Missoula, Butte, Virginia City, Yellowstone National Park (posted from Cody Coffee Company, Cody, Wyoming)

(this post covers 4-10 September)


Sunday, 10 September-
This morning we awoke early and were underway by 0745 so we could look for wildlife. We immediately hit pay dirt. We weren’t even out of the campground’s long entry road when a marvelous bull elk crossed the dirt road just 20 yards in front of us. He had a trophy-size rack and I believe he was angry--- he was walking at a fast clip and was bugling very strongly as he walked. His eyes looked to be a little bugged out, contributing to the effect. As soon as he was out of sight we thought we’d backtrack down the main road and try to intercept him. But right at the entrance turnoff to the campground, a bison stood in the road, blocking the way. We had seen some clips of bison and elk charging cars so we didn’t want to take a chance and just waited him out. He took a long look at us and walked off the road. In about 30 seconds, a second bison came out of the woods and followed him, walking right by us. What a great start to the day!
We drove south from Indian Creek Campground and soon came to a large meadow where we could see elk in the distance. A bull tended the herd of about a dozen on one end and a large cow elk seemed to be on guard at the other end. We glassed the bull and saw that it had a respectable rack but nowhere near the size of the one we had seen earlier. We moved further down the road to another pulloff and could still see back to the herd. Then we moved to Apollonaris Spring and were checking out the neat stone work when we heard coyote or wolf yipping—and a lot of it—back the direction we had come. We jumped in the van and went back to the last pulloff but by that time we heard no more yipping. The bull elk started bugling and we could hear another off in the distance to the south. This went on for ten minutes or so and kept us there marveling at the elemental sound. Then the big surprise--- the yipping and yelping started up again and this time I could pick out movement out in the field--- three gray wolves! They were in the open meadow and only a hundred yards or so south of the elk. At the risk of losing the wolves, I swung my binoculars to the elk and they were very definitely paying attention. All eyes were turned toward the wolves. But the wolves didn’t seem to pay the elk any attention. Something had them excited; they were jumping around and running back and forth. Then we heard another wolf call and we saw it running down the hill in the background. When it joined the pack others seemed to materialize out of nowhere—we counted six of them now. In their running about, they moved away from the elk and toward the creek. We’d see one or another of them leap high into the air, peering ahead of their direction but we don’t know why. The yipping and calling ended and the pack moved off to the southeast. We lost sight of them when they went into the willows along the creek. We tried moving down the road to intercept them but never saw them again. I believe we may have waited too long and they had crossed the road while we were still scanning for them with our binocs.
We drove south once more and headed for Old Faithful, taking the various little short side drives (Firehole Canyon, Firehole Lake, etc) on the way. We stopped at the Old Faithful Lodge and checked with the front desk about buying a shower—yes that was indeed possible—for $3.25 a head. We noticed that Old Faithful was supposed to go off in a few minutes so walked outside to see that, then went back to the van for our showering kits. We took our good old time about showering, especially Labashi. I think she set a new record for time in the shower because I showered and went back to the van, tired of waiting for her, went into the lodge and checked out the gift store, the cafeteria, the great-room, and the ice-cream shop before walking back to the van and I still had twenty minutes or so of map and brochure reading until she showed up with a big smile. It was almost time for Old Faithful to go off again so we took a walk around the Old Faithful boardwalk to the Old Faithful Inn and looked around. Then we went to the Yellowstone Store to pick up some essential supplies. We had not intended even to stop at Old Faithful at all but that turned out to be a good stop for us—we re-supplied our groceries and ice, gassed up the van, and were all cleaned up and rarin’ to go.
After Old Faithful we continued south and swung around to Yellowstone Lake. We stopped at Bridge Bay campground and registered for the night because we knew we’d be out late looking for wildlife. We drove into the Hayden Valley to reconnoiter for the evening. We stopped at an overlook and happened to see a red-tailed hawk circling across the valley toward us. As it got close, it suddenly stopped circling and hung suspended in mid-air for a few seconds, then dropped at a terrific rate for the ground. It appeared to fly directly into a bush and we saw the bush thrashing around, then our hawk with a mouse or vole in it’s mouth….very cool!
