Happy Campers!

I am pleased to report that as both a learning experience and a fun outing, our inaugural camping adventure on Thursday with Girasole, our new little T@B trailer, was a success (though not without a bit of unanticipated excitement!) Naturally I had to record it for posterity. :-)

Here's BW putting the finishing touches on setting up our campsite under the watchful - if somewhat baffled - gaze of the girls...

And here BW conducts a final inspection of our portable dog kennel set-up, which met with everyone's enthusiastic approval...

We bought two of these for the kennel, used a few of the interlocking foam mats we'd purchased to go under their beds, and used an old tarp for a shady shelter. And we hauled all of it (plus more of the mats and our folding camp chairs) on top of the Jeep in our new soft cargo bag. BW's package-car loading days at UPS (memorialized on his water bottle, lol) sure came in handy...

The kennel was very handy for keeping the girls both safe and legal (the park has a leash law) while we were busy and overnight, though they were so very well-behaved (as we knew they would be) that they were quite content to just hang out with us, never wandering off or making a sound, even when other people walked by with their dogs. We camped along the Tongue River (I think; I'll explain later!) at Connor Battlefield State Park in Ranchester, about 20 miles north of Sheridan. It's a small campground, and when we arrived at around 2 that afternoon there were only two other campers there. A few more arrived during the night, but it stayed very quiet. Except for the trains! We didn't realize the tracks were just three blocks away, and trains went by all night long, blowing their whistles with gusto. The only thing that drowned them out was the thunder - I know, look at that cloudless blue sky, right? More on the unpredicted midnight storm coming up. Meanwhile, enjoy our peaceful campsite by day, like we did...

We also all enjoyed our walks around the park. Let me take you on a little tour…

This place wasn't always peaceful. This monument marks the site where an Arapaho village of about 500 inhabitants once stood...

At around 8 in the morning of August 29, 1865, in what is now known as the Battle of the Tongue River (or Connor Battle), the non-belligerent village was attacked by Gen. Patrick Connor, commander of the Powder River Expedition, and about 300 of his soldiers. Most of the young Arapaho men were gone, raiding ponies from the Crow along the Big Horn River. The women, children, and mostly elderly men who were left in the village were caught completely off guard by the attack and the indiscriminate firing by the soldiers, and many were killed, wounded, and captured. After the initial attack, the few able warriors in the village managed to put up an effective defense, retreating 12 miles up Wolf Creek while covering the escape of the surviving women and children. Most of the soldiers remained in the village, looting and burning about 250 lodges, while Connor and 30 or so of his soldiers and Pawnee scouts pursued the retreating Arapaho, who counter-attacked. When all was said and done, Connor claimed to have killed 63 Arapaho, including 35 warriors (the latter number one that historians believe was probably exaggerated), with a loss to himself of five dead and two seriously wounded.

The highly observant among you may have noticed that we happened to be camping there on the 149th anniversary of this tragedy, and its victims were very much on my mind. I agree with what this brief article about "The Connor Battle," states in its final sentence: "The tragic events of the past can be felt in this quiet and contemplative setting." And I take issue with calling an unprovoked attack on non-combatants a "battle." It's worth noting that as the Powder River Expedition began, Connor's orders to his officers were, "You will not receive overtures of peace or submission from Indians, but will attack and kill every male Indian over 12 years of age." (Connor's superiors countermanded this order). It's also worth noting that after this, the Arapaho did become enemies of the US Army (understandably!), attacking a wagon train three days later on Sept 1 and joining forces with the Cheyenne and Lakota (Sioux) in their successful attack on Fort Fetterman the following December.

I think the Arapaho may be continuing to exact a small measure of revenge, in that both times we've visited this park we've been attacked by a cloud of mosquitos whenever we stood before this monument. Didn't matter what time of day it was, and we didn't experience it anywhere else in the park!

