Mixed bag in Ennis, now in West Yellowstone

Good news and not so good.  As I said, we got a call back telling us they had found a guide for us for an all day float trip on Tuesday.  Meanwhile Jan and I went wet wading in the Madison and I was lucky enough to catch a couple fish.

It's tough wading with the current

A fish!

So with much anticipation, we showed up bright and early Tuesday morning, 6am in fact, for our float trip, met our guide and took off for the river.  

We thought it was a good omen being greeted by an eagle

And after a little while we welcomed the sunrise

It was a gorgeous yet smoky day.  The fires are prolific this year, so visibility is reduced and sometimes the smell and ash really get to you.  

The Madison River

She looks happy, right?

If you look hard through the smoke you can see the mountains

Well, I don't want to dwell on this but let me say, the float was not a success.  We only caught 5 fish, not even big enough for a net, and we had signs that all was not working well with our guide.  It was a very disappointing trip.  Jan and I talked about our experience and finally determined I would go find the shop owner and explain our displeasure.  Understand it was not entirely about not catching fish, sometimes things just don't go right, but we felt we hadn't been given a chance.  I'm not going to mention the fly shop, but I will say this, the owner welcomed our comments, apologized for our experience, offered all our money back.  I could not accept that, as no one can control the fish, so we settled on a very fair solution and I will tell you, after our meeting, I would not hesitate to return and book another float with this shop.

The rest of our time was taken up with some further wade fishing with several fish caught, another foray into Bozeman to stock up with groceries, as the areas we were heading to are quite lacking in that department.  We got a couple days almost smoke free, but then the wind would shift and back it would come.  

So now we are in West Yellowstone at a superb campground, Yellowstone Grizzly RV Park, one of the nicest we've experienced.  We found out just a couple days before we left Ennis, that RVing friends Dave and Lingky that we had met last year were going to be there at the same time.  Amazingly, as we checked in and were making our way to our site, we found out we were going to be parked right next to them!  We have been enjoying catching up with them.  

Jan and I went and got our fishing licenses for Yellowstone, and have gone into the park twice now fishing and gone north on the Gallatin River to fish.  Can't report a lot of success, but let me tell you, fishing in the pristine, beautiful Yellowstone National Park is quite a treat in and of itself.  We've got the rest of the week here before we move all of 16 miles to Henry's Lake State Park.

And now our plans have changed again.  Last night while Jan and I were sitting outside having our cocktails, she says, "Isn't that water I see dripping?".  Yes, sure enough we have a leak somewhere in the plumbing where the galley slide moves in and out.  Thankfully it is on the drain side, so it only leaks when water is running.  We decide it was too late last night to tackle it, but I guess you know what we'll be doing today instead of visiting the park....