The Blog Returns

Flowers for Alvaro

As with many things in life, it takes a bit of a shock to get us started again – like picking up the needle on the record player (vinyl) and dropping it somewhere else in the grooves. Not unlike ECT – or so I’m told.

In this case, it was the unexpected death of a young man in my arts group. I didn’t know him well, but I remember Alvaro as a gentle man with big dreams – learning French, being in the military, being in Love. When you live long enough, you learn the loss of dreams – a divorce, the failure of a course of study, a sudden disabling condition. But sometimes, the mere course of Living settles us into grooves and we need a shaking up. Speaking solely for myself of course! ; )

I find it hard to believe that it’s been more than 2 years since I set aside this blog – “pandemic years” – I might claim as an excuse. However, I’ve been busy with my photography for much of that time – especially last year – and not only have we resumed our travels but my husband started a vlog about them. And since he often cherry picks my best photos to include with these, I decided I’d best tell my OWN side of the story with yet more GREAT photos! ; )))

I decided to start with our Fall 2021 trip to Wyoming and Montana – so stay tuned for the first entry. I plan to post 2-3 times/week, not daily as in the past because hey! can’t be a slave to this thing after all! I’ll be including the links to John’s YouTube channel “Travels with Trigger” for each relevant post.

aside – I’ve been a little busy!

My Valentines Day grandson decided to be a New Year’s Day baby. This is not my photo, as he remains in the NiCU, but welcome Oren!

(will get working on finishing that last trip soon)!

Aside at the Garden Center, again!

Another Aside –

Back at the Garden Center! They’ve started to recognize me 😝

Day 24 – 09/29/2021 – Red Grade Rd bndk to KOA Rock Springs/Green River WY

What a difference last night was from the previous!! Wind rocking and rolling with intermittent rain – checked the outside temp throughout the night – but didn’t take the WIND into account! : ((((

snow on the hood…

Now, I am NO fan of snow – particularly snowy roads on gravel cliffsides! This road – thank God – was clear and I saw several trucks drive back (and forth!) , which was reassuring. We packed up quickly tho’ and got our butts OFF that mountain!

clear-ish road

-Where we left out of

We weren’t far from Buffalo so we looked for a diner, and found the wonderful Main Street Diner right across from the old Occidental Hotel. It had a nice homey feel to it and GREAT pancakes! We both got the 2+2+2=7.99 special.

After we finished, John went over to shoot the Occidental while I gave Trigger leftover pancake and eggs ; )

We decided to NOT try to drive thru the Snowy Range Pass again (lol!), so headed across to Casper. We drove downtown, which was downright bustling (can this be the same sleepy place we came thru before??), and since John was looking for a new felt cowboy hat we stopped at Lou Taubert’s Western Wear. Some VERY nice things there – VERY nice. I left temptation behind and walked a few blocks away in search of hot drinks and found Scarlow’s Art and Coffee. Wonderful gallery and the BEST chai latte!

I took over driving until Rawlins, and we decided since it was nothing but raining –

– that we would push on thru to Green River/ Rock Springs and stay at the KOA there. At least we could get hot showers and do laundry.

Met some fun folks, livestock and dogs along the way (needless to say, this is an access road – not the highway).

We stopped for carryout KFC in town – because hot and greasy – and got installed at the KOA. They may oftentimes be “parking lots”, but you can’t fault this view (except for the fencing, etc…)

Afternoon Aside – at the pond store.

Aside redux – an art weekend

Odile Du, @corgi_bakery, performs at a fundraiser for @Pastichehouse. This was a wonderful event for my arts group, accompanied by her fantastic homemade pastries!

Day 23 09/28/21 Carbella Rec Area to boondock north of Sheridan on the Red Grade Rd.

we get dogged

We set our alarm for 0600 to get an early start into Yellowstone. Saw a MAGNIFICENT bull elk on the side of the road into Gardiner, posing just like a statue on the side of the road – no photo, alas! Convenience store breakfast and into the north entrance to the park.

still very hazy!