We drove the length of the Hayden Valley and saw many bison and six mule deer. When we hit the road to Artist Point we drove to it and Labashi shot a few photos there, then we drove back down through the Hayden Valley. This time we turned at the intersection for the East Entrance and drove that road looking for grizzly since we had learned one had been spotted in a meadow there yesterday. We drove 15 miles or so, then turned around and came back to the intersection and headed back into Hayden Valley. Our goal was a particular pulloff where I had heard there was a bison carcass. That pulloff was crowded so it was apparent the word had gotten around. We eventually spotted the carcass off in the distance and we saw that several photographers had positioned themselves on an overlooking ridge. But as dark drew near it became a circus and we never saw anything approach the carcass and we went ahead and had supper in the van while occasionally checking. Afterwards we retired to our campsite at Bridge Bay ($18).

Saturday, 9 September-
Today we woke at 0630 to get an early start looking for wildlife in the Lamar Valley. We didn’t have breakfast, we just got dressed and headed out. Within minutes of our turn into the Lamar Valley we had seen two hundred bison, and they were right along the road. We also saw two mule deer and ten pronghorn antelope. But, alas, no wolves. We ran into the Oregon folks again and they too came up empty. By 0900 it was all over. We drove back and checked out Slough Creek campground then parked nearby and had our breakfast and morning wash while enjoying an incredible view of the creek and meadow.
Then we drove to another dirt road, this one a tour of the Blacktail Plateau. We saw a few bison and an odd bird—probably a fool hen—in this very nice six-mile backcountry loop. We then continued back toward Mt Washburn and crossed it again, then stopped at Cygnet Lakes for lunch. Then we took a short hike of about two hours on the Lake Grebe trail but once again we were caught by a thunderstorm, this one with hail. After we hiked back to the van and dried out, I left the Lake Grebe trailhead a little too eagerly and was stopped by park police for doing 58 in a 45--- but after checking us out he left me off with a warning.
We then drove across the park to the Norris geysers area and we hiked the Back Bowl trail while rain once again threatened us. By that time it was 1630 or so and we were tired so decided to call it a day. We tried the local campground at Norris but couldn’t find a flat-enough spot so we drove on to Indian Creek campground and found a nice spot, again for $12.

Friday, 8 September-
First thing we noticed this morning was that we had company. Several horses had broken out of their fenced pasture across the little valley and were in the next campsite happily eating grass. We soon saw Paula coming down to our van and she invited us to coffee and breakfast. We had a another fine time, like old friends sitting around the breakfast table—only ours was a National Forest Service picnic table beside the corral and overlooking the north entrance to Yellowstone—hard to beat that. I should also mention that Dick told us the Forest Service guy had dropped by yesterday to tell him to be on the lookout for a bear that’s been frequenting the area we’re camping in. How cool is that?
And here’s one of Dick’s stories he told after learning I had been a computer specialist in another life:
“Well this guy went into a bar and said he wanted to buy some brains. The bartender said, “Well, pal, you’re in the right place. But I have to tell you, brains don’t come cheap.” The customer asked how much. “Well, we have nuclear scientist brains and they will cost you $50 per ounce. And we have president’s brains and they too will cost you $50 per ounce. But if you want computer specialist brains, they will cost you $500 per ounce.” The customer winced. “Why so much for the computer specialist brains?”, he asked. The bartender replied: “Well, son, apparently you don’t realize how many computer specialists we have to go through to find an ounce of brains.”

We had a long breakfast of cowboy fixin’s—good thick bacon, taters with corn and onion, and fried eggs. We contributed orange juice and some good sausage-gravy to round out the meal. We ate on Ben’s gen-yoo-ine tin plates and drank our coffee from tin coffee cups, the way God intended all cowboys to eat their breakfast.
After breakfast we listened in as the trail-riding plan of the day was hatched. Dick has quite a lot of experience in the area and it was interesting to hear him talk of what the trails would be like and see him plot them out on his relief map of Yellowstone. He also provided us advice on where to see bison and possibly wolves—up in the Lamar Valley.
We reluctantly parted from our campmates and headed for Yellowstone. We were surprised to see a line of twenty-or-so cars lined up at the entrance at 0930 on an off-season Friday morning but we were all processed through quickly.
We stopped in Mammoth Hot Springs and toured the visitor’s center. We saw two films introducing us to the park and bought a small guide book for the roadside attractions and a small trail guide.
We then walked through the nearby Liberty Cap thermal area, our first look at thermal features. Lying on one of the features was a beautiful large-rack elk and Labashi snapped off some pictures of him.
