Heather and Barry's Homepage

With practically the entire contents of our car (including our kayaks!) in the hotel room, we woke up on our usual timeline in a cozy bed. Barry made us breakfast in the room while I did some typing for the blog. We were hopeful that Billings would be a successful place for us to find information about climbing and paddling in Wyoming (or anywhere “en route” even though our route is really dictated by the water and rocks available to us).

It seems unbelievable, but at this point on our trip, we’ve passed the 4000-mile marker, and my poor little car, weighed down by everything but the running water for the kitchen sink, needed an oil change. We found the equivalent of a Jiffy Lube - called Master Lube - right down the road and watched in amazement as the woman who cleaned the windshield removed every square inch of dried bug that had hit our window in the last 300 miles or so. The gentleman was amazed that I had such a clean filter, showed me the practically brand-new one that was installed along with the new brakes and tires that I purchased for the car right before we left, and put the filter back into the car. Twenty minutes later, Gretta was purring sweetly as she thanked us for her visit to the health spa.

Our next stop was the local outdoor store called Base Camp. The people there were helpful only by telling us to abandon our route south to Red Lodge and head into Bozeman, where there were two stores that would be incredibly useful in our quest for information. We left sighing but hopeful that our ventures would lead us to some amazing crags and waterways.

Soon thereafter, poor Mr. Barry found himself in yet another camera store. It was a quick visit, and we were instructed to go to F-11 in Bozeman. At least Billings was consistent in where they sent their tourists! We were soon back on I-94 and the two hour trip was over as quickly as being in a car for two hours can be. We found F-11 in no time, as it was right on the main strip. We went inside and looked around; the 62mm UV filter that I wanted ranged anywhere from $60ish to $175. I had absolutely no desire to pay that much, and a very helpful woman approached. She explained why the filters here cost so much, and agreed that they were on the pricey side. She also helped with trying to find the battery that I wanted for the camera and mentioned (like everyone else that I asked about said product) that the store could special order it for me. She then told me that I should go two doors down to their affiliate store, which was a specialized repair shop that sold used products that were often in perfect condition.

She was 110% correct. The people in Bozeman Camera Repair were the most helpful yet. The gentleman with whom I spoke went through the three used 62mm filters I had picked out to find the best one for me. I told him my story about lenses, bags, filters, lens cap covers, and asked him, based on what it was that I was going to be doing for the next few weeks, if he felt there was anything I needed. He told me he didn’t think so, and then looked at my camera to analyze the speck of black that Barry and I noticed in my viewfinder. He said it was on the viewfinder path, not the image path, and that I could pay them to remove it but that my best bet was to wait until the camera needed to be cleaned, and that the person cleaning it would remove the speck then, which would be much more cost effective. I paid my $13 for my filter, thanked him immensely for his time, and we left the store with warm fuzzy feelings about people who actually knew the meaning of customer service. I hope we can find a store similar to Bozeman Camera Repair in Boston.

Next on the list was the outdoor store to investigate the climbing and paddling possibilities in the area (or near by in Wyoming). The Northern Lights Boat Barn was a total disappointment. The jock behind the counter basically told us that we were S.O.L. and that there was nothing to paddle in the area (there are a variety of whitewater rivers there in the spring but they were all too low to paddle); we mentioned that we were going to paddle the Snake River and he was jazzed. All of a sudden he started getting out all of these maps for Idaho, which is much farther west than we were planning, but the whole point of the trip was being flexible about what we were doing and where we were going. However, his talk started getting into class IV and V runs, and Barry and I looked at each other with the acknowledgement that we’ve had so many times on this trip: people just don’t listen to you when you say “please tell me about any class III rivers that are en route” or “I only lead climb 5.4, sport climb 5.7, and top rope 5.9ish”. I zoned out and started looking around the store for fun things to buy; Barry, on the other hand, was patiently attentive and listened to this dude spew off for about 10 minutes. Our ears were finally set free from babble, we used the bathrooms in the back of the store (near more stuff to buy…), and we left.