All that history of violence and tragedy here stands in stark contrast to the playground that now also marks the spot. It was deserted the entire time we were there and so never disrupted the "quiet and contemplative setting"...

The bison appeared to be made for climbing with all its toeholds and handholds,

while the stagecoach was a unique alternative to typical playground equipment.

On the opposite side of the park is this nifty suspension footbridge that crosses the river (or creek?) to a residential area. The dogs were very brave about crossing it a few times, given that it sways and bounces noticeably!  

Despite the bouncing, the bridge provided a great vantage point for taking the next two photos. I have tried to do my homework on this, I really have - but I still don't know if this waterway, which wends its way around three sides of the park, is the Tongue River or Wolf Creek. Wolf Creek is a tributary of the Tongue River and the road that runs along this portion of the river/creek is "Wolf Creek Road." The river/creek is identified on various maps of the town and park as the Tongue River, Wolf Creek, and Five-Mile Creek (where'd that one come from?!) I'm guessing the portion beside our campsite where the water flows more rapidly is the Tongue River, and this more sedate portion opposite is Wolf Creek, but that's the best I can do. It's pretty, whatever it's called, especially with the evening sun shining on it and the Big Horn Mountains in the distance...

The arrow is pointing to our campsite and "outfit," as they call a truck or a tow vehicle + trailer-of-any-kind combination in these parts...

While we relaxed at our campsite that evening, I noticed a white church steeple, nicely illuminated by the evening sun in the distance on the other side of the river, and took this photo of it with my telephoto lens...

Not long after, when we took the girls for another stroll across the suspension bridge to explore the surrounding neighborhoods, we came upon the church, which turned out to have a Mini-Me! lol...

As dusk fell, we went inside and prepared our first meal in Girasole - a complex affair that we slaved over for hours! ;-)~ We've enjoyed various Dr. McDougall soups at home for years and are happy that they, along with his delicious oatmeal, are also perfect for camping (just add hot water)! BW had snagged the chocolate goodies at the health food store the day before, but the beer was a spontaneous purchase. We've been told by several veteran RV campers that some people engage in this activity in order to socialize (so our main goal being to get away from people might prove tricky!), and we'd also heard that the colorful T@Bs are people magnets. Sure enough, we'd barely arrived and were setting up the dog kennel when a man from one of the two other campers in the park strolled over to visit and ask about our T@B, Scotch on the rocks in hand. He was joined later by his wife, who we'd hoped was coming to fetch his talkative ass but no such luck, she was there to join him (with a stinky lit cigarette in her hand, yuck). They were nice people, but a half hour of their uninvited, chatty company right after we'd arrived was a bit much! Anyway, a while after they left I said to BW, "I don't even like Scotch, but damn his drink looked good to me!" And BW said, "I thought so too!" And then together we said, "Let's get beer!!!" :-) Our site had no shade, Mr. and Mrs. Chatty Britches and the other camper having snagged the only two shady spots, and running our A/C really sucked the generator juice, so needing to get more fuel gave BW a great excuse to pick up some Fat Tire ale while he was at it. We enjoyed our simple meal on our new table (having ditched the heavy convertible table/bed platform that came with Girasole, installing bed rails and slats instead along with getting this lightweight folding table), by the light of our sweet new little 3-way LED lantern...

While we were noshing, BW remembered Girasole's stereo and jumped up to turn it on. It happened to be tuned to Sheridan's oldies station and he'd turned it on just as the chorus to Still the One was beginning! "We're still having fun after all these years…" :-) So of course we clinked our beer bottles and sang along! (And you can too, as I've put the video with lyrics at the bottom of this post!) :-)