We then toured the nearby plateau area before starting south. We stopped at several overlooks and within ten miles had seen bison. We hung a left toward Canyon in order to hike a bit on the rim of the Yellowstone canyon. The trail to Artist Point along the top of the canyon is narrow and close to the edge. We made it to Artist Point just as a thunderstorm let loose but it was a short one and not violent. We then took a quick tour of the new visitor’s center at Canyon and then went looking for evening wildlife. At Mount Washburn we saw a black bear in the distance. Moving north, we came upon a wildlife jam and it turned out to be for an adult black bear in a tree right along the road and its cub was at the base of the tree. A short while later, another jam showed us a black bear along the road. We then drove up the Chittendon dirt road to Mt Washburn, hoping to spot wildlife from a high vantage point. There was no wildlife there but we had spectacular views all around and had supper in the van enjoying those views.
We drove on to Tower Junction and turned right toward the northeast entrance of the park. This brought us into Lamar Valley as darkness was falling and the fun began. We saw at least three herds of bison, each of 30 to 50 individuals. We saw beautiful prog-horn antelope, very close to the road. And we saw an interesting sight—a mule deer doe chasing a coyote. We had first seen the coyote and I had pulled off the road. Then Labashi saw the mule deer and said it looked like the coyote was following the mule deer. At that instant the mule deer swung around chased the coyote, making quick left and right turns like it was chasing a rabbit. That was the last we saw of the coyote but we saw the mule deer look back intently several times after that.
As it was getting too dark to see we came upon a group of cars pulled off the road and we stopped to ask what they were seeing. Wolves! They had seen three of them off in the distance and had seen them lie down before it was just too dark to see anymore. While talking with those folks from Oregon, we heard a coyote howl… but just once.
We drove on to Pebble Creek campground for the night but it was full except for one campsite that didn’t really work for the van. So we headed back toward Slough Creek and along the way I came very close to whacking a baby bison. As we drove along all of a sudden we could see the herd right along the road and one, a baby, was on the road. Fortunately I missed it. A few miles later Labashi said “what’s that?” just in time for me to brake to avoid an elk walking out onto the road. And a few minutes later we saw an odd shape ahead in our lights and an owl took off from our lane, rising above us just in time. We made it to Slough Creek campground only to find a ‘FULL’ sign out. So we drove on to Tower campground. On the way, we had another wonderful encounter. I saw eyes reflecting light right along the road so slammed on the brakes. A perfect red fox walked up on the bank right alongside the van and stood there quizzically for a count of ten, then walked across the road right in front of the van—we had to lean forward to see it—and then up the bank. At the Tower campground, we were in luck and were given a nice, level RV campsite for $12. We celebrated with a couple of shots of Brendan’s Irish Cream from the Canyon variety store.

Thursday, 7 September-
This morning we woke after a quiet night at Wally World and decided we’d try the Museum of the Rockies as our last visit in Bozeman. We spent most of the day there, first checking out a reptiles exhibit developed in cooperation with, of all places, Clyde Peeling’s Reptileland of Allenwood, PA (which is not far from our home in PA). But the best part of the day came from a tour of the Living History Museum gardens. We were in the Montana History section of the museum when an announcement said there would be a tour of the gardens, so we broke off for that. Our host turned out to be great. He introduced us not only to the heirloom plants garden but also provided a wealth of info about Montana’s wheat and barley production—an absolutely fascinating introduction to the world of developing crops for such a short-growing season as they have here in Montana (just 90 days—1 June to 1 September; they’ve already had a frost this year— on September 2nd). Afterwards we toured the Living History Museum as the re-creators were preparing for lunch. In this case, the museum is a re-created homestead farmhouse where a full meal was in preparation. We’ve been in many re-created farmhouses but this one was different--- it’s alive with activity. It was like being invisible and walking into someone’s mid-19th century home. The wood stove is not only burning, it’s being used to cook the noon-time meal of the six workers.
I was especially struck by the reality of the experience. When I saw the parlor room of the house, vivid memories of being in my grandmother’s house came to me. I could see the parlor and its furnishings, right down to the wall-paper pattern in my mind’s eye—an extraordinary feeling. The woodstove brought back memories of being in my grandma’s kitchen, all of this when I was six or seven years old.
After the Living History Museum we took a break for lunch, then finished up the main museum. This one is rightfully famous for its dinosaur skeletons and we spent a long time learning about dinosaurs and paleontology then did a Lewis-and-Clark Challenge Trail.
