Road Warriors

Saturday July 25

Up with the sun.

And effing Dave is still sleeping.

I give up. I got up and made an iced coffee. So now you know the truth: I don’t know how to make coffee in that little percolator. And I don’t want to know how. Because as soon as I do know how, it will become my job. And making coffee while camping will never be my job.

Never.

And here is another truth that anyone who has camped will surely know. Six Road Warriors journals and it’s never been mentioned. It is, for most, unmentionable.

Of course I am talking about poop.

Everybody poops.

Yes it’s gross. Yes it’s embarrassing, but it’s real. It happens. Shit happens. And it will be addressed. I will hide no longer.

Who among us has not vacationed and become an unintentional poop abstainer? As in: you simply don’t go. It isn’t something you try to not do. Your body simply goes into a sort of stasis. You keep eating and drinking and eating some more. Nothing. You have your coffee in the morning. Nothing.

And then your start to sort of obsess: where is it going? Will I explode? Am I gaining more weight?

Some years, I’ve gone the whole trip. That just can’t be healthy. Suffice it to say, there is a real sense of “ah” when you have access to a not-too-gross bathroom facility combined with the exact timing of nature. Suffice it to also say: Woodbine had nice pit toilets and we were all blessed with good timing.

Now we are dispersed camping. And, that’s a whole ‘nuther ball of wax. (Requiring a shovel or the removal and replacement of a big rock, if you get my drift.) We were getting a bit worried about Charlie’s plumbing but he totally lucked out with timing and a facility at the end of our 3.5 mile death march to the trailhead for our hike yesterday. Lucky (said in the voice of Napoleon Dynamite).

This morning, that was another reason I opted to be the early bird. No one likes to slink off into the woods with toilet paper in hand. Too much heckling. I’m not gonna lie. It’s pretty gross. But dispersed camping is still worth it in my book. In all my years, I’ve only ever had to make a trip to the woods once before.

I wear my poop badge of honor with pride. And so should you. Everybody poops.

We’ll close that topic and hope to never reopen it. Deal?

So Dave wandered out and made the coffee I was craving. My hands were frozen into claws as I typed. I was dying for the sun to make it out over the mountain and defrost me.

I was making “chilly killies” for breakfast — actually spelled chilaquiles. I just don’t pronounce it the right way, driving Morgan mental. I got the recipe in the Bon Appetit camping article from July.

It was also where I read all about crazy-cool equipment that started me on the irreversible path of buying Dave a Yeti cooler. Did I tell that story? I don’t think I did. Lord. There isn’t enough time in the passenger seat for all this…

I won’t belabor it: Dave has always wanted one. We have come close to buying one several times but bailed. They are just too expensive. But I had a pretty big REI rebate coupon. So. I just did it. Tied a big bow around it and presented it to him. No hard and fast data to give you, other than: it keeps ice a lot longer than the Coleman Xtreme. Plus, you know, it looks cool. I realize that makes us one notch higher on the douchebag scale, but I have no regrets.

The article also turned me on to Hydroflask insulated bottles. Holy cow. Now this is an awesome product. I got it to keep coffee hot without requiring reboiling, but we’ve pretty much used it for water – which stays cold basically forever. I can’t wait to buy more.

I’m such a good person for the economy.

Anyway. The recipe: it was killer. They had you toting tomatillos and onion, grilling and chopping to make the green salsa. I brought a can of green salsa. Which cut about 3 hours of prep time off. Duh. I sautéed onions and garlic, added leftover potatoes (not in the recipe). Then added a can of black beans and the salsa. Heated up and added the tortilla chips. Fried 5 eggs, put them on top and sprinkled cotija cheese and served with sour cream and Cholula.

It’s a keeper.

