Winter in June ??

For any of you that read this blog and would like to view more pictures, sometimes I do not put everything here, let me know by email and I would be happy to share all of the photos we have taken. For those of you who are still wondering, no we are not ready to come back to Indiana,(although we do miss family and friends) and yes we are having the time of our life.

Today, Friday the 5th we took a drive up to Horse Butte overlook. The drive up to the top is now something we have learned to expect, rocky, bumpy, dirty, hole infested, narrow, you get the picture. The rewards of going to the top was nothing short of what we expected. As you can tell by the signs up there, elevation is 7077 ft, but the views were breath taking. We were even able, using the binoculars, to located our camper clear across the lake. I remember my sister MaryAnn had a favorite saying in her year book ( I believe it was the yearbook, if not I apologize to her ) which read something like this, “anything worth having, is worth working for”. Well if one wants to see the beauty that the good lord has created, sometimes you have to put forth a little work or extra effort to accomplish it. Today we did that and the rewards were great!





Sunday morning we woke to find 2 inches of snow on the ground. Vickie said she told Todd not to answer the phone because she was afraid her workampers were calling in to quit. After all the snow we have seen since leaving Indiana we figured 2 inches was nothing, even though it was in June.

Tuesday, June 8th, we took a drive over to Idaho to a place called Big Springs. The name of the town is called Island Park and it prides itself of having the longest “Main Street” in America, about 33 miles long. The owners of the many lodges and resorts there incorporated the town in 1947. The town is only 500 ft wide in most places and 33 miles long. The reason for incorporating the town was to get around Idaho’s laws that said alcohol could not be sold outside the city limits. Pretty smart huh? Big Springs has a log cabin that is listed on the National Historical Registry. The cabin was built by a German immigrant who stood a whooping 4”11 inches. Unfortunately the cabin is closed until July 4th, but to see the craftsmanship that went into it is something else. To give the cabin a finished look, he left the bark on the logs and used this as a decorative finish. The place is really remarkable to see and we only regret it was not open at the time, but we’ll go back in July and see the interior. The drive there was less than 30 miles from the campsite and well worth the trip.



This past week, June 15th through today, we learned some new meaning to the words “cow bells” and “wedding rings”. A couple from Michigan is camping here this week and invited us to go fishing on their boat. They do a lot of trolling and rigged us up some rods with cow bells and wedding rings. It was an experience we have never encountered before, sitting back on a nice soft seat, shooting the breeze and waiting for the fish to hit. We’re happy to say the cow bells, which is a collection of different colored blades from 2-5 inches , attached to a line, a wedding ring, which is some smaller beads and a wedding ring located in the middle of the beads, and a hook with a night crawler, done very well for us. We ended up bring back 8 trout, all between 16 and 19 inches. The rest of the week pretty much was routine, fishing, driving around looking at some new places, and just good of relaxing.

End of the road !

Thursday , June 4th, we decided to just hang around the area. The road that we use to get into the campground is about 4 miles off the highway but continues another 12 miles up into the forest. Today we decided to drive to the “end of the road”. By now most of you should know by the pictures we have sent, that the county roads in Montana are not quite like the one’s in Tipton County. The only thing I can say is this time the road was a heck of lot better than before due to the fact they graded the road, or at least half way there. We did manage to see some deer and elk. The only difference between here and in the park is that out here you have to look fast, due to the fact they are not people friendly. You do not get the chance to walk upon them to take their picture like some of the wildlife in the park.

The drive proved to be a shaking experience. The road reminded me of looking at a vanishing point where two lines meet. The road kept getting narrow and narrow the higher we went. We were quite surprised to find several summer homes that were located off of the main road. I’m not sure why someone would want to build a home 16 miles from the highway and have to drive this type of road to get there, but I will say I have to believe that once there, they have all the peace and quite one would want. As you can tell by the signs we did make it to the top. My thinking on taking this kind of drive is this, “why climb to the top of the mountain without seeing what is on the other side”. Back down we came and we ended up watching sand cranes, courting one another with their dancing around. Oh, love is in the air!

Old Faithful

This past week we went into Yellowstone Park and decided to take in some of the beautiful views. Our last trip here was in 1994 and we only were able to visit the highlights of the park. This time we decided to take some of the not so traveled routes to Old Faithful and see what we could find. Our first road we came upon was Fire Hole Canyon drive. This is the area that everyone that fly fishes end up going to. The drive proved to be quite spectacular. The Fire Hole Canyon was cut out many many years ago by hot lava from an erupting volcano. For those of you that are not aware of it, Yellowstone Park and its 2 million acres, actually sits on an active volcano area. The pictures posted below (as most all pictures) cannot began to show the actual beauty of the area.

We then continued on to an area called Fire Hole Flats where we found more buffalo in one place than we have seen almost anywhere else. When one is traveling in the park and comes upon traffic blocking the roads, it is a good bet you are going to see something out of the ordinary. Well this traffic jam came to a halt to view a bull elk with the start of a nice looking rack on it. On to Old Faithful we continued.

We entered into the Old Faithful area from a different direction than we had when we were out here in the 90’s. We kept looking at each other like we were in the wrong place, until we came around a bend in the road and saw the hundreds of cars. The light came on and we now knew we were in the right place. We walked around and visited the Old Faithful Inn, which by the way, is one of the most beautiful Inns we have ever seen. Again the pictures here do not begin to show the beauty of the craftsmanship that went into building this Inn. Our goal in sharing these photos is to give you the “itch” to someday come and see the beautiful sites that are here.