West Yellowstone, Montana

Over the last few days, we’ve taken four drives through the Lamar Valley to view wildlife. And on each of those days, we’ve seen scores of people waiting patiently to view wolves.

We joined some other lucky people one morning and were very lucky to be able to see a lone black wolf jogging up a hill. We were close enough to see him without binoculars.

Others on a hill close by were trying to get a peek at wolf cubs that had been seen the day before in that particular spot.

And everyone there was very kind and shared telescopes and binoculars.

I’ve seen wolves before, so while I was happy to see them I wasn’t as HAPPY to see them as most of the people there. Most of the people were euphoric at their sighting.

Wolf sighting hunters are a special breed. Almost fanatical in their dedication to see a wolf. They will wait hours in pouring rain, patiently glassing a dead buffalo in the hopes that maybe a wolf will stop by. And if two wolves show  up, they are ecstatic.

Many of the wolves are tagged and numbered. Wolf people know the number of the wolf they saw and whether that wolf is the alpha male, a male who is high the pack but does not mate, a female….

Their passions and knowledge are astounding.

I watched a husband and wife hug each other and cry over their wolf sighting. I’m happy their trip to Yellowstone provided them to reach their dream.

PS None of these wolf pictures are mine.

Cody, Wyoming

I lucked upon a quilt show in Cody the other day.

Beautiful works were displayed in a wide variety of styles, colors, sizes, and complexities.

I showed up at the entrance at 5:15 p.m., and the event was due to close for the day at six. The ladies were very concerned that I would be too rushed to enjoy all the quilts in 45 minutes, so they told me I could come back the next day for free.  I wouldn’t have to pay the $3 entry fee again. : -)

While small, the show had more quilts and vendors than I thought they would. And many of the quilts were amazingly designed and crafted.

Most of the entries were machined pieced and quilted. This means that a sewing machine was used to stitch the small pieces of fabric together. In the quilt pictured above, each change of color indicates a new piece of fabric. Amazing!

Machine quilting means that a special sewing machine with a very long arm is used to quilt the quilt front, batting, and quilt backing together.

The quilting process and design can drastically change the quilt’s appearance. The fabric squares in the quilt pictured above are actually square; they just appear curved because the quilting pattern is curved.

Many quilters prefer the traditional hand pieced and hand quilted method. Obviously this is very time intensive.

The quilt pictured below was completely hand pieced and hand quilted. The quilt is about 60″ square. Unbelievably well done!

As I wandered through the quilts, I couldn’t decide which I was more jealous of: the quilters’ talent or the time that they dedicate to their craft…

Actually, truth be told… I’m jealous of both!

One of my favorite types of quilting is called landscape quilting. Here’s one of my favorite from the show and a close up showing how the leaves were created with small pieces of fabric hand quilted onto the quilt front.

And a few more random pictures…

Cody, Wyoming

The Buffalo Bill Museum entrance started out with a hologram of Bill talking to visitors on a cloud of fog coming out of the wall. An appropriate entrance for a master showman.

William Frederick Cody, aka Buffalo Bill, led an amazing life.  He was born in 1846. Bill’s father died when he was 11, and he went to work. 

He worked at many different jobs ranging from Army scout, Pony Express rider, ranch hand, wagon train driver, buffalo hunter, fur trapper, gold prospector, and showman.

It is his life as a showman that we most know him by. His show depicting life in the Wild West traveled extensively through the United States, and it was also performed before kings and queens in Europe.

But his life was so much more than that. He was smart, ambitious, and creative.

He built several hotels in the area to capture the growing tourism to Yellowstone National Park. He was instrumental in developing irrigation infrastructure, successfully securing federal cooperation for the Shoshone Project, one of the first federal water development projects.

William married Louisa. They had four children together; two died in childhood. Bill traveled extensively for both work and pleasure.

His family life was tumultuous. In 1904 he filed for divorce from his wife. They had lived separately for years.  Louisa, a devout Catholic, counter sued bringing his infidelities to public light. The judge denied the divorce. 

He was an outspoken proponent for women’s rights to vote and employment. “Let them do any kind of work that they see fit, and if they do it as well as men, give them the same pay.”

PS The Buffalo Bills NFL football team is named after Buffalo Bill.

Hill City, South Dakota

Today’s a driving day from Medora, North Dakota, to Hill City, South Dakota. It’s a little over 250 miles, so we won’t be doing much else today. (We average about 50 miles each hour on the road, and it takes a bit of time to get ready to travel and to set up once we get there.)

I thought I’d take this opportunity to talk about a few of the people we’ve met along our journey so far.

Homeless Forevermore

Rich met Margaret in Caldwell, Idaho, when we just got Homer, our motor home. She had a friend who had bought the same model and was having trouble with it and wanted to know if we were, too.

Margaret is a widow in her late 70’s. She has been a full timer for over 15 years. She and her husband had a 50 foot motor home and pulled a large enclosed trailer from Arizona to Alaska for many years.

After he passed away, she got a ‘much smaller’ 40 foot motor home. (Our RV is 33 feet.) She drives it herself and pulls that same trailer. The trailer is custom made to haul her SUV and has a workshop in it where she does her crafts. (The picture above isn’t her rig, but you get the general idea…)

Margaret does it all–from hooking up the trailer when she moved to attaching all the septic, water, and electrical connections.

Her friends and family want her to stop traveling and move into a house. She adamantly said she’ll never live in a house again. When she’s too old to drive her rig, she’ll hire a driver to move her to each new location.