We finally left at about 1500 and drove east toward Livingston. This area is even worse for visibility because of the smoke from the 180,000-acre Derby fire near Big Timber. Visibility was down to about a mile, it seemed. We could just barely make out the shapes of the nearby mountains in Bozeman but by Livingston we were completely in a fog. And by Livingston, the air smelled of smoke and we seemed to be MUCH to close to a big fire.
We took a quick drive-through of Livingston and then headed south on route 89 for Yellowstone. For the first 20 miles of the drive we couldn’t see the mountains, then things cleared up a bit. Labashi saw a National Park Service primitive campsite on the map at Gardiner, right outside of Yellowstone so we elected to stay there—at Eagle Creek. After supper, we noticed a horse corral at the far end of the campground and walked up there. There we met three people, Paula and Ben from Idaho Falls and Dick from Wapiti, WY. They each had a horse trailer pulled by a pickup with camper and they had their horses in the corral for the night. They invited us to have a beer and salsa-and-chips and we enjoyed a nice evening with them, talking about everything from grizzlies to family backgrounds. When darkness fell, a cool wind blew up from below and we split up to our respective little homes.

Wednesday, 6 September-
This morning we went into Virginia City and walked the town. The town was just waking up (at 0900) but there was still plenty to see. Some of the buildings have small entrances where you can step in an look around but in others you just look into the windows. The buildings are dilapidated but completely original. Many look like they were just locked up in the late 1800s and left as is, complete with stock. A few buildings are open for business and have been updated with modern fire and safety protection. We spent several hours walking and came upon the town library just as we felt a few drops of rain so we ducked in there. We spent the next two hours reading history books. I found “The Whoop-Up Country”, which is a history of the Whoop-Up Trail from Fort Benton, MT into Ft McLeod, Alberta. I’ve got to find a copy of this one--- I loved reading about the colorful history of the places we’ve visited so recently. Labashi found “Memories of Alder Gulch” which had the most fantastic photos of the floating dredges used in the early 1900’s to comb through all the Alder Gulch area and leave much of it in tailings piles.
We lunched in the van just off the main street as we watched a sports-car rallye group leave the town. They had arrived an hour earlier for a photo op, had some cookies at the Bale of Hay Saloon and then were driving on. It’s called the Going-to-the-Sun Rallye so I imagine they are on their way to Glacier National Park. These were some high rollers. Jaguars, Ferraris, a couple of Sunbeam Tigers, a Mustang GT-350H, a couple of Corvettes, Alfa-Romeos, etc.
After lunch we drove to Ennis and then down the Madison River Valley. Fly-fishing heaven apparently. We saw dozen’s of the exaggerated-rocker fly-fishing guide boats on the Madison, mile after mile of them. Then we turned toward Quake Lake and headed up 391. We took a turn through the pricey Big Sky ski resort area, then drove to Bozeman. There we searched out our Wal-mart for the night, did some shopping for supplies there, then went to a local park to relax and have supper. Afterwards we made several circles through Bozeman to check it out before going back to Wally-World for the night.


Tuesday, 5 September-
Today we drove into Butte to do laundry. While in Missoula a few days ago we had seen an ad for Woody’s Wash and saw that it has free wi-fi so we wrote down Woody’s address and used that information today. This was our first laundry stop of the trip. While Labashi did the laundry I cleaned and swept out the van and got things re-organized. After laundry we drove south toward Nevada City and Virginia City. We were basically headed for Bozeman but took the long way around. As we drove toward Nevada City we learned (from roadside historic signs) about the Innocents, the Vigilantes, about Robbers Roost, and about Alder Gulch. The story is an interesting one. Gold was discovered in little Alder Gulch in May of 1863. By the end of 1864 there were 5000 people living in the new town of Virginia City and so many little settlements spread along the creek (including Nevada City) that they called the area Fourteen Mile City and it had 30,000 residents. Given the nature of gold prospecting, it wasn’t long until a group of road agents worked with the crooked sheriff of Bannack and reportedly committed almost 200 murders in this area. This drove a group of citizens to organize into vigilantes. Between January 4 and February 3 of 1864 the vigilantes hung two dozen men, including sheriff Henry Plummer. Virginia City went on to become the territorial capital and all went well until the gold ran out and the railroad was routed to Butte instead of Virginia City, effectively strangling the little town. It was nearly abandoned until the early 1940’s when Charles and Sue Bovey of Great Falls visited and then began buying up the town. The Bovey’s saved and reconstructed many of the town’s buildings and also started a new venture in nearby Nevada City—buying up buildings from all over the state and having them moved there. Mr. Bovey also built an excursion railroad between the two towns and established the two towns as a destination for tourists. Today, the state of Montana owns Nevada City and the lower half of Virginia City. Nevada City is preserved as a ghost town while Virginia City is an active town of 150 year-round inhabitants and thousands and thousands of visitors.
