And Just Like That, Our 3 Weeks in Ennis are Over

I wish I could report that our fishing just got better and better, but oh no.  I caught one small fish in all the days we fished and we fished a bunch, the only thing that made us feel a little bit better was that everyone we talked to wasn't doing any better.  No idea why this year is so poor.  Oh well it still is really beautiful peacefully fishing a gorgeous river with incredible views all around.

Just to prove I cook once in a while, here's my scallop provencal over grits with peas.  Turned our pretty good.

We are really happy to report that the smoke was only here a couple days in all, most of the time it was clear, clear, clear, which even made talking on the phone amazing.

We tried 2 more restaurants in Ennis for lunch, and we can now confidently say in our opinion there are really no good restaurants in this town, at least that we have found.  Too bad too, since it is growing so much, building everywhere, with tons of visitors, the need is real.  But Jan nailed it with a wonderful Thai chicken salad.

So with our addiction to going out for lunch all over, we have made numerous sorties to Bozeman to get our fixes, and to hit a larger grocery store.  But on one of the drives back to Ennis in a driving rain storm we caught a rock and broke our windshield on the truck, yet another thing to get taken care of.  

We tried another sushi place in Bozeman which was pretty good, but not better than our favorite, Dave's.

We have had a spotting scope for a long, long time.  We use it quite often and especially in Yellowstone.  We have over the years seen adapters to allow use with a iPhone and have never gotten one, since we are planning on a visit later this year we started looking into it.  We found a company called Phone Skope that specializes in the adapters and ordered a kit to be able to try it out here in Ennis before getting to YNP.  It's still new but it is a simple adapter, easy to affix and use, so along with a remote shutter, it looks like a winner.  We need to work with it more but our first try was pretty good, this heron is perhaps 500 yards away.

Jan hit it out of the park again with this spicy beef with broccoli, made with flankens.

We've had the usual gamut of weather, storms, WIND, and nice.

We decided after the disappointing sushi, we needed to back to Dave's for redemption, and we did, delicious!

We have had an increasing noise from the right side of the truck's engine for some time.  When we were in Buffalo we asked Jason what he thought and he told us there is a fairly common problem on our year truck with the exhaust manifold cracking, and he added that if we wanted to get it fixed we'd better try to make a appointment ASAP, as things are ridiculously backed up.  Wow, news to us.  So after I tried to get an appointment in Bozeman, no dice, 2 months out, tried Missoula, same.  But it was recommended to us to try a smaller dealer in Livingston, which we did and got an appt in only 2 weeks.  Very friendly and knowledgable on the phone, only ding was it is a 85 mile drive one way from Ennis, but in Montana that's just over the hill:-)  So off I went at 0610am for my 0800am appt.  Beautiful drive!

I walked up the street for a great down home breakfast and less than 3 hours later I was on my way.  

We had a humdinger of a thunderstorm tear through, even with all the wind we were able to hunker in next to the motorhome to avoid the rain and still enjoyed our drinks and cigars, and right after we were treated to this display!

But when we did go back in we found our ceiling, right above the driver and passenger seats, was leaking like a sieve.  Quite a surprise, after all we have had more rain this year than ever before with no problems.  So nothing we could do at that point, and it had stopped raining so we had a nice halibut dinner.

Tried to figure where it could be coming from and the only hole in the roof anywhere near there is where the wires to and from our satellite dish go through.  We didn't notice anything bad when we painted the roof, but figured it couldn't be coming from anywhere else.  Since things were still wet on the roof from our rain, we decided to go over and try fishing again, and on the way we were surprised by 2 bull moose crossing the road in front of us, one really big.  The light was wrong and we couldn't get too close, but you get the idea from the one pic we got.

Another bust of a day fishing so when we got back, we went up on the roof, pulled the old cover up, cleaned up the old caulk, installed a new cover with copious amounts of caulk, so we will see what we will see, but we are calling it fixed:-)

All done.  The yellow is a skid plate for the roller that contacts the
roof when we fold up the satellite dish

Jan made a dynamite Chinese Pepper Chicken for dinner.

Another nice gift we got was for the last 3 nights we have had no neighbors, it's like we are in our very own private park with amazing views:-)

See you in Missoula!

One Week Down, Two to Go

We have accomplished a lot in our first week here, but only one day fishing so far.   After our first gorgeous evening here, we hit the road running.

 

We have an issue with the truck sounds like an exhaust leak, also confirmed by our son Jason while we were there, and being in the car business, he told us it was probably a broken exhaust manifold, a fairly common issue with our year Ram, and that we better get an appointment ASAP as things are extraordinarily busy.  After not being able to get it repaired in either Bozeman or Missoula for months, we found a smaller dealer in the nearby town of Livingston, now nearby I mean, 78 miles away, or only 25 miles farther along than Bozeman.  Up here in Montana we are told these are short distances similar to Texas, and we tend to believe it :-)  So that chore is scheduled.  Then we wanted to restock at Costco, go grocery shopping, stop at a pottery place where we have bought a lot of dishes, plates, coffee cups, etc, and since Jan's favorite mug got broken, and of course go to lunch at a favorite sushi place, Dave's.  It had been over 2 years since we went there so we had high hopes it would still be good, and we can report it was great!

