Oh Ennis, Such a Disappointment!

We had such anticipation heading down the road for Ennis, we have been going there for 7 or 8 years and always looked forward to it.  Even though we weren't fishing this year we were still looking forward to getting into our site with its incredible views, and enjoying the peace and quiet, and darkness of the RV park.  Since we were there last the park was sold to another company and we wondered what might change.  First off the reception in the office checking in was dismal, not a hello, smile, nothing, just handed a list of rules and off we went to our site.  The first thing we notice is there is now a house sitting on what used to be several of the primo view sites, and next to it are 2 5th wheels in sites that are supposedly pull-ins, with a wooden fence surrounding one of them.  Then as we turn into our site we notice the site next to us looks like a garbage dump, there is a utility trailer backed in, then a class C with stuff and crap piled everywhere, an absolute abomination.  As we get settled in, we also notice that the area in front of the sites, where the view is looks like it hasn't be trimmed back, maybe ever.  It always been a bit rough but nothing like this, and then the barking dogs.  Well, they never stopped barking for the next 4 hours, we saw they were on runners inside the fence where the fifth wheel was parked.  Going crazy we decided to look over the new rules, we had intended to wash our rig while there, we always were allowed to in the past, but no, no washing of RV's or vehicles allowed.  Then you are warned to be sure your site doesn't have any storage bins or stuff piled around or under your rig, the penalty, eviction.  No dogs may be tied out unless the owner is with them, no barking dogs will be tolerated, etc.  We had booked a whole week, and when this cacophony didn't let up for hours and hours, we decided then and there we would leave early, a real pain as there are no refunds for that.  We were only able to shorten our stay by 2 days, and we were really glad of that because in the next several days after we would get back from being away most of the day, the barking dogs were waiting and barking and even joined in with another tied dog at the next fifth wheel.  Amazingly, the ones inside the fence barking all day and left alone belong to the office staff!  And the one next door was a staff member as well!  Suffice it to say we will not go back, and the company that bought the Ennis RV Park is Starry Night, and they have several other RV parks and lodging around the country that we will be sure never to visit if this is an example of their management.  Okay, enough.

Still has the views though. 

One of the days we took a beautiful drive up through the hills and mountains on a big loop, and had a nice picnic.

Then as we were circling back we at first noticed this one guy.

Then we noticed he had company.

And then as we were driving away, yet another came up out of the brush.

We stopped on the way back at the Ennis Overlook for coffee, it sure was a gorgeous day.

We took a long drive up (south) along the Madison River past Quake Lake, and Hebgen Lake to West Yellowstone, and a nice picnic along the way in an almost deserted National Forest campground.

Then into West Yellowstone where we walked around the town and found an awesome cup of homemade huckleberry ice cream, what a treat.......for me.  Then back around to Quake Lake again for coffee.

Another day we headed into Bozeman to do some errands, get the truck tires rotated, hit Costco, etc, and of course, stopped for a sushi lunch at Dave's, and even that seemed a little off, maybe it's just our memory inflates our opinion of things:-)

Then after a pretty sunset on the mountains we bid farewell to Ennis.

Too bad I can't play the wonderful sounds of barking dogs:-(

Down the road 65 miles to Henry's Lake State Park, one of the prettiest parks and views anywhere.

A few days here and then heading south.

Missoula, Our Turnaround Point

We have been to Missoula many times and have always enjoyed it and the campground where we stay, Jim & Mary's RV Park.  It is one big beautiful flower garden, they raise all their flowers here in their greenhouses and the whole park is covered in color.

In our travels this year we had ordered Guinness's several times and were very disappointed in the last two pours, one was the end of the keg and they didn't seem to care until we told them it was undrinkable, and they replaced with a hastily poured new one that was not good either.  Then the last place brought them over in mere seconds after we ordered so they weren't poured correctly either, and the taste showed.  A proper Guinness pour should take between 70 seconds and 2 minutes.  We knew we could get a proper Guinness at a favorite restaurant here in town so we made our way to the Stone of Accord for a proper Guinness:-)

Karen and Tom arrived a little later and spent several days with us before moving along.  They had come from a visit to one of Tom's cousins, Tim and Sue's place in a town about 40 miles away.  Tim is an avid hunter and usually has elk in the freezer, sure enough Karen and Tom brought with them some amazing elk sausages that we were able to share for dinner one night, along with a plethora of home grown veg, including a red cabbage that weighed in at 10 pounds!!

Karen made us a delicious dinner of elk brats using some of the amazing cabbage.

I have been having an intermittent problem with our smart wheel, like many vehicles, the controls for the cruise and the windshield wipers along with a few light functions are all on the wheel.  The cruise sometimes works and sometimes doesn't with no discernible reason, not bumps, not temp, not raining or not, it just seems to have a mind of its own.  So I called the manufacturer and was told, get this, "No sir, we don't have any tech support", WHAT?!?  And this company, believe it or not is still making smart wheels and other vehicle products to this day.  Well, I poured over my forums and found someone had a troubleshooting guide, so Jan and I got to work to see if we could figure anything out.  Unfortunately it wasn't an oh my result, we think it most likely is the controller for the wheel, so at least we could order one from the "helpful" company.  We are hoping it might solve our issues.