6000 Miles in Six Weeks

I met Judy in the laundromat of the park in Medora just last night. She and her husband are new to RVing. They bought their 26 foot pull trailer in April, and this is their maiden ‘long’ trip.

They plan to visit seven national parks in six weeks covering over six thousand miles.

They have a house in Tallahassee, Florida, and a  vacation home in the mountains of North Carolina. She hopes to settle in the mountain home even though most of their family is in Florida.

Judy and her husband are not traveling alone. They have two Golden Retrievers and two cats.

One of the cats is a Siamese who is 17 years old. As they drive down the road, their dogs are tethered in the back seat. The younger cat sleeps under the seat, and the Siamese wanders wherever he wants.

Because he’s 17, she keeps a litter box on the floor at her feet so he can use it as needed.

A Cowboy and His Cat

Jason lived two spaces away from us in Livingston, Montana.

He had a small ranch in Texas. One day last spring, someone drove down his his driveway and came up to him and said, “I will give you this much for your place.” Jason said, “It’s yours!”

He bought a fifth wheel trailer, gave his horse to his aunt, loaded his barn cat into his pickup and drove up to try “the best flyfishing spot in America” on the Yellowstone River.

He got his guide license, and he fishes morning, noon, and night. He’ll be moving to Cody, Wyoming, soon to start a job as a fishing guide.

Jason’s cat is trained to stay in his park spot by being tethered on a leash. He will drag the leash just a bit, but then he will settle down and just lay on the grass sleeping in the sun.

Glendive, Montana

We are spending two nights in Glendive, Montana. This will be our base camp as explore Williston, North Dakota to see the effects of their oil boom. (More about that tomorrow.)

We wanted to stay as close to Williston as could. After too many phone calls to count, we finally connected with an RV Park in Glendive which is about 100 miles away. I talked with an elderly man who told me, “Yes, we have room; you can stay here on those nights. I have you down.” Then he promptly hung up. He’d never asked for my name let alone my credit card info. While this was odd, it wasn’t that odd for calling around the oil boom area.

We weren’t sure we had a reservation, so Rich was a little worried as he walked into the park office.

An elderly couple welcomed him as he said, “We have reservations.” The woman asked his name and said she didn’t have his name listed. He told her that we had called last week. She proceeded to rip him up one side and down the other because he didn’t leave his name. He said that the man we talked worth didn’t ask for our name or credit card.

That’s when the husband quietly snuck out the door.

She said we still should have left our name. . .

Rich asked if she would prefer cash or credit card. “I will always take cash because cards cost me money,” she barked. The total came to $53.50 for two nights. (It’s a pretty rough and primitive park and the price reflects that.)

Rich gave her a one hundred dollar bill. She gave him two quarters, a one, a five, and three twenties.

By the time he came out to the motor home he had counted the change and realized that she had given him too much. He went back into the office to give her the extra twenty back.

As he explained what had happened, she told him that he was wrong and initially refused the money.

He patiently explained again, and she finally understood and thanked him for being so honest.

What I like about this story is it shows patient Rich was with this elderly couple who are very close to being unable to continue to run their business.

He’s a sweetheart whose love for and time with his dad helped him understand the changes we all go through as we age.  

Missoula, MT

I’ve noticed something about RVers: by and large they are patriotic and ingenious.

There are lots of American flags hanging from motor homes and 5th wheel trailers. There are not as many on pull trailers, but that’s probably because RVers pulling trailers are generally not full timers.

Here’s a flag that’s even lit up at night.  They’ve got some sort of solar sensor to turn the light on and off as needed. 

Which brings me to another observation about RVers: they are ingenious.

Living in a ‘home that’s basically an earthquake going down the road on wheels’ requires lots of ingenuity to keep not only keep things running but also compartmentalized and easy to get to.

I love peering into storage compartments to see how people organize things. And I love looking at their solutions.

Here’s a quick and easy way to keep bikes upright. Made of PVC it meets two criteria for RV storage: lightweight and easy to pack.

By and large, RVers are an interesting group.

Missoula, MT

We’ve been at two family reunions in a week.

Well, kind of…

We drove to Bigfork, Montana, to attend a family reunion last weekend. That family was of Rich’s step grandmother, Allie Mahoney. We only went for one night, but we had a wonderful time visiting with Rich’s aunt, uncle, cousins, and nieces. (We’re not in the picture…)

Last night we stayed in a park at Lolo Hot Springs in Montana. We didn’t have any reservations. We figured if we couldn’t stay there, we would stay in the Walmart parking lot in Missoula, Montana.

The park at Lolo Hot Springs was pretty rough. No sewer hookups, lots of pot holes, and rather scary looking electrical hookups.

While we were driving around the park to get to our site, we passed a rig that had a sign out on it saying the owners’ names and home town.

Amazingly, they were from Fallon, Nevada–Rich’s home tome. Turns out they owned a restaurant there and one was the former county recorder. It truly is a small world.

Kenny and Vicky were at Lolo Hot Springs for a Tripp family reunion. At least 150 family members attended.

While we weren’t a part of the Tripp family reunion, I wanted to be a “Day Tripp-er” because they were having barbecued tri tip roast for dinner that night.

Two of the Tripp ancestors used to own the resort, and the family holds the reunion there every two years. Turns out those ancestors were instrumental in bringing the first luge only run in the U.S. to the area after the 1964 Olympics.

We didn’t crash the reunion to eat tri tip. But we had a wonderful time visiting with some of the Tripp family members who were parked near us.