Road Trip 7. Never mind……change of plans

We were sitting in our pickup, in Broadus, MT, after getting 25 gallons of water, propane, groceries, and gas…….all prepared to head back to the Custer National Forest.  The last thing we did was post a blog entry where we said that’s what we were planning to do.  Then, we looked at the weather forecast.

Instead of the great weather that the forecast we had been promised a week ago, now it looked like several days of rain and cold.

So, what do we do? 

We headed south. 

Since we had spent the better part of the day re-provisioning, we decided to go about 100 miles, spend the night, and then make a long day of it the next day.

Because of Vicky’s preparation, we knew there was a National Grassland about the right distance for us--the Thunder Basin National Grassland.

Our spiffy new MAPS program said to get to the Grasslands by turning off the highway at Weston, WY.  We hoped that maybe Weston would be large enough that we could catch a cell signal and watch last week’s Broncos game that evening.

Instead, we stepped into the Twilight Zone.  First of all, despite what our MAPS program indicated, Weston wasn’t actually a town in Wyoming.  It wasn’t even a building along the road in Wyoming.  It was a NOTHING in Wyoming.  There was literally nothing there, except a sign.  There is a low bar for what qualifies as a town in Wyoming.  We should have taken heed.

We drove in on the “turn right at Weston” road, and lo’ and behold, a mile down the road, found a large parking lot, empty, with a bathroom!!!  Since we knew we weren’t going to hike in this area, we thought this would be a nice, quiet spot to spend the night and get on our way the next day.  And did I mention there was a bathroom?  Not only that, but I noticed that this bathroom, in contrast to almost all other National Parks, Forests, Grassland, etc.  bathrooms, had no toilet paper.  I thought “good!”  This means the area is so unused that nobody is even around to check on it, and besides we have our own toilet paper.   Score!

We got there, set up, and were enjoying the quiet surroundings when we realized we were not exactly where we thought we were.  We started seeing all kinds of motorized vehicles buzzing by us---OHV’s, children’s scooters, dirt bikes, etc.  At first we waved, cheerfully, and then, after awhile, with less enthusiasm. 

We finally realized that we were camping in the middle of an OHV area, and for some reason when we arrived, by chance (bad chance), nobody had been around at that particular time, so it had seemed quiet and isolated.  WELL, they were around the rest of the time!

Weston:  The OHV capital of Wyoming!

Not only that, but later discovered that many of the OHVers were camped about ¼ mile from us, which at first was no biggie since we weren’t planning on staying but one night, and ¼ mile is far enough that one can’t hear generators, music, etc.

But after awhile we realized that every time one of them needed to go to the bathroom they hopped on their noisy, barely-muffled OHV vehicles and rode up to the bathroom we were camped close to.  Over and over and over.  The reason there was no toilet paper was because the bathroom was used so frequently that the standard three rolls were all used up.  The last laugh was on me……except I wasn’t laughing so I don’t really know what that expression means.

By the time we fully grasped the situation it was too late to try another road, so we decided to tough it out (tough it out being defined as turning our battery operated noisemaker on full blast and trying to sleep).

Between the people coming to “our” parking lot to use “our” bathroom, and the wind, we slept like crap, not helped by a group of idiots who came down the road about 1:00 a.m. honking their horns at every campsite.  Then, about 5:00 a.m. the vehicles started up again—coming to “our” bathroom.  In their pickups and in their little buzzing barely-muffled OHVs.  And I don’t know how exactly to say this, but I think OHVers need to include more fiber in their diets, as they would leave their vehicles running, like FOREVER, while they were using the toilet-paper-less facility.  (One guy, I kid you not, was in the bathroom for 10+ minutes, and when he finally emerged, he signaled to the other guy in the pickup his success by raising his hands like Rocky!)

So, we admitted defeat, realized we weren’t going to sleep any more, packed up, and were on the road by 5:30 a.m.  It rained on our way out.  We stopped for breakfast at a McDonalds’ about 6:00 a.m.  For the first time ever we didn’t have breakfast “to go,” because we wanted to wait for daybreak so the visibility would be better.  Oddly, Wyoming does not have those little reflectors on their roads which tell you whether you are in the right lane or not, so I couldn’t tell when I was in my lane because it was raining, although Vicky says it was because we were on roads that nobody else ever uses, which might have been true but you need to talk to her about that because she’s the navigator, not me.  I’m just the lowly driver.  On the other hand, she’s probably right because, and this is true, she was using our spiffy new MAPS program that shows you the status of traffic on the road.  On two occasions the road on the MAPS program was “red,” which in Seattle means that there is a backup so extensive that everyone is stopped.  Well, here, what we found was that when we got to the intersection there was ONE truck ahead of us, just slowing a bit for the turn.  Both times.  We roared with laughter.  What would we do without our MAPS app?

