Heading Into Montana

We awakened to a clear blue early morning sky. The chill of dawn had the laughing gulls huddled in a closely packed flock pointed into the stiff northerly breeze coming off the shore of Henry Lake in Idaho. Later, driving into West Yellowstone the half deserted town was showing the impact of the park closure due to the recent heavy flooding. The next day the park was scheduled to open for odd licensed plated vehicular traffic. Time to high-tail it out of what was sure to be a madhouse on the morrow. Sticking north on US 287 to US 191 we were going to enter Y’stone for free on its far western edge and make a push north to the Bozeman area for food and fuel. But first we made a stop in Gallatin National Forest at Spire Rock campground where we met the Torres who were the camp hosts. Next to their trailer was a crushed Toyota pickup that had been hit right down the center of its long axis by a large pine tree earlier this year. Up the road towards our campsite we met the campground maintenance man clearing the encroaching willows and huckleberry bushes from the road. He had a familiar twang in his voice which he had acquired in east Tennessee. Sporting a can of bear spray and an open carry 10mm glock on his right hip he was merrily scything along the road with a gas powered Stihl hedge trimmer. After identifying ourselves as being felIow Tennesseans from Memphis he said, “Memphis ain’t in Tennessee!” It was hard to argue with that geography lesson. So, we went on to our campsite tucked into dense foliage.

We had taken site 14 which turned out to be right on what used to be Squaw Creek. It has a new name now, Storm Castle Creek. The traffic on the road above us was nonstop with cars, trucks, OHRV, and other campers headed up to dispersed campgrounds above us. Too close to Bozeman we decided. At night the game camera caught a white booted bunny, and a bushy-tailed fox.

During the day in the surrounding brush there was an almost constant serenading of song birds. Flitting in and out they were constantly near but ever evading our binoculars. The primary culprit was the beautiful MacGillivary’s Warbler. Along the creek an American Dipper made friends with Rebecca as she sat peacefully reading one of the books from the K2R2 library.

That night we had ribeye steak, potatoes, salad, and peach cobbler for dinner.