So we were just sitting there, enjoying the sun and the food buzz and marveling at the ridiculous amount of redneck ATV traffic heading up the road (The downside of dispersed camping is that you tend to be surrounded by chainsaws and boom boxes and people of questionable breeding ethics.) We, luckily, had a perfect spot that was isolated from others, though close to the road. We noticed only after rolling the camper into its spot that there was a vertical post saying “no motorized vehicles.” Dave assumed we were illegally camping. I argued that all the sites I saw had those posts and that we just weren’t supposed to drive our car down there.

We debated this back and forth several times until I got pissy and said “We obviously don’t agree. Do you want to move?” And Dave said he didn’t so I said we should just stop talking about it.

About the 50^th car to pass our site that morning was a forest ranger. Dave said, “Now we’ll see who was right.”

Dave was right.

I tried to split hairs with them, saying “the camper isn’t motorized,” and explaining that we rolled the camper back there (we really did). But he parried with “you’ll have to back the car in there to get it out of there.

Touché.

Since the kids threw down the gauntlet and refused to hike and since we really didn’t have an agenda and since the rangers told me we “technically” had to leave but that they “wouldn’t write us up twice,” we decided to move on. As soon as the decision was made it couldn’t happen soon enough. These cars! It was like a super-highway.

To quote Charlie and “Just to prove those asshole rangers wrong,” all four of us pushed the camper up to the car and hooked it up. We all agree we were wrongfully cited and just might make a trip to Billings to fight it. It would be my retribution against my wrongful Miles City ticket that derailed my online stardom as a Ford Fiesta agent. No – really – I’m over that.

I swear I am.

Driving the Beartooth Highway was totally out of the way for going home, but I lobbied Dave and he agreed. I assumed we’d go to the pass and turn around and come back to find someplace else to camp near water for fishing.

Now, two hours later we are still driving. Morgan, the delicate flower, is in my place in the front seat and I am forced to sit in her squalor back here in the hell-hole.

The benefit? The rice krispy bars, of course.

Do you see MY bandaid in that pic? Morgan and I have matching injuries, but mine wasn’t as bad. I sliced a chunk off the top of my thumb and fingernail that someone must have eaten in the chilaquiles. That’s what made them taste so good, obviously.

There was a break in the action (writing action) when dave stopped in Cuba to have me drive. Seriously. I have no idea where we were – somewhere in Wyoming. I kept saying “Just turn around and go back the way we came!” But Dave wouldn’t hear of it. Instead, we got on a highway and drove. And drove and drove and drove. I kept saying, “Let’s just go to the Bighorns for the night then!” But Dave wouldn’t hear of it. That was too out of the way.

We were on the hunt for somewhere to fish and somewhere to camp.

Morgan said, “Maybe we should just keep driving home!” But Dave wouldn’t hear of it. — Because we had one more night and dammit we were gonna take it!

We stopped a few places along I-90 east of Billings that didn’t pan out. One was just gross. Another had a tree in the way.

During another foray to try to get to the river we ended up on a dead-end and decided to finally eat some lunch in the only shade for miles. (It was HOT.)

Next, we turned south toward the Bighorn River. It was a bit further than we thought but we were committed to camping there – how bad could it be?

I don’t have any pics, unfortunately. It was pretty bad. Not only was the river not fishable, but the mosquitos were about as bad as you can get. The second we stepped out of the car we were covered – and this was during the day – can you imagine dusk? *shudder to think* The cicadas (or whatever that screeching noise was) were eerie and the whole area reeked of swampy fish.

Back in the car. No plan. Jennie resumes driving.

Now THIS is more like it, people. THIS is how I remember our summer camping trips! Ahhhh nostalgia.

Committed to camping rather than bombing home, we picked the only place on the map where we could camp that wasn’t a parking lot or a KOA – though we passed one of those thinking… maybe… a KOA wouldn’t be so bad…

Then we saw it.

And kept driving.

It has seriously been between 95 and 97 degrees the entire day since coming out of the mountains. It feels like a furnace. No one is real jazzed about anything at this point.