We had neglected to notice (in the park paper) that the Roosevelt Tower Rd. would be closed down to Fishing Village. So – we just skirted thru the north side of the park to the northeast entrance. Lots of slow-downs and lookie-lous in – maybe a Wolf Habitat? Plenty of bison…We did (John did) a lot of passing along the road…

Out of the park and down the Chief Joseph Memorial Drive and over the Dead Indian Hill Summit…(hey, I didn’t name it!)

Gorgeous views at the top –

and oh, chipmunks!

In thru Cody and towards Lovell when we saw signs for the Heart Mountain WWII Japanese American Confinement Site National Historic Landmark and just HAD to stop! We both have an interest in this shameful and seldom-mentioned (at least in the not so recent past) part of our national history. There were no remaining structures “in situ”, but I made several notes of readings to follow up on.

After Lovell we finally made it up to the Medicine Wheel. It was very windy but so starkly beautiful up on the mountainside. I’ll let John’s vlog video cover that for y’all –

After leaving the Medicine Wheel we made our not-snowy-this-time way back across the Bighorn Mountains towards Sheridan. But FIRST!

And a rather over-zealous sheepdog. Maybe.

Now, I had scouted out a boondock site out of Sheridan, where one of the bloggers John follows had noted some spots. So we drove thru a residential area, somewhat confused, then zigzagged UP the side of the mountain on the Red Grade Road.

Little did I know – (dum, dum, DUHM!):

Red Grade Road: a beautiful drive with lots of wildlife in …

https://www.dangerousroads.org › north-america › usa

Located in Sheridan County, Red Grade Road is one of the most treacherous roads on the north-central part of the State of Wyoming, in USA.

view behind the camp site

See those clouds?? Stay tuned !!!

Another Aside –

This spring we lost a young man from my arts group – we didn’t even know until late summer. We weren’t told the circumstances of his death, the family reluctant to give details. I remember Alvaro as a sweet, quiet poet and musician who was studying French and had plans to join the military.

I had been at Portland OR’s Rhododendron Garden in the spring, and had an image of “drowned” flowers (NOT the one above) that I renamed in honor of Alvaro’s life. I’ve decided to work on a series of such images not only for the bittersweet memories of my young friend, but also to bring attention to the illness of depression and anxiety in all our lives.

Because believe me, even if you don’t suffer from depression in your own life – you know someone who does. It’s the silent pandemic of our times. It can manifest not just as feeling “sad” or “down” but as anger – I saw that often in my 30+ years as a psychiatric social worker, helping folks brought to my hospital because of “danger to self or others.”

Let’s become aware, friends – in the meantime, I share with you “Flowers for Alvaro”.

Day 22 – 09/27/21 – Charles Waters cg (outside Lolo MT) to Carbella Rec Area (N of Gardiner)

outside Yellowstone National Park

Up and out after hot drinks – breakfast in – Hamilton? Good breakfast sandwiches in the gas station where I chatted with 2 young guys from a local drywall company. When one of them ordered a habanero/cream cheese Tostito I told him about the easy-peasy cream cheese dip with habanero jelly – he seemed impressed. Passing on those old-timer recipes, lololol!

Drove on down 93 when we both noticed some interesting large metal sculptures off on the R hand side of the road, so we turned around in a defunct Rustic Furnishings store lot and went back. Easy parking.

SO COOL! These tall sculptures were flapping and spinning and whirling! I found a name plate on one of them for “Lee Kierig 2019”. Googling brought up Montana Bliss Artworks right there in Hamilton – check them out!

https://www.montanablissartworks.com

Even better – John’s got video of them in motion on the Travels with Trigger blog post –

We headed on down 93 to Montana hwy 43 – which goes thru Chief Joseph Pass and the Big Hole battlefield. We had to bypass the latter due to time constraints plus there were 2 major wildfires going on in the area – the Wise Creek and the Alder Creek fires. There were 1-ways and stoppages due to all the fire crews so we rerouted up thru Butte.

Just past Butte we saw a helicopter carrying what looked like a big red ball – John explained it held water. Sure enough it was hovering over a lake refilling – couldn’t get a decent shot of it. But sure enough, there was yet ANOTHER fire right there in a pull-bye.

