A Two-Full-Day-Run from Durango (without any issues!) was accomplished a few days ago and we are now firmly ensconced at our Winter Pad here in Brenham. Work has already begun on the chores that need to be addressed, mostly having to do with the lawn and a lawnmower that’s definitely on the fritz.
Picking the times during the day to accomplish everything is the key to survival down here. But you know how it is…… you want run around like crazy and try to get everything done all at the same time but that is akin to manslaughter, so dial it back a bit we will.
Next on our Agenda are the All-Important Flurry of Doctor’s Visits, already arranged, just awaiting our arrival. The first order of business was to visit Dee my “Opens at 6AM Lowes Pro Desk” friend. She said that she expected to see us soon as, just like you, she follows along on this Blog. Dee is doing nicely and I will tell her you all said Hi!
Lastly, just a few nice pics from Durango, that you may view here:
First up is Ling-Ling, who rarely poses for portraits so I could not resist this one!
You just can’t beat a strategically placed Red House with a dynamite background. This was on our way to Weminuche Wood-Fire Grill up by the Vallecito Reservoir. Getting up there is half the fun as the drive is nothing short of spectacular as witnessed by the next few photos.
This was taken through the windshield. It’s good to be the passenger on these types of excursions as one’s head can swivel 360 degrees and you don’t have to pay attention to the road!
Throw in some low-angle light and a few shadows and the scene just come alive!
And lastly, this is the view from outside on the Weminuche’s deck where we had our dinner. It is looking north, and further up into the San Juans.
Well, that’s it for now, it was quite the Travel Year…… Vietnam and Cambodia, then the Baltics….. Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Finland, next up was the Northern Adventure, Iceland, Svalbard, and Norway, followed quickly by Alaska. We are glad that you were aboard with us, but we need to advise you that this year was an anomaly that probably won’t repeat itself any time soon! But…… in about six months we should all find ourselves on an African Safari…… so check those passports and make sure that they’re up to date!
This was on our way into Montana on I-90. It is nothing special as it is an example of just a regular, Ho-Hum sort of view that does not even get the little red dots alongside of the road on the map that indicate a “Scenic” road……. not because it’s not scenic, but because all of the roads would get little red dots if this was indicative of the criteria!
North Dakota is right next door to Montana so in we went! Our destination was Seeley Lake, a quiet little spot about an hour or so northeast of Missoula which, in turn, is in the western quarter of Montana. For those of you who have accompanied us on this trip before, you are familiar with our circumstances here, but for all you newbies, we come here to visit with my partners from The Chatterbox, Phillis and Steve. They live right on the runway here in a hanger/apartment sort of building which is very convenient if you have a penchant for airplanes (which would be an understatement here!)
Steve and Phillis’s place on the left and their son and daughter-in-law, Matt and Ali’s place in the middle.
In any event, Montana needs no more support in the ‘Reasons to Visit’ category, as this place lives up to its moniker, Big Sky Country and then some! It seems that the moment that you cross the border from a neighboring state the sky in front of you automatically transforms itself into something even more grand than that of the place that you left and that’s saying something as the Dakotas, Idaho, and Wyoming, have visages that are incredibly grand in their own right! But something does change and we’ll just leave it at that!
This is just another, regular, drive by, scene from a random roadside.
We have our own dedicated RV Site here courtesy of Steve and Phillis, complete with full hook-ups! And it comes with a full view of the runway and about 15 billion deer who do their darndest to scare the wits out of the pilots that fly in and out of here. The S.O.P. of the airport is to kind of ‘buzz’ the field first and scare any potential “runner’s into” away so that on the next pass you can touch down and taxi without having worry about Bambi and her kin.
And our spot on the left!
Our goal here was to visit with Phillis and Steve as we don’t get to spend a lot of time with them because they winter in Santa Fe and summer up here. While we’re here, they always manage to keep us busy with tons of great experiences in the area and I’ll try and show you a few of our “outings” from the past week.
Please enjoy some photos from Big Sky Country!
