On The Banks of the Yellowstone

The smoke along the Front Range... from Momma Nature using fire to prune the overgrown Washington forests having become pretty obnoxious... even if it did make for interesting sunrises...

...I rolled out like I said and pointed the radiator north... bound for Montana.

Been set up here in this camp for most of a week. Planned on staying down by West Yellowstone... buuuut... hitting there a couple days before labor day makes it kinda tough.

On top of that, this rig is a little dicier getting through tight spots. Being as it's built to haul some loads... the axles are set back to be centered under where that load (Horses) stands. The result being that though it's purt near the same length as the old fiver it cuts the turns a lot deeper...

sooooo... wigglin' through the cleverly laid out camps the forest service/park service are so skilled at constructing...

... with Hurry-Up!-I've-got-to-get-to-my-camp-NOW! townies trying to see how close they can get to your tailgate (apparently thinking ol' cowboys are prone to being bullied by folks with bicycles strapped on the top of their volvos) becomes a greater adventure.

Trying to worm through an area looking to find an empty camp with enough swing space to allow the truck to jack around during the choreography to back in... with Speedy Nature lover inching closer every few seconds trying to get you to move faster... is a gol darn good time!

The ones I truly admire are those that SIT there as you start to back up to work out a bigger swing. It being plainly obvious that you've got to back up a mite to take the "turn around"  cut-off... or better yet ... while you're trying to back IN to the spot you finally found... that THEY are now sitting in front of... squeezed up tight behind you...

Buuuuut are those mental giants going to concede an inch to let you do that? ...

Yes. They are! when that 18,000 lbs of steel and aluminum keeps coming they actually DO tend to back off and give a grumpy ol' fella some room!

But anyway... after just a night on the shore of a lake north of West Yellowstone I rolled up and around through Bozeman and Livingston... to come back down the valley of the Yellowstone. Found one nice night in a Montana Fish and game river access...

*The Yellowstone river for a back yard*

*Sunrise over the Yellowstone*

How-some-ever... me being the cheapskate boondocker that I am... the $12 a night, even if it had cell signal... was too steep for my long-term blood. A quick scout that night with just the truck located the right sort of place for me just another twenty miles south. Was surprised to find such this close (twenty miles) from the Yellowstone gate!

*Somewhere in Montana*

Still camped with the Yellowstone River out the door, Montana sunsets over the sound of the river... and plenty of room now that labor day has come and gone. A nice BLM site with few amenities and no fee. Suits me just fine.

Been working slowly on the editing to finish up my current project... The #4 book in the Jebediah Taylor series... more western shoot'em up!

That's just about done. Ever'thing's been built and formatted. I'm down to the last and final read through check before I upload to Smashwords and find out if I've done it all right... One. More. Time.

Soon as that is approved I can upload the Amazon copy... Thinking I'll do a pre-order again... release date to be determined but if I get it uploaded in the next two or three days I'm thinking a short pre-order time of maybe a week... we shall see.

I was getting pretty cross eyed so a couple days back Arlo and me took the afternoon off for a slow jaunt through the north end of Yellowstone...

Ok... so if I'm slow... and generally there's a four or five car stack that coax's me to slide into a pull out ever so often to let 'em rush on by... what do you call the pikers in a lil' bitty car, that can't even keep that between the shoulder and the center stripe? ... and go so slow they stack up 18 or 25 cars behind 'em?

... and then pass by EVERY wide spot without exercising the etiquette to pull over?

Rather than waste time trying to conjure a name or even an excuse I just swung out in a wide spot to soak up some scenery... a time or two... and let them play with their own lil' traffic jam as they rolled on away from me.

Um... No... I still managed to catch up... rolling road block that -I- am. Yup... 15 mph for I think 30 miles or better? yeah... took a lil longer than I'd figured... hard to slow down and back off of somebody when ya gotta take time lapse pictures to see if they're actually moving.

Oh well... the country is starting to empty out... I've got a couple of horses to look at before I start workin' over to Sidney on the 21st... and the final work to get done to button up this publishing project... so all's well.

- Brian