It was when we were driving back toward town MooCasa for lunch that Mr. Sensitive realized that he didn’t know where his sunglasses were. We looked all over the car for them, then parked the car. Barry went into all of the stores that we were in previously to look for them too, to no avail. Meanwhile, I still searched the car, thinking of where they might be. On a hunch, I put my hand into the garbage bag right next to where he usually stores his shades; low and behold, the glasses appeared, laughing at the little joke they had played on their master. With sunglasses safely restored to usual place, we entered La Tinga (a.k.a. MooCasa) for a fine meal of Mexican food. Sadly, we didn’t get one. The only bright side was that the food was cheap, so we wasted only a few precious dollars on not-so-Mexican Mexican food. Our hearts set on the ice cream for dessert {and, by the way, the only way Barry talked me into eating lunch there, as I am very picky about Mexican food. Okay, okay. I am an official food snob. But I am flexible! No, really! I am!}, we went up to the counter and looked at the different flavors. Almost al of them were new to us. The gentleman who had served us the Mexican food came over to wait on us. Like in ANY ice cream store on the face of the planet - and maybe even the galaxy - we were curious about the new flavors and wanted to taste them first. No Joy. When Barry asked to try the flavor that tempted him the most (I have mentally blocked it out of my brain to the words you are about to read), the guy said, “we don’t do tastes.” What the h-e-double hockey sticks does he mean they don’t do tastes?!?! Tasting ice cream is part of the whole ice cream shoppe experience! Well, completely annoyed and offended, we stomped our way out of there to head to our next destination.

The Rockford Café was the free Internet café that we saw along the main stretch of road in Bozeman. It was a cozy little coffee shop with a small selection of baked goods. I ordered their house-brewed chai and a home baked chocolate chip cookie and Barry purchased a peach scone before we picked a table and settled down to do some blogging. We found a table near an outlet and munched on our yummies while typing up, posting, and checking our homepage. We were the last ones to leave, mostly as it was closing time, so we bussed our table, said goodbye and thanks, and hopped in the car to go to the grocery store for some stocking up before heading into National Park Lands.

One of the rivers that the gentleman said was paddlable was the Gallatin in the Gallatin Canyon, which also happened to be the road to Yellowstone. So, after throwing our food in the car, we drove our way down a beautiful section of highway that followed the river. Before we got into canyon territory, gracious fields and farms overtook the landscape. At one point, Barry called his mom. The timing was perfect, as the sun was casting shadows upon the sky in its hopes of setting soon. I hopped out of the car and took a bunch of pictures of the moving star with clouds in the background that were gorgeous. My only disappointment is that where we stopped had power lines all over the place, so it was tricky trying to frame the image that I wanted. In many cases I was unsuccessful. When I entered the car again, Barry was just getting off the phone with “mom Barbara”, so we plunged ahead.

A few miles up the road was a gas station. Given that we had no idea how far down the road we would be able to find the petroleum or campsite we would need, we stopped before heading further. The images here were much more picturesque. There were a few shots that I really liked, one being of a log cabin with the moon in the background. It occurred to both Barry and me when we returned to the car and headed south into the canyon that the state really is appropriately named. Montana really is the Big Sky state. There might be others, but two nights of phenomenal skies and sunsets were enough to convince the two of us.

An hour or so later, we found the Swan Creek National Forest Campground, located a site for the evening right next to a river that we are assuming is Swan Creek, and set up camp. Like previous nights, the sky was breathtaking. Here, we tried to get some pictures of the blackened atmosphere with the clouds and the stars as our focus. After a wide-angle lens, next on the agenda is for me to learn nighttime photography, as the pictures took were not as I envisioned them to be. Oh well, maybe next time. :) We still have a few more weeks. When we were finished with the photography session and the tripod, the camera, and all other necessities were packed away into the car for the evening, we dragged ourselves to the tent for a quick game of rummy and some well needed sleep.