Last week we threw some junk in the Ick, loaded up Conrad and hit the road to visit our friends Gerd and Bonnie in Montana.  We met Gerd at a Chinese restaurant in Manzanillo and it turns out that we were anchored right next to him in front of the Las Hadas Hotel…he’s sailing mostly single-handed back to visit his native Germany and is visiting his home for the summer.

We drove straight through to one of our favorite campgrounds in the world: Middle Fork in the Bighorns.  It’s a very small Forest Service campground a few miles SW of Buffalo.  It’s got 10 campsites and all of them are next to the Middle Fork of Clear Creek.  As we set up our tent, Conrad began his shift on Squirrel/Chipmunk Patrol.  He’s fairly adamant that the campsite not be overrun with the little rodents.  He’s good at his job.  I was Jonesin’ for a hike with my girl and my dog…unfortunately Nancy called BS and Bogarted the tent for an afternoon nap. Three hours later we finally began our hike but a mile down the trail the afternoon thunderstorms began and Conrad hot-tailed it back to the tent, where we shared a loaf of bread, sodas, and a wet dog as it proceeded to rain through the night.

A few hours later we were awakened by the sound of ATV’s roaring through the campground. 10 years ago there weren’t any of these awful things.  Now, apparently, every single person who lives in Montana or Wyoming must be required to own one.  And they all congregate at campgrounds on weekends.  We broke camp, threw the wet gear in the trunk, and headed on down the road beneath an amazingly blue sky littered with fluffy clouds.

I hate to air my dirty laundry here on this site, in this way, but I’ve got to get this out: Nancy’s a junkie.  She’s addicted to Starbucks Mochas.  So we stopped in Sheridan and picked up a mocha, an Americano, and learned that her precious Starbucks Gold Card was out of money.  It was gut wrenching to watch as $7 passed from the dirty Ick’s window to the girl in the retractable window.  (I’d been under the impression for the past 7 years that Starbucks was just refilling her Gold Card because they liked her-she came clean that I’d been misled) As our Land Yacht bashed through potholes, over pronghorns, and around construction workers we approached Little Bighorn, a place Conrad (and Ruth) had never been.  So we flashed ‘em our National Park Pass and headed through the gate.  It’s beautiful country out there.  If I were going to make a critical military mis-judgement and end up scalped, I’d like it to be in a place like The Little Bighorn.  And I love the fact there there’s a casino there, too.  Nancy drove over a few curbs and benches while we were there, but no real damage to the yacht, so we didn’t bother reporting it and drove on…through Billings, Bozeman, Belgrade, Three Forks, and finally to Whitehall, where we turned off to find Gerd and Bonnie.

It’s really pretty country out there and they have a beautiful home, built all under one roof. It’s got two residences, horse barns, and parking for a private army all under the same roof.  Conrad met their dog, Gus, a Rottweiler pup who, at 12 weeks, was already bigger than our little fatty.  He was not impressed by the horses.  Two of them tried (and nearly succeeded) to kill him. Horses are dead to him now.  It’s amazing that we didn’t invent the car sooner than we did.  Seems like having to ride a horse to work would be plenty of incentive to design alternate transportation.

We visited nearby Butte, which must have been one helluva town 50 years ago.  Butte is the home of copper mining in the US and has been for a very long time.  There was a lot of money in that area, at one time.  Now it’s mostly abandoned or in disrepair.  But with a little imagination you can see what it must have been like.  One part of the mining history that hasn’t left and isn’t likely to is the Berkeley Pit. It’s a gigantic reservoir full of the heavy metal remnants of decades of mining.  And it’s quite pretty, too.  We don’t recommend drinking from it.

After eating Gerd and Bonnie out of food we headed on down the road towards our Sweet Spot, Jackson  Hole and the Teton range.  We hoped to camp at Jenny Lake, but the unusually heavy traffic through Yellowstone impeded our progress and we arrived too late in the day to secure a primo site.  So we moved on to the Gros Ventre campground, pitched the tent, and rolled into Jackson to survey the town and pick up ingredients for chili.  Nothing like eating a giant bowl of chili and sleeping in a tent, eh? On the way back from town we made a little detour and headed to Dornan’s for a beer on their rooftop.  There’s nothing quite like that place.  It’s located in Moose, near Jackson (one of the wealthiest cities in the world) and offers quite literally the best view in the world.  But they keep it real.  Stand in line at a little window and order your food.  If you want wine, visit our wine shop, buy what you want, and we’ll loan you a couple of glasses. They don’t cater to Richie Rich, so Richie Rich doesn’t hang there and folks like us do.  Score one for the little man.  We sipped our beer and headed back to the campground to make chili.

We got back to site 221 and got to work on the chili.  Midway through our meal, the ground started to shake.  Nancy thought I had farted, which made me kind of proud.  As things turn out, it was a 5.1 earthquake centered about 10 miles from where we were. I’d never experienced an earthquake before and it took a few seconds to figure out what was happening.  It was an odd experience…a low grade rumble and the ground literally moving and jumping around.  At least we were 40 miles from the Yellowstone Caldera…so we were safe, right?

We hopped in Ick in the morning, loaded up on Pearl Street Bagels, and headed up the pass for Dubois, Thermopolis, Buffalo, and eventually back home.  2,400 miles, 5 days, 1 earthquake and countless more memories.

Jeff