It's all fun and games till a wicked thunderstorm that no one predicted appears overhead at 1am (a ghostly, meteorological anniversary reenactment of Connor's attack on the Arapaho, perhaps?) BW got up when he heard one of the dogs pawing at the fence (most likely Tess, who is terrified of thunderstorms), and that's when he saw all the lightning in our vicinity. A loud crack of thunder woke ME up, and the race was on. Willow and Josie can't safely or easily jump in or out of our Jeep anymore, so we bought this PetLoader a few weeks ago - best purchase we've made. But we had to get it untethered from the back of the Jeep and deploy it, put a harness on Willow (she still has bouts of vertigo and holding the top of the harness helps steady her as she uses the PetLoader steps), put collars and leashes on Tess and Josie, gather and shake off their beds and put them in the Jeep, and then load the girls - in the dark and the wind (luckily the rain held off), with lightning striking all around us and thunder crashing and banging overhead. Though our girls haven't used the PetLoader very often - and never under such challenging circumstances - they were real champs! Loaded right up and spent the rest of the night sleeping contentedly in the back of the Jeep. We rolled the windows down so they could catch the nice breeze, and although it rained most of the rest of the night we were all lucky that the inside of the Jeep stayed dry. I checked on them at 4 in the morning and wish I had a photo of our little angels snoring peacefully away, all lying with their butts touching in the middle of the Jeep with their bodies fanned out like flower petals. :-)

The next morning we had a muddy mess to contend with, but that's all part of the camping experience. It was chilly and overcast but the rain didn't resume, and as you can see in the reflection of Girasole's front window we even had a few tatters of blue sky flirt with us before it finally cleared up late that morning. I took photos of the pretty, chameleon-like sky and will share them as part of this week's SkyWatch post. Meanwhile, here is BW sipping his hot tea and being entertained by Willow's vain attempts to convince Tess it would be fun to mud-wrestle...

I'm pretty sure that packing up, getting there, unpacking and setting up camp, then tearing it down, repacking, driving home and cleaning everything up took longer than our actual camping did! :-) But it was a great experience and we are really looking forward to our next one, a much longer trek to northern Montana, a little later this month. We'll see if Girasole is "Still the One" and if "we're still having fun" after that adventure! :-)

2014 Sheridan Annual Garden Tour, Part 1

As I've mentioned in a couple of previous posts, we went on Sheridan's 2nd Annual Garden Tour on July 19th. (We went to last year's also, in which our friends Al and Jackie's garden participated, but I didn't take my camera. This time I didn't make that blunder!

This year there were eight gardens (we made it to seven) competing in two categories: "Amazing" Estate Garden and "Amazing" Backyard Garden. It was a very bright sunny day, which made it difficult to get good photos, so I mostly concentrated on capturing the whimsy and beauty in the details, rather than taking sweeping panoramics of the properties ~ some of which were too huge to capture in a single photo anyway! I'll share them in four posts as time allows… so let's get started!

This garden, in the Backyard Garden category, belongs to a woman named Lauri, and is a certified Backyard Wildlife Habitat. It was an instant favorite and so gets this post all to itself because I took a lot of photos of it! :-) Lauri's backyard is fairly narrow but deep, and filled with treasures both hidden and not. She has a veggie garden and most of her plantings are from seed. She did all ofd the design and installation herself, and we loved its feeling of barely-controlled wildness and its mix of shady woods and open spaces. But mostly I loved all the whimsical touches! 

You know I had to get a closeup of that adorable birdie-hippie VW bus...

And this fun tent birdhouse! Look at all the great details. The birds in Lauri's back yard must be happy campers indeed!...

Lauri and I share (almost) the same first name and a love of birdhouses…

Anyone know what flower this is? (Thanks to Jackie for informing me it's a fancy clematis!) I thought they were really pretty…

She had a couple of gorgeous clematis plants (one a bit smaller than this gorgeous specimen was taking over part of the garage building)...

I loved the backdrop the neighbor's trees provided at the rear of Lauri's property, especially for this fun sunflower, which made me think of a sailor on watch in a ship's crow's nest...

