2020 Recap, Part 2

So I left you as we were making our way to Cascade, MT to a campground near the Mighty Mo, Prewett Creek.  We fished the Missouri the previous year and thought it was fantastic, and wanted to come back nearer to their peak season and take a float trip.  Although many folks were going out with guides, I just didn't feel comfortable spending 8 hours in close contact with a guide in the boat.  So we came up with the great idea that we would rent our own float boat, take turns fishing and rowing.  We arranged a rental and a shuttle service to move our truck and trailer from our launch point to where we planned to pull out.  Now we had never done this before, but the Missouri relatively speaking is a fairly gentle slowish river so we thought we'd have no problem, after all, the guides that we had gone with on numerous floats made it look easy.  Well, I just have to say, HAH!

Jan trying her hand before our float trip

We picked up the rental boat the afternoon before and got it launched without incidence right at 0700am the next morning, hid the key for the truck for the shuttle driver and jumped in, and found out almost immediately it wasn't anything like we thought it would be.  Thankfully I had watched a YouTube video on rowing a float boat so had just a little insight that I tried to use.  First we found out it is nothing like rowing across a lake, something we had both done many times before, since the boat is always moving downstream, you row against the current, so you point the boat at an obstacle you want to miss and row like mad, and it pulls you diagonally away from where you don't want to go.  It is NOT intuitive and there was a big learning curve, how these guides make it look so simple, especially in rapids is amazing.  So we each had our moments.  And we also found out the river does have some rapids after all:-)

Our float boat

Jan taking her turn fishing while I row

So let's try some other fly

Jan trying to keep a smile on her face

Now you wonder why I say that?  Because in our entire 8 hours on the river, we caught nothing, didn't even have one bite, and as beautiful as it was, it really was terribly disappointing.

Off to Kalispell we went to meet Karen and Tom and their kids, etc.  They were on a family vacation and renting a spectacular place right on Flathead Lake.  We went over and had a wonderful, socially distanced visit and dinner.  A great time in a beautiful place.

How's that for a setting?
Karen meeting me with the wine, how great is that?

Karen and Tom with Flathead Lake in the background

After Kalispell we wanted to go to Missoula for a couple weeks but since it was the middle of the season, the best we could do was a reservation for several days, then we had to leave for 4 days, and then were able to come back for 8 more.  We went to Grangeville, ID in the middle, somewhere we had never been.  We were pretty close to where we stayed years ago when we went on our second jet boat ride on the Snake River in Hell's Canyon, so we decided to take a ride over and have a picnic near the river.

The view from our campground

Looking way down at the Snake River

Then back to Missoula, but on the way when we stopped for lunch, when I walked around the coach and toad, I noticed our Blue Ox tow bar was wearing in the same place it did the previous year.  The previous year, Blue Ox sent me a new part under warranty, said they were surprised at the unusual wear, so I figured even though I was disappointed it happened again, I figured it would be the same deal, but this time they asked I had serviced the bar, I said no since the bar was less than 2 years old and still in warranty.  We went round and round and they said they would not send me another part, that I had to send the bar to them, virtually impossible since we were traveling, and finally after "looking" further at the pictures told me it was safe and to send it in for service as soon as I could.  This was not acceptable to me.  We have been using Blue Ox tow bars and base plates for more than 25 years, and their customer service had always been exemplary, but this was too much.  To have had serious wear in only a few years on two different tow bars told me their quality was waning.  I did a lot of research and found many other complaints, it seems that they are not today what they used to be.  So I ordered a Roadmaster Blackhawk 2 All Terrain tow bar, and have given up on Blue Ox.  We made the change in Missoula while we there.

The Blue Ox we gave up on

Our new Roadmaster tow bar

All hooked up and ready to go

We took some hikes, fished several days, and had a nice time.

Hike near Rock Creek

The Bitterroot near Darby, MT where we fished a couple days

Splurged on some Costco king crab!