I had another almost-encounter at a (very nice) rest area. I saw an interesting uniform hanging in the back window of the car we parked next to, and I checked it out. An Air Idaho Rescue flight paramedic with over 1K rescue flights! The woman came out of the bathroom – she looked very capable and well-muscled. I’d sure want her to be rescuing ME! I googled the name and was very proud to have run across this hero woman on my travels. I’m sure she’s got some stories to tell…

We decided at Livingston to NOT go up to the boondock we had planned for the night – too far. We wanted to drive thru Yellowstone early and get back to the Medicine Wheel (which we had to miss due to the early snow earlier in the trip remember?). I had called the ranger district for that area to check for conditions, which looked promising.

So anyway we drove on down the road towards Gardiner, to the Carbella Recreation Area. Still smoky in the hills –

brown sky due to smoke!

We found a great spot with sun and the Yellowstone river right below our site. Windy and cooked inside, T on his tether after a little dip in the water!

I spotted a pair of bald eagles but they were too far up and I didn’t have my extender on anyway. Some times you just can’t get the shot and are forced to simply enjoy the moment, lol! Elk wandered thru the campground at dusk – wonderful…

Day 21 – 09/26/2021 – Ringing Rocks boondock to Charles Waters cg (south of Missoula MT)

Annie’s Cafe, Butte MT

Up to hot drinks and decided to look for breakfast in Butte (our lack of success in Helena notwithstanding!). I looked online for possibilities and found Annie’s Cafe downtown – OMG! What a gem!

First of all, it was coca-cola kitschy – no windows but GREAT overhead light. Lots of us older folks, but plenty of table space. We parked in the alley outside and left T barking… Homemade biscuits and corned beef hash, HUGE pieces of bacon. It was wonderful ; )))

We went down to Safeway to reprovision – especially our meats. Now, we don’t have Safeway where we live – but a little tip for you fellow travelers: ALWAYS get savings cards for these out of state businesses, like Maverik gas, etc. On this occasion I saved $20! with a free card!

Great town, Butte – worth a better view –

We drove up thru a few small towns and ended up on a slightly different route around the mountain but had beautiful views. We went up the (fortunately) well-marked road to Granite Ghost Town. Awful road – mostly due to its one-lane-ishness – but fortunately met no one coming down. We passed the route our GPS would have had us on…shudder….

My photos of the Ghost town were just so-so – you can see a better representation of it on the Travels with Trigger vlog:

Afterwards we drove back down into Philipsburg – a thriving little town – and around for views (and quite honestly, in search of ice cream ; ) We were planning to drive up into Garnet Ghost Town, but I took the chance on the highway to Google the road conditions to get there – which looked to be terrible, and John agreed to pass it up.

My nerves can only take ONE of these death-defying roads per day!

We almost didn’t go into Missoula, as we wanted to enter Yellowstone from the north entrance. I got out the paper map (don’t leave home without one) , and figured out that we could come down south out of Missoula on 93 and cut over 43 (?) to pick up 90 again before Bozeman. Then I found a campground at the Bass Creek Rec Area – Charles Waters cg.

So in Missoula we decided that we WOULD find ice cream, lol! We parked by the lovely carousel, which was near the mysteriously-closed Sweet Peaks. Not ones to readily admit defeat in search of our favorite diet-buster, we strolled around the block and found Mary’s Mountain Cookies (AND ice creams!). John got mint chocolate chip on top of salted caramel and Trigger and I shared a spoon to eat white chocolate raspberry and salted caramel macadamia…

We walked back around to the carousel park – past some sketchy skateboarders, a smelly place behind a theatre, and a woman in fuchsia beneath the golden trees. –

We came on down the road to Charles Waters cg. Although our chosen site was a space down and across the the “Bee’s Nest”-closed handicapped spot, the bees visited us but fortunately were friendly.

Very pretty wooded spot with red maples, chattery squirrels and lovely pine branches silhouetted against a featureless sky.