2014 Sheridan Annual Garden Tour, Part 2

2014 Sheridan Annual Garden Tour, Part 3

2014 Sheridan Annual Garden Tour, Part 4

Thought while I'm at it, I'd share a few recent photos from our modest little front flower bed. It may be small, but it's been blooming like a big boy! 

The zinnias came from my friend Rose, who sent us a seed packet of them and one of snapdragons when we first moved to town. I didn't plant them at rental #1 because it was fall/winter, nor at rental #2 because we were building this place by then and I wanted to save them for our house. But in all the hubbub, I forgot about them till this summer! We planted them without high hopes, and though the snapdragon seeds didn't do anything, the zinnias have been amazing! I kept having to thin and transplant them, it seemed that every seed germinated. They just started to bloom this month…

I love the little yellow "stars" around the center of the pink one, which had vanished just a few days later when I took this closeup...

Good thing I got these photos when I did, because we had horrid winds over the weekend that frequently gusted to 50mph over the course of 24 hours, and by the time they moved on to ruin someone else's day they'd bent, broken, desiccated and denuded most of our zinnias. :-( Fortunately, quite a few were still safely tucked away in their buds, biding their time, and should be showing up any day now!

After my dental and haircut appointments tomorrow morning, we're off on our maiden voyage camping trip with the dogs and Girasole, spending the night at a state park campground about 20 miles away. It's been a really crazy week, but we purchased some more camper/camping gear and made some modifications to Girasole (like adding bed rails and slats; the "sleeping on a table top" concept just wasn't going to work for us) that should make things easier/safer/nicer, yet we still don't feel prepared. But the weather's supposed to be ideal, it's just one night, and not that far from home - what could possibly go wrong? ;-) We're not sure if we'll get another chance to "rehearse" before we all head up to Havre in mid-September for a much longer outing, but hope that tomorrow's experience will provide a good shakedown. Just not one that's too shaky!

Anyway, if I owe you an email (and it's probable that I do!), please bear with me - we didn't know BW's retirement would be so hectic! Our own fault for buying the camper. We thought you just buy one, toss in some food, clothes, and toiletries, hook it to your vehicle and you're off on adventures! We were SO naïve. Here's Girasole in her new home, undergoing a storage modification… can you spy BW? :-)

SkyWatch Friday: Ringside at Sunrise (+ bonus goodies)

As if the splendid "Super Moon" rising in the evening skies wasn't enough to take our breath away this week, our morning skies on Wednesday and Thursday seemed to be putting all they had into a Sunrise heavyweight title match to which we had ringside seats! Choose the winner (if you can!)

Ladies aaaaannnnd Gentlemen! In the east corner, in the orange, gold, pink, and purple trunks, Wednesday's "Tornado Cloud" sunrise...

And also in the east corner (awkward!), wearing… well, pretty much the same colored trunks but with more fluffy bits, Thursday's "Golden Glow" sunrise…

Let's get ready to ruuuuuuuuummmmmble!!!

And now for anyone who's interested, here are some bonus, non-sky pics. I have not forgotten my promise to share photos from Sheridan's (relatively) recent annual Garden Tour, but since it's looking like a multi-post dealio, I wanted to first clear out some of these poor little stragglers that I never seem to get around to posting!

During our hot summer weather, our front porch is the place to be in the early mornings and evenings. When we were clearing out and organizing our garage recently (to make more room, for reasons that will become apparent at the end of this post), we found our pretty iridescent glass-winged dragonfly candle holder - a gift several years ago from my friend Jo. In the melee of moving 3x in a year, it had wound up stashed away rather than hung up and enjoyed! So we immediately remedied that - finding the perfect spot for it was easy!