We wanted to look around Bozeman a bit and wanted to find a campground nearby, and found there is very slim pickings.  We settled on the Bozeman Hot Springs campground, expensive but great location, and when we first got there it was tight, but we got into our site and at first thought it was pretty nice, but then when we looked harder realized we really didn't like it, not much bang for the buck.  Part of the problem is, whether you want it or not, your campground site fee includes entry to the springs.  It was our highest cost campsite this year, and we won't go back there, it would be better to drive the 50 miles from Ennis.

Looks pretty good from this angle

And this is the rear of our site and indicative to the rest of the campground

A gorgeous view in the Paradise Valley south of Livingston,
looking towards the Yellowstone River

So after several days in Bozeman we went 50 miles down to one of our absolute favorites, Ennis, MT.  We stayed for one whole month, very unusual for us.  We even ended up going there twice this year!

Beautiful, beautiful Ennis right from our site

This is the upper Madison, south of Ennis near Quake Lake

One thing about Montana they get WIND, enough to snap our flagpole!

Replaced and back up, proudly flying

We got a little cocky thinking we avoided smoke this year,
and then it came wafting in.  We had it off and on for the next month or so

Found a few terrific roads with great views up in the hills around Ennis.

Had to repair our slightly leaking dump valves, and found another problem that will have to fix in the future, a Florida project.

New dump valves all installed

This is the base of our satellite dish, very corroded
Turned out we have had it since 2009, so I guess we can't complain
We lost signal to the TV, so we cleaned all the connections and got it working
We'll have to find a more permanent fix this winter in Florida

It the fishing in Ennis that is the bomb, we are literally 10 minutes from being in the Madison wetting our lines, and usually catching fish!

We would watch this doe and her two fawns come into the meadow below our site
every night, it was nice to see them out crossing the river

A happy Jan having our picnic lunch on the Madison

It was a great day!

That flag is ours, it is so nice to be surrounded by this view all the time!

Even had a little snow come through in the beginning of September

Initially we had made reservations in Yellowstone National Park in the supposed to be completed newly renovated Fishing Bridge campground.  It is in the center of the park and where we had stayed several other times with smaller coaches.  Ever since we got our 45 footer, we have been  unable to stay there. Part of the planned renovations was to make it able to accept bigger rigs, but with Covid it has been put off until September of 2021, and yes we do have reservations for then, keeping our fingers crossed.  We still wanted to go into the park so we went up and around through Livingston then south to Emigrant to a nice campground there right on the Yellowstone River in the Paradise Valley.  It's about 40 miles to the park but very convenient to Lamar Valley, one of our favorite areas of the park.  We didn't have a lot of time, but we spent one long day in the park, we left in the dark before dawn and got back around 5:30pm that day.  We ended up going all the way around and through the park, and we hit pay dirt in Lamar with a pack of wolves on a bison kill that they had taken down less than an hour before we got there.  It was a ways off the road, but in the scheme of things in the park it was one of the closest encounters we've ever had in all the times we've been there.

At least 7 wolves in this picture over the bison kill

A nice picnic right on the Yellowstone near Hayden Valley

And a huge bull elk bugling up close in Mammoth before we left the park

All in all a great day.  We had been talking about getting a weather station for some time and decided finally to do it, so I figured out how to mount it and took care of it when all the parts arrived.

Our new weather station all mounted with the Yellowstone River in the background

We were in the middle of September by now and our plans were still waffling, we had a reservation for a month in Durango that we were thinking about cancelling, we had already cancelled our plans to join Karen and Tom in Taos at their house for Thanksgiving, we weren't sure where we would head right now, but ended up deciding to go back to our boon dock site on the Big Hole River.

This was our awesome site on the Big Hole

A young eagle fishing for his dinner

That's smoke, not weather

Then we decided on a whim to go back to Picabo, ID to fish, as we really enjoy the tiny, quiet campground there.  But we did learn that late September is not the time to go there for fishing, the Big Wood had hardly any water in it.  We fished but no luck.  Then in a really off the wall decision we opted to go back all the way back to Ennis for a week.  It really does call to us:-)

A beautiful smoke influenced sunset

We even ran to Bozeman for some Calmari and sushi at Dave's, take out of course

Our last evening in Ennis for this year

Along with all the changes, we made yet another and headed south to a completely off the radar destination that we didn't even end up going to, yeah quite a year, and I'll fill you in in part 3.