Our final dinner was to be grilled flank steak tacos, but given the hour, we decided we should probably eat out quickly rather than cook in the dark.

Too bad we never passed any restaurants in, like, 3 hours! Living in these parts would be truly rural. It’s hard to imagine. Just… nothing.

We pulled into a tiny part of the Custer National Forest around 8:45pm and everyone had their job: Jennie-Camper! Morgan-Chopping and Marinating! Charlie & Dave-Fire for Steak!

Man. We are good.

And so was the food.

We toasted the last night of our trip and a seriously great time.

Snuggled in to bed – it was still hot, but not stifling – and drifted off. Only to wake up at 2:15 to some partying teenagers who must use this mostly-abandoned campground (free, no water) as a hangout. They were laughing and playing loud music.

I was awake through about six of their songs. It was a pretty good playlist.

Friday July 24

It was a cold night! Dave said he turned on the car to check the temp and it was 46 degrees at about 8:30.

Yes: 8:30.

Close readers will recognize something amiss right away. Dave was checking the car temp at 8:30. Which means…

He slept in again.

I am actually starting to think he must be sick. No coffee in bed again. I still waited him out though. I called it my Broffee (Brunch Coffee).

I got up to start breakfast: diced ham and scrambled eggs with bacon and campfire-toasted bread (Charlie’s continuing specialty). We didn’t really even finish cleaning up until after 10, so we filled a couple water bottles, packed a few candy bars and headed up the road to a trailhead for a 5-mile hike to Glacier Lake.

Dave had calculated that the road went another 1 mile before dead-ending at the trailhead, so our hike would actually be about 7 miles, which sounded perfect. There was actual literature to support the length of the hike, so it seemed mostly impossible that Dave could be under-estimating the mileage.

We walked and we walked and we walked. It took us about an hour and a half to get to the end of the road and the start of the trail — though no one was 100% sure of the time we left camp.

Then we started the trail. Then we went beyond Glacier Lake to Emerald Lake. It was really a really pretty hike. We drank all our water and snacks at the top.

Saw marmots and one pica, so it was deemed a success by Morgan — who we can’t really call the Angry Hiker anymore, now that she is a hippy. Sort of sad really. It’s like time moves on, the kids grow up, and I have no one to mentally abuse anymore. Grandkids will hopefully give me new blood some day…

We were hoping to see a mountain goat that two backpackers told us was up ahead, but we never saw it.

After coming back down to the trailhead we struck up a conversation with a couple from California who had some cool chairs (ever on the lookout for great chairs). They had a rig on the back of their pick-up that inspired a lot of envy. It popped up and had a solar refrigerator that worked even when they were off backpacking for a few days (!!), held 15 gallons of water, extra gas for the car, had a rack on the top that held bikes or kayaks… It was pretty dang cool. Now we’ll have something to google when we get cell service again!

[In addition to googling their camper, I googled the guy because we were very perceptive while chatting (#stalker) and picked up on both their town and the fact that he made banjos for a living. Ha! Found him. I’m going to link to his website and maybe he’ll find us and we’ll become friends and someday meet up in the back country and they can teach us all they have learned, and he will play his cool banjo and we will live happily ever after. Or at the very least, maybe one of them will get in touch and we can find out where his wife got her cool plaid shirt, eh Morgan?]

We started walking back. And walked and walked. We were actually delirious. Dave picked up a big log and I scavenged for some wood. We thought we were a lot closer than we were. Parched, tired, headache… I started to wonder if we might all die.

We didn’t die. We made it. But even Dave (the most under-exaggerater I know) agreed: that road walk was at least 3 miles, which made our hike at least 12 miles.

Dave announced that he was going back to Red Lodge for ice, water and propane and that it would take “45 minutes.” Seriously. That guy. It is a 45 minute drive one way!

Morgan, Charlie and I devoured everything we could get our hands on. Rice krispy bars, cheese, a cold smoked rib, I made guac, chips, crackers. Beer, wine…. It was going to be a good night.