And it was like we were being followed.  We got to the McDonald’s and EVERY OTHER CUSTOMER there was wearing that same camouflage that we had been seeing for the previous two weeks.  It was like some bad B-horror show.  For several days, we jokingly, to ourselves (and only to ourselves), had talked about how everybody in the Custer National Forest wore the same camouflage pajamas, because they were always wearing them at 5:00 a.m. when they drove by our camper.  But now we were being followed by these guys in camouflage pajamas and we were 60 miles from the Custer National Forest, in Wyoming not Montana no less.  We felt like Tippi Hedren in The Birds, except instead of Sea Gulls we were being chased by guys in camouflage pajamas.  Time to leave Montana and Wyoming.

Now here is a digression, speaking of guys hunting elk in their pajamas in Montana.   While we were sitting outside our camper in what we had originally believed was a quiet spot in the Thunder Basin National Grasslands, which you get to by turning right at Weston, WY, two guys parked their pickup and came over the chat with us. A nice chat, about an hour, mostly them chatting and us listening until one of them said he needed to get home to get cleaned up for his Kiwanis meeting.   The one who owned the black pickup they were in informed us that he had a pink license plate---he said that was his wife’s idea.  We told him it looked just right.  We had a really great time with them. We talked about grandchildren—the reason one said he stays in the area even though he is retired.  That sounded familiar to us. 

Nice people, both vets.  One identified himself as a Vietnam Vet.  He had a long skinny braid in his hair.  Cool.  I wonder if he has had it since Vietnam.  He wanted to show us some photos of the game he had shot, so pulled out his……flip phone, and asked Vicky if she could find his photos on it.  I immediately bonded with him---since what I have is one that is similar to his and I also have to ask Vicky how to make it work. 

Another digression:  Have you ever wondered whatever became of outhouses?  I don’t know about you, but I think about this all of the time. Every home used to have one. Well, now we know.  These guys we chatted with hunt deer and antelope all year round.  It actually is more like how people used to hunt for food---a deer can provide all of the meat they and their wives need for an entire month.  They clean them, and both of them have three smoke houses.  THREE.  One told us that one day he got five of them and his friend got two.  Just out of curiosity, Vicky asked him if he ever wore camouflage (she didn’t say camouflage pajamas).  He said “I was hunting just like THIS!” (and pointed to an old t-shirt and slacks he was wearing), which proves the camouflage all those guys was wearing was to hide from us, not from Elk. 

Well, yeah, back to the outhouses.  That’s how one of them makes his smokehouse.  Takes an old outhouse, insulates it, and puts in some type of pot to smoke the game.  How’s that for recycling?  Major lesson here:  If anyone offers you any venison you might want to explore how they smoked it. 

I suggested he make a YouTube Video about how he does this, but he didn’t seem to jump at the idea.  I imagine he’d need a new phone to do this, and that would be enough to discourage me.  I’d watch it, though. 

Sometimes you are just plain lucky.  The OHV crowd’s lack of fiber in their diets “chased” us out very early, and because of that we got an early start and spent most of the day ahead of a huge storm.  If we had left when we had planned, we would have been caught right in the teeth of it.

We got all of the way through Wyoming, and about 20 miles from Craig, Colorado, when the storm caught up to us.

It is October 1, and we are driving in snow.  After driving 1200 miles from our home, in order to avoid dreary fall and winter weather and in order to get nice weather instead, we get this.  How can we feel superior to everyone else when this happens? October 1 is my daughter, Emily’s, birthday.  I don’t think she did this, though.  I mean, we sent her a card.   

We had to slow down when it snowed to make sure the roads were safe, thinking we might not make it any farther than Craig, CO, and have to admit defeat and stay at a Motel 6.  That would make a great “campsite” photo wouldn’t it, a Motel 6?  How humiliating.  However, the temperature rose a bit by the time we got to Craig, and we were able to make it another 70 miles south, to a place where the forecast was much better (meaning just constant rain instead of snow) and to a place where our campsite photo would look better.

So, tonight we are at a state park in Colorado.  It is very nice, and quiet.  There are no OHVs, and the only people here are us, so we DON’T HAVE TO SHARE THE GOSHDANGED BATHROOM!!   AND!!!!.......there are three full rolls of toilet paper, and now you know what that means.  AND the woman who checked us to the campground wasn’t wearing camouflage pajamas. 

We drove 500 miles south today.  We are preparing for the next stage of Road Trip 7 in a new area of the country.  We are excited.  

Here is our campsite.  Better than a Motel 6 by a long shot:

Next morning:  It’s still raining but we are going to drive farther south today to a place to camp for a while.  There is snow in the mountains around us.  We don’t want to have to spend one of our nice days driving and searching--might as well use a lousy one for that. 

p.s.  the western slope of the Rocky Mountains are beautiful this time of year.  Unfortunately we couldn’t get the photos we wanted, but these will give you an idea of what you could see if the weather was better: