Montana

We returned from our annual week in Montana. The weather was great. We stayed in a Big Sky resort cabin with ski-in/out. It's about 50 miles north of the Yellowstone West entrance. Even without snow, there's lots of family fun. We did some fly fishing, white water rafting, hiking, archery, mountain biking, farmer's market, and zip-lining. We love it there so much we were considering a fractional cabin ownership but the HOA and fractional ownership fees are ridiculous. We might have to look for something more reasonable away from the ski resort area. We're hoping Trump's new max $10k SALT tax hits secondary home prices for a little incentive.

Here's a young bull moose bedded down (~26x zoom) on a morning hike. From the naked eye he looked like a rock in the bush:



It was difficult to catch in a photo but saw a double rainbow:


Nice view at end of hike:

Very nice landscapes. I've got to get out that way.

I keep adding requirements for the next move and an available water source is high on the list.

- a nearby water source, ideally a river or spring fed pond
- acreage, min 5 acres
- elk, deer traffic
- either no HOA or very low monthly fees
- city within 50 miles or so
- low property tax
- broadband internet, HughesNet would be a last resort

I found a few possibilities in Montana and Wyoming.

Internet is big anymore.
We do a lot of surfing in town on lowes wifi.

Recently had a landline run since cell reception is so terrible. Only internet options are satellite or dialup.

DSL is probably better than satellite but we had bad luck with DSL a few years back. Lots of disconnects. Hope it's better now. I need secure internet connection in the home so I can trade. Sometimes wireless carriers provide service into the home but I bet it's expensive and lower MBPS. Maybe a local real estate agent can shed some light. I frequently see 'internet ready home' but no mention of available internet service.

I ran across that crazy Yellowstone series with Kevin Costner on Paramount Network/Channel. It reminds me of the old Dallas series with some Sopranos thrown in. They mentioned Paradise Valley, Mt which is one area we were looking at. It might be about 50 miles north of Yellowstone's north entrance. The Yellowstone River flows through it.

That looks awesome. I really need more vacations.

DSL is a dead technology.
My understanding is no more new customers, even if ran in your area. Once you drop it, it's gone. From what I've been reading is replacement parts for the telecom are not available anymore either. They are scavenging from dismantled networks to keep current ones going.

Diesel Dan wrote:

DSL is a dead technology.
My understanding is no more new customers, even if ran in your area. Once you drop it, it's gone. From what I've been reading is replacement parts for the telecom are not available anymore either. They are scavenging from dismantled networks to keep current ones going.

I think you are right especially in populated areas. I read an article the FCC is talking about making a deadline for copper lines to be replaced with fiber optic lines. The problem is the plain old line telephone users would suddenly lose phone service. That's about 40 to 50 million US customers. ATT etc have tried to convince the FCC they need to force the regulation so they can dump DSL support and reap rewards from higher profit digital with all those data plans, caps, and fees. It makes sense for DSL only companies like Centurylink to advertise a "price for life" for current services as copper line/DSL are a goner.

Apparently 5G wireless will replace many copper lines and that's music to wireless company ears. ATT and Verizon stock is pretty cheap today and pay nice dividends.

Copper a goner?
We just had a land line run to the house.

Yep, many new home communities are prepping for the future by laying fiber.

It looks like Centurylink, primarily a DSL company, announced gigabit speed rollout in a handful of cities a few years back. They advertise gigabit speeds but the expensive rollout has been slow.

My brother-in-law works for Verizon on the fiber optic. 5 years ago they stopped their service about 10 miles north of me. He said the cost vs. population makes it prohibitive to run more lines to me.