Our visit to Nevada City was brief. We did not yet understand the lay of the land so we gathered some information, then went on to Virginia city, perhaps to return, perhaps not. We arrived in Virginia City about 1730 and the town was dead. We did notice a door open at the visitor’s center and entered even though a sign said it was closed. We were greeted by the shop owner who filled us in with a brief history of the town. When we said we’d like to come back tomorrow but would need to find a cheap or free campground nearby, he suggested we drive up ‘the gulch’ for two miles and use one of the informal campsites there. That turned out to be very special. First, the drive up the gulch is a drive up an unmarked dirt road which passes the remains of a mining operation and follows little Alder creek--- the very creek where gold was initially found. After two miles we found a rudimentary turnaround with some stone campfire rings; apparently our campground for the night. After parking the van, we took a walk up a dirt path from there and eventually happened on a side path and someone’s diggings, i.e., a hand-dug hole in the hill where someone has apparently been looking for gold, whether seriously or as a fun project with the kids, we can’t tell. But it was spooky enough for us not to stick around to find out. We then went the opposite way down the road and Labashi took pictures of the abandoned mine buildings and equipment.
We spent that night alone in the gulch and it was wonderful. After dark the moon rose over the hill and lighted up the area very nicely. Around 2200 an owl started hooting and another answered but otherwise it was a quiet night.



Monday, 4 September-
This morning we drove through Missoula looking for a wi-fi freespot and getting a look at the town. I like Missoula a lot--- it seems to have a little of everything. Today is not the normal Monday so it looks a lot like a Sunday morning--- people hanging out at the many sidewalk coffee shops reading papers, bicycling, walking, etc—a very pleasant feel. We’re surprised at the number of casinos--- it seems every other block there’s a small casino. And on the alternate block there’s a tiny little drive-up espresso hut--- with names like ‘Java Hut’ or ‘Java Junction’. It looks like there’s just enough room for the espresso-maker, a coffee maker, a few supplies, and a cash-register in these little shacks. They mostly have drive-up lanes on both sides of them--- and many had business. I wonder if this trend will come our way.
We didn’t see any signs offering wireless so thought we’d try the visitor center. We didn’t think about it being a holiday and it was indeed closed. But it was housed in the Missoula Tech Center so I thought they might be offering wi-fi. I fired up the laptop and picked up an excellent signal so we had lunch and did our email and blog update from there.
In the afternoon we headed back through Missoula and down the Bitterroot Valley. I recently finished reading a book called ‘Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed” and it starts with a few chapters about the Bitterroot Valley so I wanted to see it. As we drove out of Missoula we noticed that the smoke appears to be even worse here. And we could see a definite giant cloud of yellow-gray which looked ugly, the dirty color of LA’s smog. We had some poor visibility as far back as Banff but after the rains there things were good. But since Glacier National Park, the mountains are hazy and indistinct. It looks like a typical high-humidity August day in the Blue Mountains—you can see the line of the mountaintops but that’s about it. This is quite a shame for such a beautiful area.
We enjoyed our drive down the Bitterroot and stopped at each of the historic roadsigns. Lewis and Clark had been here in August of 1805, stopping at what they called Traveler’s Rest for a few days. It was great for us to sit in Mocha Joe at Traveler’s Rest at the same time of year 201 years after Lewis and Clark and imagine the valley as it would have been then. The scene is a very pleasant one. The Bitterroot is about the width of the Conococheague, the Conewago, or perhaps the Conodoguinet. It’s stream banks are generally low, jammed with willows or alders, and meander through the valley. Both left and right we see hills in the near-distance and high mountains in the middle-distance, some of the latter with small patches of last-year’s snow yet. The valley grasses are golden except (now) where irrigated and there the grasses are a magnificent emerald green.
We stopped at one of the small towns for an ice cream, which we ate while sitting ona bench and entertaining the owner’s two young sons, six and two. The six-year old wore cowboy boots, his brother was barefoot and quite a jabberer.
We continued to Sula, where we stopped at another Lewis and Clark-slept-here spot, this one another pastoral western scene of water, willows, rolling land up close and lodgepole-pine covered hills a bit further back.
