again. Shakestheground learned early on he don't go in places that smell like that. They are inhabited by dangerous people. Others in the group went in, had a beer, but like Eric said in one of his posts in the pictures thread, you can only expect so much from people drinking at 2 pm. Next door was a theater, they had a world premier of a play that night and offered walking tours of the film sights in the town. It was here that the local premiere of the movie had taken place, with the whole town turning out. Ang Lee himself had attended.

Down the street a left hand turn at the gift shop and there at the end of the block was the apartment. The stairs, the landing, the enclosure, the parking lot across the street. It seemed smaller than what I had imagined. A poster hung on the wall, replacing an earlier movie poster that had become faded. It heralded the site as the location of filming for three days in June of 2004. Jake's last name was mispelt, and we were invited to take all the pictures we wanted, but to please leave the tenants alone. I gave Judy a kiss in the stairwell, she let me be Ennis.

(The findingbrokeback bunch has actually been in the apartment, it is rumored that Tamarack can tell you the distance between the medicine cabinet and the door jam.)

The court room was not a big deal I thought. Juan and myself climbed those stairs having somehow lost the rest of them and checked it out. A sign at the door advised us to remove any muddy boots. Nice old place, with the obligatory movie poster, done in good taste of course. And the herd moved north again, in fits and starts and in confusion, but with a spirit of cooperation.

 

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page