Month: August 2018

Tripometer – 5029 mi

Gas Gauge – 398.417 gal

Location – Diamond S RV Park, Ronan, MT

Lodging – $36

Cans of OFF – 4

A Smoky Drive.

We drove from Livingston to Ronan, MT today. On the way we passed through Butte and stopped along the way to see what was reported to be a ghost town. Not really a picture taking day but we both got a big kick out of Mentzer’s Used Cow Lot.

Butte was really interesting. I think we both were aware of Butte’s mining past but neither of us knew the extent. As always, we travel with Google Maps up and running to give basic directions. We were floored when we noticed the sheer size of the mine north of Butte. (Go ahead and look it up – it’s as big as the entire city.) This same mine has the distinct feature of containing ‘The Berkeley Pit’ – An old open pit copper mine so polluted that it has a pH of ~2.5 and is filled with so much heavy metals from the surrounding soil that it has been known to wipe out entire flocks of birds that have landed there on migration. They now have horns in place to scare off the birds.

The ghost town – Bearmouth, MT was a complete bust. There was only one small shack remaining in town. We tossed around the idea of travelling up a dirt road to see Garnet, MT – an intact ghost town just North of Bearmouth but towing the trailer up one lane dirt roads has gotten us in some difficulty already that we don’t want to repeat. 🙂

We pulled into a nice little RV Park fairly early in the evening and enjoyed dinner and a few episodes of ‘The Walking Dead’ in our fully hooked up trailer. This is the first time this trip that we’ve had a full hookup (electricity, water, & sewer). Its a rare luxury on the road.

Place Name Soup: After hours of intensive study we believe there is a pattern to naming roads, creeks, trails, etc. in the Rocky Mountains. Here’s our hypothesis – Pick three words from the following list, string them together and voila(!) you have your place name:

Animals – Bear, Wolf, Moose, Elk, Deer, Trout, Beaver

Minerals – Copper, Gold, Silver, Iron, Coal

Nature Related – Rocky, Timber, Pine, Ridge, Trail, Path, River, Creek, Lodge, Gulch, Range, Prairie, Mountain, Hill, Run, Lake

Other – Vista, View, Lost, Old/New

Here’s a few for example:

• Pine Creek Lodge (This was the place that started this line of thinking.)
• Copper Ridge River
• Trout Gulch Creek
• Prairie View Road

Tripometer – 4715 mi

Gas Gauge – 381.447 gal

Location – Loch Leven Campground, Pine Creek, MT

Lodging – $12

Cans of OFF – 4

We went back to the Pine Creek Inn for brunch and listened to a live guitar show on the back deck while we ate. The music wasn’t as good as the night before, but it really enhanced the experience — a young artist named Blake Brightman. Paul had a grapefruit shandy with brunch. A yellow jacket decided this also sounded like a good idea and went for a swim. Paul saved the bee (and his mouth) by spitting the bee out on what was thankfully the tail end of his eggs benedict.

After brunch Kelly went into Gardiner, MT ‘The Gateway to Yellowstone’ to shop little storefronts. Paul stayed behind at camp to fish and do some prep work for travel. Kelly snapped the pic above just outside of Gardiner. Imagine being worried about your potted plants being eaten by an elk!

Tomorrow we head North. We’ve made reservations at two different campgrounds as we move towards Banff. We’ve booked one night at an RV park south of Glacier N.P. and two following nights at Whitefish Lake State Park just West of Glacier N.P.

Special Note: It’s a tremendously weird feeling to loose something for more than a couple of minutes when living in two attached vehicles. There’s simply not enough space for something to be lost for very long. We both had a good laugh today while packing up, trying to find something that simply had to be here but seemingly wasn’t. It was.

Tripometer – 4621 mi

Gas Gauge – 363.427 gal

Location – Loch Leven Campground, Pine Creek, MT

Lodging – $12

Cans of OFF – 4

‘Twas a smoky day in the mountains. The pic above is from the early evening. The smoke had cleared a bit by this time. The smoke was so bad during the day we found that no amount of water could quell the tickly throat and annoying coughs. Everything had a reddish/yellowish tinge.

Paul checked a few more Yellowstone feeder streams during the day today. All were dry as a bone. Some fishing advice, huh? The plan is now to fish the big river. After a good discussion with our next door neighbor “Dutch”, Paul headed to the big river up-stream from the boat launch in search of a fallen tree and rocks to fish around. A 20 yard walk through tall grasses imagining what it will be like to get bit by a rattler, a 5 yard push through woody bushes leaving scratches on upper and lower body alike, and a walk up the river in ankle deep ice water with numb feet didn’t yield any fish but taught Paul the importance of a large casting area for fly fishing. He must have retrieved his fly from the bushes a half dozen times before abandoning fly fishing for spinner fishing. He thinks tomorrow will be a day to leisurely fish near the boat ramp.

In the evening we went into Bozeman for some shopping and to generally be tourists. Had a great root beer float!