After Sula we crossed Chief Joseph pass and drove down 43 toward Wisdom. About 15 miles from the pass we came upon an odd sight…a mini-van upside down in the middle of the road. Alongside it stood a young man on this end and at the far end, near a Class C RV on the berm, an older man, their body language indicating there was no immediate emergency happening. I stopped beside the younger man and asked if there was anything I could do. He said they’d appreciate it if I could call the authorities at the next phone and be sure they were coming—it had been a long time since they reported the accident… and, no, nobody was hurt. The minivan looked very odd lying there on its roof with sleeping bags, blankets, camping gear, etc jammed against the upside-down windows. But the windows weren’t broken and there was no evidence of a hard smash to the van. I believe it must have been a tow-behind (known as a “tow’d” or “toad”) vehicle that somehow broke loose from the RV and rolled.
Since both of our cell phones were out of service area, we stopped at the next place which might have a phone and that was Mays Creek Campground. It was empty except for a campground caretaker. She tried her 2-meter ham radio but couldn’t raise anybody but said there was a phone just four miles further along at Big Hole National Battlefield. There we spoke with a ranger lady who knew about the accident and assured us that the Highway Patrol was on the way—they had made the initial call about it. So we relaxed and decided to see what the Battlefield offered. It was almost immediately clear this was a good one. Its purpose is to preserve the story of the Nez Perce Indians being driven from their homes in Idaho and Oregon and pursued for 1700 miles in 1877. At this place along the Big Hole River, seven-hundred-fifty Nez Perce Indians were attacked at dawn in their tipis and 60 to 90, mostly women and children, were killed. But the Nez Perce warriors rallied and pushed the soldiers back to a nearby hill, killing 29 and wounding 40. Reinforcing troops saved the remainder of the troops who were pinned down by a few Nez Perce snipers left for that purpose while the remainder of the Nez Perce fled.
We saw an excellent explanatory film and then toured the small museum which had personal possessions of both General Gibbon (the commanding officer of the attacking US 7th Infantry), and of several Nez Perce chiefs. Incredibly, they have Chief Joseph’s coat...a beautiful red coat trimmed with white ermine tails….absolutely outstanding.
At 1800, we assisted the rangers in taking down a small tipi, marking the end of the day. And then we drove to the walking trails (which remain open after the visitor’s center closes). We walked the 1.2 mile Nez Perce Camp Trail which leaves the parking lot along the Big Hole River and winds through the willows, always near the river until it opens into the plains where 89 tipis stood on the fateful morning of August 9, 1877. Today, there are about sixty sets of tipi-poles erected in this spot and many have small signs identifying who owned that tipi. A trail guide explained. Here’s a sample: “Waylytits and his pregnant wife had erected their tipi at the northern end of the village. When he heard gunshots, Waylytits urged his wife into the willows, then took cover in a hollow near here and began firing on the soldiers. His wife quickly returned to his side, was wounded, and watched as her husband killed one of the first soldiers to enter this part of the camp. Another soldier shot Waylytits, and his wife quickly shot the soldier with her husband’s rifle. She was immediately killed by yet another soldier.”
By this time the sun was setting and we were the only visitors left in the park on this balmy evening. We stood in awe of the tipi of Chief Joseph which has been strung with colorful bandanas and swaths of cloth by present-day Nez Perce descendants. Special river-stones lay near the front poles of the tipi’s of Chief Joseph, of his brother, and of the spiritual leader. It’s truly a holy place for the Nez Perce.
Afterwards we drove back the four miles to Mays Creek campground. While I went down to fill out the registration envelope for the iron ranger ($7- good deal!), Labashi talked with the campground host we had met earlier in the day. She’s a trip. She’s a grandma-aged lady living in an older motor home by herself and I saw she has an older “tow’d” vehicle nearby. I saw her two-meter radio earlier and I saw a sophisticated-looking solar-power panel set up alongside the motor home. Earlier I had commented on her Quartzite tee shirt and she told me she doesn’t actually live there in the winter, she stays in “Baus” because it’s not so crowded (Quartzite is a well-known wintering spot for RVers in Arizona). She spends her winters in Arizona and along the way to Montana stops to see her children for a couple of days each, then does the campground-host thing at Mays Creek. She told Labashi she has lived in the mountains like this all her life and she’s more afraid of people than of anything else up here. With the camping season over now, she will be heading back to Arizona next week.