Big Sky Respite
And reluctantly admitting our tourist status
Circle, MT—nearest Fitzlabs City, Billings, MT: “Billings's climate in 2080 will feel most like today's climate near Hurricane, Utah. The typical summer in Hurricane, Utah is 11.3°F (6.3°C) warmer and 36.1% drier than summer in Billings.”
Being a fan of open sky, I was eager to get into Big Sky Country, and it did not disappoint. The sky really does seem bigger, even to a flatlander like me who grew up in a place where hills were a novelty.
We stayed for four nights in a shabby little ranch house about four miles down gravel roads under the big sky. It was not the cleanest lodging in the world, but it had everything we needed to do a good reset after the storm: a garage for gear repair and sorting, a big washer and clothesline, an air conditioner in the bedroom, and fast WIFI for work. We pulled in and parked for four days, and the only time I moved Thirsty during that time was to put her more under a tree in case of hail when another storm moved through. (No hail materialized, despite the warning.)
The first morning, I looked out the kitchen window to see a young buck, antlers still in velvet, looking in. Chickens wandered into the yard, and a real cowboy sometimes buzzed by in an ATV. One morning the horses got out and galloped past, but they didn’t go far. It was a good stay. I did little but work, futz with gear, and lay around. I wish I could say I cooked healthy meals and exercised virtuously, but I did not.
The tent company was slow to respond to my plea for new pole segments. I tried a repair myself, but the segment break is along a bend in the pole and it failed (if I ever buy a tent again, I will look for one with only straight pole segments).
I decide to embrace a new life as tourist, and our battle cry of “it’s only money!”, reserved a hotel room in Cody, WY. We’ll spend Saturday with the other tourists at Yellowstone.
It feels good to be moving again under big sky. Driving out is a spectacle of native sunflowers and Ferruginous Hawks and sky show.
In Billings, we stop at REI. It’s 101 degrees when I take Liesl in to shop and ask about possible pole repairs (nope). When we exit the store, now owning a can of bear spray I’ll never need, the sky has darkened considerably and another storm is approaching. I park Thirsty into the wind to watch it, and eat lunch, then finally just continue on our way to Cody, encountering only high wind and a little rain. As we leave Billings, the temperature plummets to 66 degrees. Our route takes us south of the worst of the wind, which causes a terrible dust-storm pileup on the highway to the east.
The terrain and geologic forms change as we enter Rocky Mountain foothill. I spot a Bald Eagle next, complete with eagle, on a post right alongside the road.
In Cody, we’re soon ensconced in our ridiculously overpriced motel room. When I wake the next morning at 4am anyhow, I decide to make coffee, gas up, and just get moving toward Yellowstone and maybe avoid the worst of the crowds. It’s a lovely hour’s drive to the park, the moon shining over cliffs that are catching the first rays of morning light. We’re driving through the East entrance at 6am, and it’s pretty quiet.
I think to do the north loop, hoping for wildlife. I can’t do Lamar Valley, “America’s Serengeti”, because it’s closed due last month’s catastrophic flooding.
The drive in is, perhaps appropriately, through another long disaster area, miles of felled trees. The devastation is from pine beetle, insect refugees driven by temperature change.
Descending to lower altitudes, the park becomes more picturesque. My thoughts today are about being a tourist, about how the National Parks are such glorious treasures, despite being overrun by us, and at the strange dichotomy of this kind of conservation. While preserving it for all of us, the humans who lived entwined into this landcape were wrested from it, and no one truly gets to experience living in it now. We swarm to visit it, and in doing so contribute to its ruin.
Thankfully, some of the “people”, in the larger sense of the word, are still here. I finally get to see a wild bear, breakfasting in a field of wildflowers.
What surprises me most about the bear is the sense of love that I instantly feel for this creature, shiny black and peaceful in the flowers. I know that I love wildlife, but it is a different thing to experience it enveloping my heart in warm energetic waves.