Grilled pork chops with potatoes, green beans and caprese salad. Dave got back about 1 hour and 45 minutes later (I rest my case). He also came with some startling news: he had clocked the road from our site to the highway. Knowing the road is a total length of 8 miles, he said the trailhead was 3.8 miles from our site, making our hike just shy of 14 miles.

No wonder! So: is Dave a liar? Or was that just a sensational headline I used to catch your attention? I don’t have the answer. All I can say for sure is that we have never gone a hike with Dave that wasn’t at least 2 miles longer than originally stated. So while liar might be overstating it, truth stretcher seems a bit too kind. Being seven miles off… though, is a new record.

Even though it had been pretty nice all day, rain once again sent us scurrying for the camper. We did get out long enough to wash the dishes. Then in again. Then out for one s’more.

Thursday July 23

When I am camping, I wake up with the sun, which usually coincides with Dave wiggling the camper as he tries to sneak out without waking everyone. It signals that all is well with the world and that hot coffee will be in my hands very soon. I snuggle in and wait.

Today is different. It starts out the same. Dave even gets up and tries to sneak out without waking anyone. The first noticeable difference is that he comes back. Without coffee. And crawls into his sleeping bag and goes back to sleep.

What the…?

OK. That’s OK. It’s vacation. So I pick up my Kindle (the BEST on camping trips: a backlight requires no headlamp, battery lasts forever, it can’t get all rumpled and wrecked…) and pick up where I left off with Scout and Jem (re-reading To Kill a Mockingbird so that I can read Go Set a Watchman).

And I read and I read and I read. And I watch the storm clouds roll in. And I begin to fret about the prospect of putting the camper down in the rain. (Nothing worse.)

So that, when Dave finally opens his eyes and blinks, I immediately say into his sleepy face, “WHAT THE HELL?!”

And a pleasant good morning to you, too, Jennie.

Even I recognized that was sort of pathological. Not enough to apologize for or anything, but I didn’t really have to because he wasn’t awake enough to process my tone.

I did eventually get my coffee, but it wasn’t in bed and it wasn’t relaxing since it was decided that Morgan and I would try to get the camper down before it rained while Dave and Charlie made blueberry pancakes and bacon. But I am a mature 50 years old now and it is high time I stop having tantrums over something so small as a ripple in the universe. After all, there is plenty of time left for coffee in bed.

We left our cute little site without a real clear plan as to where we were going next. Our fishing guide was saying how much he loves the Beartooth Pass area, so we were discussing that option, and Helena was also still a possibility. The Beartooths were closer though, and won out.

We headed back to Red Lodge with Jennie driving so that Dave could research camping spots – which I point out, could have been done a lot sooner without that ripple in the universe and I could have been in the passenger seat where I belong, but I’m mature now and I don’t complain about that kind of trivialities.

Which was all going pretty well until I rounded a sharper-than-anticipated-bend in a very rutted dirt road going about 25 or 30 mph and came upon the first car we had seen in 40 miles and I struggled to keep the suburban from rumbling across the ruts into them. Dave snapped his head up and began to question my driving and attentiveness.

Pretty much don’t do that if you are ever given the opportunity. It doesn’t end well.

The bummer for these journals as I do mature is that they are nowhere near as fun to write or read. I yelled at him for about 3 minutes and dropped it. Well, to be 100% accurate, immediately after that curve as he was staring me down, I looked down at my phone for a split second to stop the audio book I was listening to, so that I could defend myself (aka yell), and – to make his point — he grabbed the wheel and yanked with his ‘mad face’ and I swatted it away. And then I really started yelling at him.*

Pretty safe driving, eh?

Anyway, the storm passed because I let it.

You are welcome, Dave.