After lots of Happy Hours, meals together, long visits, Karen and Tom had to say good bye and move on with their plans, we had a nice lunch together at a good Vietnamese restaurant in town before our farewell dinner that night.

Jan and I took a drive down to Hamilton and then on to Darby to look around a bit, we fished down there numerous times before, but my hip isn't allowing any of that this year.  A beautiful day, although some smoke in the air, and another gorgeous Montana valley, the Bitterroot valley, and what do you know, we found a great lunch at Bitter Root Brewing:-)

This was delicious, they call it a Humble Bowl
Has grilled cod, black beans, and slaw, yummy

Mine was a special, grilled ham, turkey, and swiss with arugula 
And these fries were the bomb!

On another day we went to visit the Bison Range, an 18,766 acre wildlife refuge in the center of the Flathead Indian Reservation.  Since we had been there the federal government transferred ownership of it back to the Consolidated Salish and Kootenai Tribes (CSKT) in 2020.  It was a gorgeous day.

We came around one of the curves and saw these 3 running across the hillside.

In the next picture, and it is hard to see, but 2 of these bears climbed up this tall pine, right up into the very top of the tree in under 4 seconds, amazing, so if you had any thoughts of climbing a tree to escape a black bear, fuhgeddaboudit!

If you look hard the black blob in about the center is one of the bears,
the other is even higher up

Saw these guys on the way out.

In the next picture you can see the strandlines cut into the side of the hill created by the water in the prehistoric Lake Missoula at the end of the last ice age between 15,000 and 13,000 years ago.  The lake was about 3000 square miles and very deep, exceeding 2000' holding more water than Lake Erie and Lake Ontario combined.

I have to say we may be a bit jaded about bison pictures, we have seen so many bison over the years, thousands probably that we don't really take any more pictures, and we saw hundreds in the range, but one thing we have never seen before was any bison lying on its side, and although we saw one mature one doing it, this little guy was near enough to get a picture.

    

So as I said this is the western terminus of our travel this year, so we will be turning more easterly and southerly, Ennis is next.

A Quick but Good Visit at Yellowstone Edge

We only had a few days in Emigrant south of Livingston and about an hour from Bozeman.  Jan was originally going to get her hair done in Bozeman, but after we looked at our short time there, she opted to put it off until Missoula.

On our agenda was a trip into Bozeman to go to Costco, grocery store, and of course lunch.

We ate a good lunch at Revelry, and a good thing we arrived early because by the time we left there was a line.

Jan's fried chicken salad

My chicken caesar wrap

We made it a whole day with some side trips on the way back.  That left our Yellowstone foray.  Since it is 36 miles just to the North Entrance, and another 36 miles to Lamar Valley, we left before 0500am to get to Lamar by dawn, it is a little unnerving driving win the dark with all the animals around.  Lamar is our favorite location in the park, usually there are hundreds of Bison, tons of antelopes, and if you're lucky wolves or grizzlies, but not this year, it was almost deserted!  But we got our parking spot to wait for sunrise and had our delicious BLT breakfast:-)

And after an hour or so with no joy we drove farther east almost to the Northeast Entrance, turned around and decided to head south towards Fishing Bridge.  As we were leaving, we came upon a gaggle of vehicles and it truly looked like the people were actually looking at something, it's funny lots of theses gaggles are monkey see monkey do, where as if they see bunch of cars stopped, they stop even though there isn't anything there.  Well, this time was real, a lone black wolf was running by itself to the west, he was too far away to get a picture, you'll have to take my word on it:-)  Funny, we've never seen a lone wolf before.

On the way out of Lamar we got a good look at the new incredible bridge they are building to replace the original bridge that was damaged in the 2022 floods.

A little hard to see in this pic, but the road ahead of us is the original bridge which is 
probably 70' off the water and it looks like the new bridge is 180', wow!

On the way to Fishing Bridge we took the road to the Mt Washburn overlook, this road had been closed the last few times we have visited.

Then after we'd come down the mountain and went around a curve, this little guy surprised us right on the edge of the road.

But, where was mom?

As we made our way south we saw tons of bison, hundreds in fact, they just weren't in Lamar like usual, also saw a lot of antelope here and there.  We poked around Fishing Bridge a bit then continued down along the lake to West Thumb, and then turned north to complete our circle.

We continued by Old Faithful and before Madison, we found a spot for our decadent lunch along the Firehole River.

Beautiful view

Incredible lunch

Beautiful views on the way back to Mammoth.

Then when we hit Mammoth, it was time for coffee.

Then leaving Gardiner going back north we saw an unusual sight, a lone elk cow walking along in the Yellowstone River!

But looking farther a huge herd was up in a farmer's field about 1/4 mile away.

We had a great day, 250+ miles, we love Yellowstone, we've probably visited the park at least 25 times and it never gets old.

Here's a reference to my place names.

On to Missoula!