Yup, easy as 1-2-3! :-)

Now his little doorbell brother has someone to talk to! :-)

Speaking of insects, here's a threefer, though it's a sad ending for two of them. Sitting on our back patio (the place to be in the hot afternoons), we watched this robin chase several grasshoppers along our back fence. We didn't think she'd manage to catch one, but she did! She then - with her mouth full, the feathered glutton - continued to chase the surviving grasshoppers around. This time we knew she'd never be able to catch a second one, not with her mouth still full of her first hapless victim - but again, she did! Beats us how, despite watching it happen. Aware she had an audience, she perched on our fence, turning her head to the left, the right, and straight at us repeatedly so we'd have ample opportunity to admire her grasshopper-catching skills. She did this for so long that I eventually fetched my camera, attached the telephoto lens, and took several photos of her before she flew off to those trees in the background - where she no doubt has a nest full of late-summer babies to admire her grasshopper-catching skills far more than we, her vegan audience, ever could. :-) 

Only when I downloaded this photo did I see that I'd inadvertently also captured a winged critter in flight…

And while we're on the subject of critters, here's a recent photo of a content and contemplative Tessa, watching the passers by from the shade of the front porch...

And now to our final critter, BW - who retired two weeks ago today and has finally learned to love it (haha!), posing beside our new T@B teardrop trailer!

It's a 2014 S floorplan w/wet bath "M@xx" model. Despite being teeny-tiny (it'll fit in our garage, yay) and so lightweight you can tow it with some cars (like the Subaru Outback) and even maneuver it around by those two handles you see, it manages to squeeze in a U-shaped sofa/dinette which converts to a queen bed, a wee kitchen (2-burner stove, bitsy sink, little fridge), a "wet bath" shower with commode and hamster-sized sink, a furnace, air conditioner, stereo system, and television with DVD player! All the comforts of home. Well, not really, but it's not really camping if you haul all the comforts of home with you! 

We got the T@B - which, in a nod to my Tuscan heritage as well as its cheery trim color we have named "Girasole," Italian for sunflower (gira sole meaning "turns to the sun") - so we can take our dogs with us when we go places. They are all canine senior citizens now, but still love going on adventures! 

Though we signed the purchase agreement on Girasole a couple weeks ago, we won't be picking it up at the Montana dealership till Monday because we took our 1995 Jeep Grand Cherokee ("Otis") in for repairs and upgrades. He's got over 206K miles on him, bless his little 8-cylinder heart, and we needed him to be as safe and dependable a tow vehicle as possible before asking this additional duty of him. We spent the time he was in the shop, well, shopping! Getting such a late start on camping season does have one advantage - we're getting a lot of stuff on sale (including the T@B itself!), which is especially helpful since we have almost no camping gear (sleeping bags and a camp stove are about it), and have never had a travel trailer/RV of any type before. So we needed accessories - boring stuff like hoses and tire chocks, and fun stuff like a (backordered till October, sadly) matching yellow & grey T@B tent that attaches to the trailer's side (where the dogs will sleep and where we can stash some gear), some portable dog fencing, fun party lights (a necessity, you ask me!), and a pair of these reclining camping chairs. Which I blinged up for this photo with the sunflower from the bouquet from BW's retirement breakfast, plopped ever so appropriately in an empty Girasole wine bottle! :-)

2014 Sheridan Karz Club Rod Run, Pt 2

Sorry it took me a while to get here with the second batch of Rod Run photos, but the traffic was terrible! ;-) Anyway, here are the rest of our favorites from this year's hot rod/classic car show on July 5th. (You can see Part 1 here)...

A 1948 Buick Special 

(and a border collie who seems to be telling his human, "Let's go for a ride in that one, 

it matches my collar and leash!")

