9/17/2010 9:28am Day 3
Today I woke up at the RV park at Lake Como. Unfortunately when we left Lifeline Dairy yesterday afternoon, about 200 flies came with us. The truck and RV were both full of them, buzzing around and making Hanz snarl at the air and then snap his jaw, trying to catch them. As we headed deeper into the Bitterroot we stopped in Hamilton to get ice cream. Our favorite ice cream place is a small local joint called Out West. Well, it was called Out West a couple years ago when Tyler and I worked at Homestead Organics, a family-run produce farm also in Hamilton, MT, now it’s called something less endearing and is attached to a greasy food joint. It was formerly attached to a really cute shop that sold home goods and western wear, including cute cowgirl aprons. Luckily, the ice cream is the same so they still had my favorite flavor, Montana Moose Moss; it’s mint ice cream with fudge swirls and mini peppermint patties. Yummmm.
We took our ice cream to go and then headed towards Lake Como to set up camp in the RV section. Tyler spent the rest of the evening fixing the various things that did not work in our Springdale 179 travel trailer. He had called someone at Bretz, where we had bought it to ask about using the hot water heater and they gave him wrong instructions. It is seriously absurd how much they charge for these things, when they are made with such cheap parts. But that’s another issue. So anyways, Tyler finally figured out the hot water heater so omg we had hot water! I could take a shower! That was the worst thing about working at Lifeline, the inability to really clean up at the end of the day, so now I was super excited to be able to take a shower. Oh the wonders of modern living!
12:39pm
I’m at River Rising, a café in Hamilton, sipping on a mocha and waiting for my sandwich to arrive. We came into town to do our laundry. Evidently when you use the shower water leaks onto the floor in the travel trailer so we used all our towels to mop it up. Lake Como is a really beautiful place to camp. When I woke up this morning, around 8:30am, I took Hanz for a little hike and he loved it. He loves hikes and areas where he can run around and act like a wild dog. He especially loves new places where there are foreign smells for him to investigate vigorously with his nose. After our walk I went back to the trailer, fed Hanz and put some water on for oatmeal, the breakfast of champions!
We took a small road from Lake Como to Hamilton, bypassing Hwy 93 and opting for the beauty of the back roads. What a gorgeous road! There were signs warning that this is “Open Range” so be careful of the roaming animals, they may very well be in the road! We passed by a farm with a couple sheep just walking around, right next to the road. Instead of having fences to keep animals in the people in this area had fences around their gardens to keep animals out of them.
We passed over the Bitterroot River on a little one lane bridge and saw a fly fisherman casting in the waters below. We passed over the bridge and continued along the dirt road, rising above the valley with incredible views both of the land below as well as the mixed jagged and rounded peaks above. I learned from my visit to Wilson, WY this summer, which is just outside of Jackson Hole and almost at the very base of the Tetons, that jagged peaks are present on younger mountain ranges that haven’t been around for long enough to be very weathered. So geologically speaking, the Tetons are one of the youngest ranges in this country. There are sections of the Bitterroot Mountains that are jagged like that but not nearly to the extent of the Tetons, which are famous for it.
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| Passing over the Bitterroot River |
We soon realized that the canoe, which was strapped to the top of Tyler’s Tundra, was not attached tightly enough to the roof so we pulled over. It is things like that, little seemingly random events, that can lead you to see or experience little pleasures that you would have otherwise missed. When I stepped out of the truck I heard Tyler remark, “Oh wow, look at the sheep!” I hurriedly scrambled around the back of the truck and looked down into the valley: hundreds of sheep were grazing not too far below. I could hear them going “bahh” back and forth and couldn’t help but smile.
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| Sheep Grazing Below |
Tyler and I have decided to stay another night at Lake Como. We bought the “America the Beautiful” pass that allows you free access to all national parks and monuments and federal lands in general. We have yet to actually go down to the lake but I think when we are done with laundry we will explore that area with Hanz. We left him in the travel trailer to guard everything. It’s been beautiful fall weather this past week, cool and a bit damp but really nice for being outside.
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