Did I mention that we got a nail in our tire the day before? I think I did not. We are the unluckiest people in the world for flat tires. We were pretty lucky this time, though. The Suburban information panel warned us of low tire pressure and when we were putting air in, we found the nail. There was nowhere to get it fixed, so we crossed our fingers and hoped it would last until today. It did.

Life’s little victories.

First order of business, therefore, was to get the tire fixed. We drove into the Napa Auto Center in Red Lodge and talked to a guy who got right after it. I grabbed my computer and made myself comfortable in a chair on their deck. I had no sooner turned on my hotspot when he approached me and said “ma’am you are all set.”

That level of service is simply unacceptable. I was looking forward to this lull!  Apparently they do some new thing. They don’t even have to take the tire off. He sticks some nylon plug thing in the hole with glue on it and lights the wick-thing on fire and it’s done. Wow, is all I have to say.

We stopped at the Ranger Office for camping area info, then I hit the grocery store for some stuff we needed where I had two separate and very strange experiences at the grocery store with locals budding in line and then arguing with me about it. But the stories are too long to explain. As we finally drove out of town, Morgan said “Charlie wanted to go to Mas Taco too. That’s the restaurant I was telling you about that gets such good reviews”

And I said, “Why didn’t you say something? I’dve been fine with that.” And Morgan said “We should’ve eaten there for lunch” and I said, “Dad probably doesn’t want to.”

Now recognize something here: Dave is sitting right next to us. There is no music playing. He is not listening to an audio book. And yet: he simply does not register any of this. He doesn’t hear us. You can call Morgan and I passive for playing out this little scene without directly saying (loudly): “DAVE. WE. WOULD. LIKE. TO. GO. TO. MAS. TACO. FOR. LUNCH.”

Clearly. Definitively. — Like men are always complaining that women never do.

But that’s not how we play this Game of Life.

I finally say (loudly): “DAVE. THE KIDS WANTED TO GO TO MAS TACO FOR LUNCH.”

And he turns to me (registering this time) and laughs. Then he turns back to the road and keeps driving.

I turn around and say to Morgan, “See?”

And Dave — shockingly – both hears me and registers and responds. A trifecta!

“You’re serious?”

“Well. Yeah. Kind of.”

“You’re not serious. Wait. Really? Are you?” (still laughing but starting to stop)

“Yes. They want to go there and it sounds fine to me.”

“You really want me to turn around? Again”

So he did. And Mas Taco was really good. And they had wifi. For a family on its second data overage package, that sounded pretty damn good.

THEN we hit the road for the camping sites along the Beartooth Highway that would lead us to the Absaroke Beartooth Wilderness Area. We were shooting for either a nice site in one of the three campgrounds or a dispersed site farther along the road.

It was clear from the get-go that the road would be rough, so we spun through the first two campgrounds to check them out before committing to the road, but all the sites were reserved. As we turned onto the dirt road, two huge campers turned in front of us. OH! THE AGONY of driving behind vehicles not equipped…

Eventually they turned off in an area that would later be teeming with about ten more mobile-home-sized RVs. Another couple miles down we grabbed a wooded site near the river, but none of us were 100% convinced it was ‘the best.’ Long-standing tradition demands we check out all the options before settling. So we unhitched the camper and drove on. The road got worse, but just about the time we were going to turn around we saw it: our site. Out in the open on the river. Morgan and I stayed to save it while Charlie and Dave went back for the camper. Lovely.

We set up camp:

Had happy hour:

And continued to dodge the rain. In out, in out, in out.

Dinner was the always-anticipated-but-you-gotta-pick-a-cool-night spaghetti. Salad with blue cheese and grilled cheesy bread. It did not disappoint. Rain sent us to bed early again. No complaints.

* I made the mistake of reading this post aloud on our way home and Dave actually listened long enough to demand that I append this section by saying that he yanked the wheel because I was on the wrong side of the road. Which is true, but irrelevant because I was on a straightaway and could see far enough to know I had every right to be on the wrong side of the road. And also because we had already passed the one car we were likely to see.