We went waaaaay back into the mountains and forests on an Expedition, with Tim and Deb, friends of theirs who also live on the airport. Those transporters are like mini Hum-vees and have all the comforts, heat and A/C, and are allowed to be driven on the road. They can traverse almost any terrain.
Destinationof our Excursion. This is Marshall Lake, a glacial lake as clear as it could be! It sits at 4750′ of elevation, is about 85 acres in size, and about 60′ deep.
The forests are magnificent!
We spent a lot of time just sitting by it as the weather was PERFECT! You can camp almost anywhere around here as it is State Land administered by their Departments of Forestry, etc.
A Mourning Cloak butterfly and a California Tortoiseshell butterfly(who obviously is vacationing here also!)
This is a grove of Larch. Larch (or Tamarack) are deciduous conifers which means that they lose their needles in the fall, just like the rest of the leafy trees. But they are, in fact, conifers! And big ones at that! They can top out at 200′ tall and up to six feet in diameter which puts them firmly in the size category of Douglas Firs and the like. But they can grow as much as four feet a year!
This is Gus. No, not Paula, the tree behind her! Gus is the largest Larch in the world and has impressive specifications to prove it. He is 153′ tall, 53′ in circumference, and over 7′ in diameter!
Here he is in all his glory! He totally resembles a Giant Sequoia, maybe even a Redwood, but their only connection is that they are all conifers.
A Red Tail Hawk This was a Drive-By photo! He flew down and perched for a second, then took off and that’s when he had his pic taken!
A view across the valley while on our 4-wheel excursion.
On our way to Bozeman for lunch and some shopping on their really cool main street. Left to right, Phillis, Paula, and Ali. The little passengers, Mia and Blair are in the seats in front of them. They are veteran travelers even at their early ages!
The view from Steve and Phillis’s Citation II as we come into Bozeman.
Just one of the furry fuzzballs that you’d expect in a National Park in North Dakota!
The young man lost both his wife and mother on the same day…. February 14th, 1884, just two days after welcoming his newborn daughter into the world. Grieved beyond understanding, he retreated to the only place that he knew would help him heal and grow stronger at the same time…. the badlands of North Dakota.
Two (one of them furry) ordinary visitors to the same.Note cloudy morning skies…. wait ’til the afternoon!
I do believe that the guardrail afforded us with a certain level of protection (and we were still in the car!) Besides, he was more interested in munching the grasses growing there!
Did you ever wonder why some people can face adversity, fall down, and then rise again even greater than before? Usually that reason can be found in some early childhood traits, followed by significant happenings in their lives that defined them further…. those defining moments did not defeat them, it made them better.
In this case, we are talking about Theodore Roosevelt, our 26th President serving from 1901 to 1909. This was a transitional “cross-over” time in our history when the West still retained its rugged character. Cowboys were still hard at work on the ranches, the era of the trail-roaming outlaw was drawing to a close, and vast pockets of the West were still undeveloped wilderness.
And you thought we were going to talk about the Theodore Roosevelt National Park……. well, we are…. all in good time! But this is the stuff that helps make traveling so fascinating! It’s all well and good to come to these great places and see the wonders that they embody, but sometimes you just have to ask why? The why of the Grand Canyon is obvious, but the why of a national park named for a good guy out of our past? Not so obvious. We all know that good ol’ T.R. was an outdoorsman and was really the first BIG DEAL to advocate for conservation and some federal protection for places like Yosemite. In fact, it was only nine years after his Presidency that the National Park Service was officially established because T.R. had already named 5 National Parks, 18 National Monuments and about 150 National Forests!
But again, why T.R. and why here?
Long before he met John Muir, and long before he walked the paths in Yosemite Valley, Teddy R. lived in the badlands of North Dakota. He had two ranches here, on the banks of the Little Missouri River and it was here that he sought that aforementioned refuge in the beginning of his public life that helped him both recuperate, and further develop his plans for NYC, N.Y. State, and eventually the entire United States of America.
Kinda like a mini-Grand Canyon!