I’m really just sightseeing, appreciating the bison and marmots along the way. When I see people with scopes, usually tour guides, I avail myself of their implied recommendation to stop and take a longer look. I get to peer through a scope at bighorn sheep, but they’re really just dots and I can’t claim to have “seen” them. At one stop, a wolf sightseeing company van leaves quickly, not finding their quarry, but I am entertained by the cliff swallow colony behind us at the river overlook.
I realize that it’s still morning when we hit the cut-off between the north loop and south loop, so it becomes a grand loop day. We even take in Old Faithful with the rest of the crowds, for it’s noon-predicted eruption. The fountain rises at 12:02pm.
I’m amused by the conversations around me, with loud mansplaining that it erupts “every hour” or “every half hour” and other utter Homo sapien-supremacist bullshit.
From there, though, it’s mostly just a drive back out of the park and into Cody. I pick up dinner, and collapse back at the crappy motel, fiddling with the AC and chasing flies with the road atlas.
Something bothers Liesl here—she hates the flies and snaps at them, but I think me bashing them with the road atlas scares her. Or perhaps she got overheated. She vomits up dinner and insists on laying under the desk instead of with me. She wants to go outside, but she can’t find the right place to go—it’s all sharp grass or craggy gravel. She wanders and pulls, trying to sniff under other room doos. When I try to get something out of the car, she leaps in and bounds into her box as if to say, “let’s go, now!” It’s unsettling. But her vigor reassures me that she probably doesn’t need vet care. Eventually, she hops back up on the bed with me for the night. But she is certainly eager to leave, as am I.
I spend a lot of time with mapping and weather apps. There’s a heatwave coming in and I am very clear on one thing from this trip: I want to live somewhere cool. I am flattened by heat and I hate the noxious draft of air conditioners.
Our meandering road trip becomes more goal oriented: let’s get back to the left coast. We set sail for Missoula, and Thirsty bravely battles the wind and mountain passes, and the cargo box stays snug on top.
Missoula, MT. A Fitzlabs City. “For high emissions, Missoula's climate in 2080 will feel most like today's climate near Lewiston Orchards, Idaho. The typical winter in Lewiston Orchards, Idaho is 10.9°F (6.1°C) warmer and 3.2% drier than winter in Missoula.”
At Missoula, we rent a 27 ft RV set up as an AirBnB. It’s a little pricey, but I am curious as to what they are like to stay in. It’s better than I thought—much more space than we need. I would hate to try to drive with one, but I see the appeal.
I get work done, convince myself once again that I’m not trading Thirsty in on a truck right now, and finally get the tent company to send replacement poles ahead to Oregon.
Liesl is happy here, but on the way out of town we make a stop she hates. Her claws are too long, and she’ll no longer let me clip them. I find Two Barking Sisters Dog Spaw that advertises walk-ins, and when we walk in they greet us with a cheery “nail trimming?” (it’s that obvious). Liesl is whisked away to a bondage table and they get to work.
She fights them almost as much as she fights me, but she’s restrained better, and they’re pros. The other dogs in the shop seem calm (and becoming so pretty!) But soon I have my dog in my arms again, tail wagging. They only charge $10 for this miracle; I give them $20 and tell them to keep the change.
We continue along. Liesl lays in her box and stares at me, accusations of betrayal in her eyes, but finally curls up and sleeps. I take the exit at Alberton, seeing the billboard advertising a big used bookstore. But the town disturbs me so much, I end up driving by, making a u-turn, and just driving out again. A man on the street yells at me; I assume I was going too fast and slow down.
The sign that we are entering the Pacific Time Zone cheers me up. We go through Spokane, and get a hotel room when we’ve had enough. There is a patch of lush, short green grass for Liesl here, and treats from the adoring clerks at check-in. We’re only a day from the coast now.
I find the pictures are within the story of your continuing trip to home are more than flickers, they are the structure for the eye. Edward Mycue
A masterwork