1933 Dodge 5-Window Coupe 

According to its accompanying info sign, this teal beauty is all steel and all Mopar, with rare dual horns. (The teal color and those wonderful "arooga" horns were what won me over!) When this was a brand new car in 1933, it was sold in Kalispell, MT. It now resides in Billings, MT, a mere 444 miles away. So I expect it has low miles. ;-) 

BW admiring a boss '57 Chevy Bel Air

1956 Mercury Montclair Hardtop Coupe

These odd tubes in the Mercury really drew my attention. They led from these ports in the rear deck to larger ones in the car's ceiling just above the rear seat, and I had fun coming up with unlikely uses for them. Since they reminded me of the pneumatic tubes you use at drive thru banks, I thought maybe it was a way for someone locked in the trunk to send an SOS to someone in the front seat. :-) 

As I struggled to both figure them out and photograph them, the owner wandered over and explained that the tubes are part of the car's very rare factory air conditioning (which only 1% of all 1956 Mercury Montclair's had!), drawing air from outside vents (you can see the chrome intake vent on the rear fender in the first Mercury photo) and sending it through the tubes to air vents above the front seat. I'm guessing from some of the info I found online that the a/c compressor and condenser were in the trunk, but don't quote me! (I still like my idea of using it to send messages from the trunk to the driver, lol).

1957 Ford Sedan Delivery

The truly beady-eyed and sharp-memoried among you may recognize this car from my 2012 Rod Run post. However, it has been jazzed up quite a bit in the two years since… you can see the graphics on the hood better in this photo, but check out these incredible murals (all painted FREEHAND by the artist!!) on the sides...

and on the tailgate, featuring Mount Rushmore and Devil's Tower...

1934 Ford 3-window Coupe 

2006 Ford Mustang Shelby GT-H

Our friend and neighbor John, VP of the Karz Club as well as the owner of this Shelby GT-H, briefs BW about some of its attributes. If you click on the photo to enlarge it you'll see the "Hertz" badge; yep, that Hertz, the car rental folks. They collaborated with Ford and Shelby Automobiles to commission 500 of these high-performance cars for customers in select cities whose heart's desire it might be to rent a race car to get from the airport to their business meetings. :-) 

Fast as that 325hp V-8 could go, anyone driving one of those bad boys better be watching out for these...

Wyoming Highway Patrol's Restored 1954 Buick Patrol Car 

Beside it is a contemporary one… if I were pulled over by the WHP, pretty sure I'd prefer it be by the '54 Buick (which has its own Facebook page!) Especially if I had to ride to the hoosegow in the back seat. :-)

Speaking of vehicular outlaws… when we saw this '88 Lincoln Town Car in the lineup, we burst out laughing. Just a couple days earlier we had passed this car, with its menacing matte black paint job, on one of Sheridan's streets. BW had done a double take and said, "What the hell was that?" To which I'd answered, "Why, The Death Car, of course!" Seriously, if the Grim Reaper has a driver's license and too much originality to be caught dead driving a hearse (nyuck), this HAS to be his ride!...

1988 Lincoln Death Town Car 

I got another good laugh when I read the "Special Features" section on its Rod Run entry tag, and again when I had a little fun with it in the photo editor…

(What, no mention of chains or scythe?!) 

Perhaps, like me, this has put you in an early Halloween mood, in need of a bit of orange to go with your black. And now that you've seen the Grim Reaper's car, perhaps you're wondering what The Great Pumpkin drives. Why, this naturally! Perfect for cruising through the pumpkin patch...

"Porky," a 1949 Chevy Custom Pickup

We loved this truck! Such a cool color (note the subtle fender flames) and fun shape!

I've tried and tried to get a list of this year's award winners - or even just "Best in Show," but to no avail. I'm still trying, and if I eventually succeed I'll add a note to any of the cars on these posts that may have won an award. 

Anyway, that does it for this year's Rod Run. But you might enjoy some of these old car commercials from the 1950's (when we apparently had much longer attention spans!) The first ad was my favorite. Love the cheesy acting and the subtle-as-a-flying-brick prodding to make everyone envy and admire you by owning their product. Hey, who had time for subliminal messaging when marketers were too busy convincing you that their car could practically fly you to Mars? :-) 

Coming up soon(ish): photos from yesterday's 2nd annual Garden Tour: from horsepower to flower power!  :-)