Tripometer – 4488 mi

Gas Gauge – 363.427 gal

Location – Loch Leven Campground, Pine Creek, MT

Lodging – $12

Cans of OFF – 4

Today was a relatively boring day. This was the end of our monthly cell phone cycle making high bandwidth internet a luxury to be consumed quickly. Bills, computer updates, file backup, and trip planning made up most of Paul’s day as Kelly worked.

Shortly after noon during the heat of the day we were making sandwiches for lunch when the wind suddenly and violently began shaking the trailer and billowing the awning alarmingly. We ran to close the awning as quickly as possible. We honestly we impressed that the awning didn’t sustain any damage it was so deformed by the updraft. A really scary situation. We later saw a dust devil of considerable size come close to another trailer and cause the same symptoms. We think we probably took a direct hit from one – a small one?

In the evening we tried to check out the local fishing spots. Paul had gotten advice from a local fishing shop to check out some of the local feeder streams along the big Yellowstone. When we arrived at the primary stream we were told to go to we found it completely dry.

Maybe we’ll have better luck with dinner? We did! We noticed that what we were calling ‘the local swill joint’ had a fairly long list of live acts listed for tonight and this weekend. We decided to check out the swill joint. To our absolute delight both dinner and the show were fantastic and dogs were welcome. The bluegrass band The Barefoot Movement were a ton of fun and we had a fantastic dinner on the front porch after the show. Check out the video above for The Barefoot Movement’s take on Black Sabbath. We’re thrilled to have a decent place to eat and drink nearby. Wish we had discovered it earlier.

Tripometer – 4421 mi

Gas Gauge – 363.427 gal

Location – Loch Leven Campground, Pine Creek, MT

Lodging – $12

Cans of OFF – 4

Paul ran off to Bozeman, MT this morning to attend a free fly fishing class at a local library while Kelly went to work at the dinette table with a stunning view of Paradise Valley. Both Livingston and Bozeman are strongly western in feel and are focused on the wealthy fishing and skiing scene. Paul swears that his fly fishing instructor would be more at ease on a snowboard than standing in a river waving a stick.

In the evening we went into Livingston to check out its historic main street and train station. We couldn’t resist the Ranger, Train Engineer picture. Interestingly, this road based train engine was built on a 1930’s International Harvester truck chassis.

Trip Note: We were hoping that someone in the waterfront sites would move and we could sneak in, but that wasn’t meant to be. It seems that the prime sites were being monopolized by a rather large extended family for the week. We faced the reality that if we wanted to move to another campground (our trailer was out in the middle of an open plain) we needed to move the next day. We didn’t want to move on a Friday or Saturday in this area due to campsite availability. We decided that we had done enough travelling for a few days and are going to stay here until at least Sunday the 19th.

The site we’re in is on the edge of a fairly large grassland along the edge of the river, many hundreds of acres. There are probably 10-15 seemingly vacant prairie dog holes in our site proper. We assume that they moved elsewhere once campers started showing up this spring and that they’ll move back  in the fall. We can hear them rustling around and yelling at us from the grasses near the site. Ranger has had no end of fun with this turn of events. He *has* to be on a line full-time!

Tripometer – 4308 mi

Gas Gauge – 344.458 gal

Location – Loch Leven Campground, Pine Creek, MT

Lodging – $12

Cans of OFF – 4

Beartooth Pass & Yellowstone National Park

(We didn’t appreciate how clear of smoke the skies were today until many days later. We both look back on our trip through Beartooth and Yellowstone as our last really clear day. You can still see hints of it in the distance in a few shots.)

Beartooth pass coming out of Red Lodge Montana going into Wyoming was one heck of an uphill climb. Commissioned in the later 60s, it was designed and built to be a tourist attraction and scenic route (especially for motorcycles), not an easy trailer-hauling route. It was a tricky and steep trip, but very exciting (see the switchbacks in pic above – this was the more gently sloped side of the pass). Much of the drive was above the tree line – we even got to see a couple of pikas when we stopped at an overlook! The views were astonishing and Paul’s weak knees ached most of the way up and in several places on the way down (cue the fake puking sounds when his stomach got woozy). We stopped for more than a few pictures along the way.

Our short drive through northern Yellowstone National Park was amazing. We had been to the park 8 years ago and spent almost a full week in Yellowstone / Grand Tetons N.P.s. During our entire last visit we never once saw a moose and it took us several days to add bison, antelope and elk to the list. Today, in one short trip from the Lamar Valley entrance and out the North gate of the park we managed to see several of each. We were stunned. Sadly we were too slow to catch a picture of the two juvenile moose we saw close to the roadside on our way down the mountain.

The arch we are pictured driving through was the original entrance to Yellowstone National Park in Gardiner, MT. Built in 1903, the cornerstone was laid by Teddy Roosevelt. The quote at the top of the arch is from the legislation that created the first National Park “For the Benefit and Enjoyment of the People”.

We pulled into Loch Leven Campground predictably late. Loch Leven is one of many fishing access points along the Yellowstone river south of Livingston, MT. the campground has 12 First Come – First Served sites, but we were unable to get waterfront. We ‘settled’ for a site about 100’ from the Yellowstone river.

