A Voyage of Discovery: Betsy and Bubba on the Road

Living in a van has some inconveniences. Before you can drive off, you must unplug your connections and stow all your belongings. I hadn’t properly appreciated how much like living aboard it was until the first time I hit a bump and stuff went flying through the air. I’m gradually developing systems, but am glad that the car will be along shortly. I spoke with Carol on Monday, and they were just passing through Joliet, Illinois. With the price of gas going above $3 in the park today, the efficiency of the Toyota will be welcome. Still, there are great conveniences to having your home on your back.

Friday morning, I severed my connections, in anticipation of a trip to Bozeman that night. I used that as an excuse for an early morning bear prospecting expedition, as a couple of people from work had seen grizzlies at a nearby location.I drove about four miles down the road to Sedge Bay, a gentle curve on the shores of Lake Yellowstone. I pulled up by a lone pickup truck with the largest longest camera lens stuck out the window. There, lazing in the grass and munching on his spring vegetarian diet was a male grizzly bear I have since learned is about 4 years old, and apparently as amused by humans as we are by him.

I won’t go so far as to anthropomorphize these critters a la Timothy Treadwell, but, during the hour or so I watched this guy, he stretched, yawned, and munched on spring greens. Apparently there’s a big grizzly sow and her cub who have just moved into the neighborhood of the campground and will be waiting for the local elk to drop their calves so they can enjoy a snack. Nature isn’t all pretty or benign, but it is certainly fascinating, and an incredible opportunity to be an observer from the front row seats. Some of my co-workers were out early yesterday morning watching wolves gnaw on an elk carcass just off the road a few miles to the north.

I drove up to Bozeman, MT on Friday after work to bartend and otherwise volunteer for Andra Spurr at her annual “Spring Run-Off” Fundraiser for the Big Sky Youth Empowerment Program. The longest part of any drive here involves getting out of the Park. The distances are not huge, only about the size of the state I come from, but you come around a corner and there’s a herd of slow-moving and fractious bison in front of you, or find the road blocked by a bear-jam, a knot of traffic, often regulated by a ranger, of folks stopped in midstream to watch wildlife in the fields or trees. As we drove east to west across the park, on our way north (there’s no direct route from anywhere to anywhere), Bubba spotted a lone coyote strolling down the road and wanted to stop for a frolic with a fellow canine. I had to explain that this fellow was not quite as play-minded as he.

We drove up through the Paradise Valley through what I have since learned is the annual Mother’s Day Caddis Fly hatch”, an institution that involves trying your best to remove their gummy residue from your hood and windshield. My best has so far been none too good.

Andra’s event was a great success, as far as I could tell. We parked in their back field, and Bubba was awakened early by a bark at the door from Boulder, the border collie, who wanted him to come out and play. He had a chance to really stretch his legs and chase ground squirrels, something he’s not allowed to do in the national park setting. We drove back to the park in time for work at 1, this time by another route, down the west side of the park, through Gallatin Gateway and Big Sky, a beautiful drive along the river. A couple more days of training left my brain fried, and we had Monday off. My plans were shaped by what appeared on Saturday to be a damaged converter on the van, meaning no power, accompanied by the smell of something burning and vaguely electrical. I took off Monday morning, with one of my co-workers riding shotgun, to Bubba’s dismay, for Cody, Wyoming, the nearest big town to our location, some 87 miles east. Don’t confuse near with fast. We drove about 16 miles east to the Sylvan Pass. The Sylvan Pass is under construction, and construction can only take place during the spring and summer months as the snow is so deep, and the avalanche danger so great, the rest of the year. For those of you who know my fear of heights, picture the scene: the road is gravel, with a pretty sheer cliff to the north and a pretty precipitous drop to the south. We drove to a point where a young woman flagger stopped us and we waited for the pilot car coming from the other direction leading a line of traffic. We only had to wait about a half-hour; other waits have apparently been much longer, the folks heading eastward had been delayed waiting for blasting on the road. The truck arrived followed by a line of about 20 vehicles. The pilot turned around, swapped drivers, and headed off to the east, with the van being the car right behind the pilot. The road was narrow and bumpy, and periodically we were passed by heavy equipment moving in the opposite direction. It just didn’t look as if there was enough room to pass. Bulldozers were climbing steep grades on the uphill side of the road moving massive piles of rock. At a top speed of 15, we moved through this ordered chaos, and I tried to not look downhill, thinking the ride back would be easier and better now that I knew what to expect. Coming out the other side, we moved through country that looked like every western I ever saw as a kid: meadows full of sage, cottonwood and aspen groves, and red sandstone rock formations twisted and shaped by erosion into fascinating shapes. We drove the hour to Cody, and spent a few hours wandering after I got the good news from the RV repair place that they thought my problem was not a big one.

Cody’s main street is full of shops catering primarily to the tourist trade. There is the Buffalo Bill Historical Center, which is supposed to be fascinating and well worth a full day; we just didn’t have enough time today so it merits a return trip. Saddleries, gift shops, and galleries are interspersed amongst attractions like the Irma, the hotel Buffal Bill slept in, and eateries with cowboy motifs, mostly self-described as saloons and featuring burgers. The back streets are lovely, wide and tree-lined, with charming houses, small and attractive, well-maintained, many wwith victorian detail. The lilacs were in bloom. I’ve been missing them all the way across country, and Bubba and I walked around town intoxicated by their fragrance.

We headed back to the east entrance to the park, only to learn that the road was closed. It’s closed every evening during the construction season from 8PM to 8 AM, but this particular unanticipated closure was caused by unexploded ordnance falling on the road. An old Howitzer is perched on top of the mountain by the pass, and fires off rounds to trigger avalanches during the winter. This round landed on the road, and required evacuation and flying in a munitions expert from Las Vegas to deal with it. Our option was an hour drive back to Cody, then a five hour drive up the Chief Joseph Scenic Highway to Cooke City, Montana. I couldn’t be sorry that we had to take this rather long detour. It was one of the most stunning drives I’ve ever made, through beautiful high country, and a slow drive at that, harpin turns across two mountain passes, 25 mph, absolutely gorgeous breathtaking country. We came back into Yellowstone through the northeast entrance around 8PM but could not take the most direct route back to the Lake; that pass is still closed by snow, not scheduled to open for another ten days. So it was another hour and a half via the circuitous route. We are definitely operating on Yellowstone time. Our bosses have been quite clear though; bison jams or closed roads are not excuses for tardiness, we drove on through the darkness to get back in time. Even the late portions of the trip had their secret benefit. Getting back to the campground and plugging in around 10:30, I took Bubba, the patient dog with the expansive bladder, for a late walk. We heard the call of a great gray owl from the woods to the west of my campsite. The stars were brilliant, the night, cold and clear.