Soon after his death in 1916 folks started looking around the area for a suitable spot for a possible National Park. Sixteen years later the Roosevelt Recreation Area was established and as I often say (using a borrowed phrase from somebody!)….. the rest is history!
This was taken from the car, just ‘regular’ scenery out here!
Part of the original ‘grasslands’ area, untouched by a plow
Today the Theodore Roosevelt National Park includes over 70,000 acres spread between three main sections, all of them are tucked in the far southwestern corner of North Dakota. TRNP ranks just about in the middle of our 63 National Parks for annual visitors, surprisingly (I thought) it outranks both Mesa Verde and Carlsbad Caverns in this department.
This kind of scene was so ubiquitous as to almost make it Ho-Hum in a grand sort of way!
The one ‘constant’ thread that wove its way through the three areas is the Little Missouri River.
The scenery is an understated glorious as most of this is ‘badlands’, a term that goes way back to our native American friends, and echoed by some French explorers and trappers, and then by more recent cowboy-type personas. The interesting part of this is that these folks all came up with their own names and descriptions of the area that when translated mean basically the same thing!
But for today’s traveler are they really bad?
No!
In fact, they are quite grand! Gorgeous colors that popout of the strata laid down over millions of years of this area being the bottom a huge Cretaceous sea…. no more dinosaurs, but plenty of Current Critters such as, the American Bison, Pronghorn, Big Horn Sheep, Feral Horses, 14 bazillion Prairie Dogs (!), coyotes, badgers, and lots of other little guys round out the list. (and we haven’t even touched the birds or reptiles!)
Prairie Dog #786,238,012
Mule Deer!
“I am the King of my domain…..”
“You lookin’ at me?”
In the two main Units, the North and the South, there are two central drives with plenty of turnouts so that you can pull over and get closer or strategically view some really great stuff. The South Unit is definitely larger, but the North Unit has a bit more dramatic landscape. If you’re going all the way to North Dakota don’t skimp, take in all of it! The cute little town of Medora anchors the South Unit and has just what you’d expect from an old western town near a National Park….. restaurants masked as saloons, quaint little shops, outdoor adventures, and plenty of campsites for the likes of us.
What would one order way out here??? Yup! a Bison Burger!
So go ahead….. head out on Interstate 94, pull off at Exit 27 in North Dakota, and visit Teddy’s old stompin’ grounds. Check out his Library and get a sense of what made this great American leave such a lasting legacy!
Long considered one of our classier Presidents. TR wore Brooks Brothers apparel exclusively, including his uniform for when he formed the Rough Riders!
No…. I did not take this photo, but I wanted to show you what this place has in store for us if Teddy can make the weather behave while we’re here!
I still don’t know how he finds us but just the other night we heard a knock on the motorhome door and when we opened it Willy Nelson indicated that he wanted to come aboard. Willy is always welcome around our campfire so in he came. Settin’ down on the couch he looked up at us, grinned that patented smile of his and said (or sang) just four words…. “On the Road Again”……..
After that, he excused himself and vanished into the darkness across Yetter’s Diner parking lot. We knew then that it was time to pull up anchor, remove the wheel chocks, and hitch up the horses (to mix a few metaphors!)
We now find ourselves in a small, dusty campground in southwestern North Dakota after four days of an Idyllic Interstate Itinerary that (except for a brief encounter with Chicago) was devoid of any traffic or weather issues! Hence the idyllic modifier in the previous sentence!
Our immediate goal is a stop at Theodore RooseveltNational Park whilst on our way to Seeley Lake, Montana. TRNP is one of the least visited Parks in the system, but at the same time, one of the more magnificent. Or so we’ve been told. Our first foray into the Park should be in a few hours when the sun comes up. But….. it’s quite cloudy here now so those early morning sunlit photo-ops will be unfortunately nonexistent. As a result, our immediate goal will be to keep our eyes peeled for the multitudes of critters that inhabit these parts!
Hopefully the next Post will be chock-full of some kind of photo evidence of our visit here!