Trip Note: Aside from the glory and beauty of the park itself, our experiences in YNP has soured us to the large destination parks a bit. Dog restrictions (must remain within 100 ft of pavement) and tourist masses make the campgrounds and trails outside the park much more attractive.

Technical Note: The rig made a creak / thump towards the end of the day in a way we have never heard. We heard/felt the sound probably a total of 4 or 5 times in the evening after all of the strenuous climbing – you know, just enough to freak us out good and proper. We haven’t heard it since (a week later).

Tripometer – 4112 mi

Gas Gauge – 330.480 gal

Location – Perry’s RV Park, Red Lodge, MT

Lodging – $36

Cans of OFF – 4

Red Lodge Montana sits about 2 hours east of Yellowstone National Park. The most direct route to the park from Red Lodge takes you over Beartooth pass (10,947 ft) into the Yellowstone’s north easternmost entryway via the Beartooth Highway. Our path was clear. Kelly quickly decided that she was going to take a day of vacation on Tuesday to make the drive. Most of today was spent doing work and chores.

In the evening we went into Red Lodge for shopping and dinner. It’s a really cute,  little old mining town with more than a few cool little shops. We picked up a fresh can of bear spray, solving one of our misgivings about staying in more remote campsites. On the way back to the trailer tonight we passed the Crazy Creek world headquarters. Love our Crazy Creek canoe chairs! (I shamelessly stole the Red Lodge image from the interwebs. It was a smoky dreary evening with bad light and this cute little town deserves better 🙂

Tripometer – 4099 mi

Gas Gauge – 330.480

Location – Perry’s RV Park, Red Lodge, MT

Lodging – $36

Cans of OFF – 4

The forecast for today in Medora, ND was a balmy 106˚. Time to go…

The smoke from wildfires seems to come and go at the whims of the weather. It was a fairly clear day with wonderful views as we drove into Montana’s mountains. By the time we arrived in Red Lodge, MT it was less than 90˚ with a light breeze. We checked out several free campsites on our way into town but decided at the last to check into a trailer park right on Rock Creek. Our deciding factor was related to both bear activity in the area and the relative proximity of white panel vans with “Free Candy” written on the side in the free camping sites.

Special Note: The photo above is a picture of the fence across the street from our campsite in Medora, ND. Notice the line of baseball caps screwed (yes, screwed) to the top of each fence post. That first hat in blue is a prime example of late century modern Bud Lite advertising. Cue the Dukes of Hazzard horns.

Tripometer – 3720 mi

Gas Gauge – 295.830

Location – Red Trail Campground, Medora, ND

Lodging – $38

Cans of OFF – 4

 

HOT HOT HOT

The temperature exceeded 104˚ today. Not the best day to take a 30mi drive through Theodore Roosevelt National Park’s Pained Canyon. What should/could have been a day for some fantastic hiking through an amazing area turned into an air conditioned ride through an amazing area. On the up side, Ranger discovered prairie dogs and bison today. Not surprisingly, he’s a huge fan of prairie dogs. J

We were stunned at the amount of petrified wood both in the park and around it. Driving through the little town of Medora, MT you would think that petrified wood was a normal local stone falling out of the hills (well, I guess it is here). There were 2-3’ wide boulders of petrified wood on many street corners, in back lots, as road side decoration, etc. I may never look at petrified wood the same way.

For the past two nights we’ve struggled with insects in the trailer. Returning to the trailer after dinner and drinks at a local bar and grill we discovered the most effective way of ridding your camper of an insect infestation is to leave it closed up in the sun in 104˚ weather. Not a single bug left alive.

Special Note: There’s an unusual combination of people that frequent RV parks. We’ve noticed this at several different trailer parks over the past month. Now, I’m making generalizations here, but there are two main classes of people at most RV parks – retired corporate businessmen and good ‘ol fashioned rednecks. We’re not sure which category we fit into, but we’re both a little frightened that we might be best described as a combination of both.

Tripometer – 3640 mi

Gas Gauge – 289.142

Location – Red Trail Campground, Medora, ND

Lodging – $38

Cans of OFF – 4

 

While Kelly worked, Paul ran a few errands in town. One of which was to pick up a package from home at the UPS Customer Care Center. The UPS pickup was his last errand and upon arriving at the UPSCCC at 10:30am he found out that the center didn’t open until 3pm. We had every intention of being on the road before noon but clearly this was not meant to be. At 3pm we were informed that the package was actually delivered to a UPS Store down the street that had been open since 8am. #%&@

The rest of the day was spent driving from Fargo to Medora, ND. Truly one of the most boring drives in North America. Arriving late we struggled for an hour and a half to find a site for the night and settled for a local RV Park at almost midnight.

Side Story: We stopped for pizza for lunch today. A nice crispy cracker crust pizza from a local pizza shop. Ranger almost always gets a bite of whatever human food is being consumed and this case was no different. Apparently he was a little excited and swallowed too fast. Neither Kelly nor I have ever heard a dog whine because he swallowed something too hard, but sure enough Ranger lets out a muffled yelp as he swallows the almost completely unchewed bite of pizza. Here’s hoping someone learned something today about chewing their food.