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Mid-July – After enjoying some ranching and quilting fun in , we strolled the cute town of Hamilton where there is a high-end, ambiance-rich, specialty coffee bistro on every corner.  Our kind of town!  Wandering down one street, Mark noticed a guitar shop, and just had to stop in.  We got chatting with Cody, the young owner who, together with his wife Nichole, has taught guitar since they were in their early twenties and had recently purchased the store, .

The wall was lined with Taylor and Takamine acoustic guitars, both of which Mark has owned and liked.  But tucked in among them were another brand, BitterSweet Guitars.  “I make those,” a voice said behind me.  Our eyes popped open as we turned to see a friendly looking fellow with a mustache.  Really?  Hand-made guitars and the builder right here on a stool at the counter??  His name was Ken Rumbaugh, and it turned out his workshop was just outside of town.

 

He took a guitar down off the wall, strummed a few chords, and then began jamming with store owner Cody.  What fun!  Next thing we knew, Ken was inviting us to come see his workshop.  What an opportunity!!  A few hours later our buggy rattled down some narrow lanes as we followed Ken’s directions.   The pretty Bitterroot mountains made a picturesque backdrop in the distance across farm fields.

Then there it was, the ten foot tall playable guitar Ken had built as BitterSweet Guitar’s sign.  Hopping out of the truck, the first thing we noticed after the enormous guitar was a cool ancient truck parked out back and a nosy sheep that stuck his head through the fence to have a look at us.  As Ken led us into the workshop we passed a large bank of Outback solar charge controllers.  The shop was powered primarily by solar power!

But like all of us who live with solar power, there were limits.  Our fifth wheel’s 490 watts gives us everything we need in the buggy except air conditioning.  Ken’s 5,000 watts in his workshop gives him everything he needs but his big air compressor… This was the second commercial building we had seen using banks of Outback controllers (the first was the NOLS school in the Sea of Cortez).

 

 

 

 

 

 

The BitterSweet Guitar workshop was filled with a wonderful array of sweet smelling wood and sawdust, impressive power tools, and instruments in various stages of completion and repair.  Along with building guitars, Ken repairs stringed instruments of all kinds.