Ahi tuna tacos

That took most of the day, but it was needed, it is a gorgeous drive, and we came back to this.

The next day we had big plans as well, we had to wash the motorhome and the truck, to say they were dirty was an understatement, we have ended up driving in more rain this year than ever before!  And no place to wash.  Also we had another project we have been trying to get done since last year, painting the roof of the coach.  Our roof is fiberglass and in great shape, although over time, and always out in the weather and the sun, it had faded a bit, become a bit  chalky, and you could see fine little cracks in the surface.  After researching on numerous forums, we decided to paint it with Rustoleum Marine Topside paint, lots of good reports on the results as well as the ease of application.  So today was the day, lots of sun, low humidity, no rain in sight since we'd need 2 coats on different days.  First the roof had to be cleaned very well and then it had to dry before painting.  

The diesel mechanic is a jack of all trades:-)

Before washing

We took our time, had bite of lunch to allow the roof to completely dry and up we went for the first coat, working together, we cut in with a brush and rolled the paint on.  It was pretty easy and applied well.  The next day dawned bright and dry, so after the tiny bit of dew evaporated, on went the second coat, and we think it turned out beautiful!  We highly recommend this solution, of course time will tell, but it sure looks great now.

Just so you know this pic was taken before it was completely done,
hence the spot on the lower right

We took the opportunity to look at our wiring for the brake light again, and after troubleshooting the truck, the connection between the truck and the motorhome, Jan crawled under and inspected the entire length of the wire, and found no other problems.  It tested out okay, but we won't know for sure until we drive again.

Into town for a good lunch at a new to us place, Tavern 287.

Then I tied flies for a few hours.

Jan has been looking for a good place to donate some of our good used fishing gear, and found a good cause, Casting for Recovery, an organization for women with breast cancer using fly fishing as a form of therapy, and they have an office in Bozeman.  We ran back up to give them what we had accumulated, then out to lunch at another new spot, Cafe Zydeco.

The seafood gumbo and the crawfish "Cajun Taco" were the bomb,
the oysters not so much, but 2 out of 3 ain't bad:-)

So finally our day of fishing arrived!  Even though the reports in the area were saying things were slow, we were psyched.  A gorgeous day, a beautiful river, and not one even bite all morning long:-( 

So back for a quick lunch, then made some coffee and decided to run south, about 50 miles to the upper Madison and see what was what there.  We didn't see a whole lot of activity, quite a few drift boats on the river, but not the usual amount of fishermen.  And the ones we did talk to said, things were slow......   Since we were close to Quake Lake we went over for coffee.

But we are undaunted, we'll find the right combination, and in fact we are headed out in just a few minutes to give it another whirl after it warms up just a bit, it's 41 now:-)  In the meantime we have to put up with this view from our site for HH.  We'll manage somehow.

Took a big loop ride into the mountains and had a picnic, beautiful day!

Then we came back and Jan made a fantastic dinner, "Better-Than-My-Mom's Chungking Pork" thanks to Kenji Lopez-Alt.

Montana!

We left right on time for our first leg to Montana, 355 miles to Sparta, MN.  It was an uneventful drive at first until I looked down and noticed the light that shows our braking system application in the truck, the same light that had plagued us for months that we, actually Jan, fixed by running a new wire, was not working:-(  She had found the old one chafing as it made a corner around the body underneath our motorhome and had rigged an anti rubbing solution at that time.  So she went under there and found, sure enough the protection had shifted and it had rubbed the new wire and shorted the circuit.

Quick fix, right?  Unfortunately no.  It worked for a little while and popped the fuse again, so we (she) will go back under and see if we can find another source of the short, but decided it could wait until later.

After a small issue with our site, we got settled in for the night in Sparta, MN.

We had the same length day for our second leg, 355 miles, to Salem, SD.  Little did we know that Sturgis was starting the next day, so to say we saw motorcycles, RV's with motorcycles, vehicles of all kinds towing trailers of motorcycles, every combination, would be an understatement.  And in all that we had a crop duster come right over the road ahead of us.

We pulled into a very nice campground in Salem, SD, Dakota Sunsets, pristine, clean, easy to maneuver, large sites, run by people who obviously care.

Now the next day to Buffalo, WY was going to be long, 515 miles, something we haven't done in years, and can now confidently say we don't plan on doing again!  Maybe it's age, who knows, but it kicked our butts..........literally:-)  And after this long, long day, including finding fuel a lot more expensive out here, we pull around to our site, really anxious to get in and settled and chill, it is occupied!  We got it taken care of, the campground made a mistake, everybody does, and even refunded us part of the charge, but it did delay us about 20 minutes.  But we had 2 nights there, so it didn't really matter.  So in 2 days we made two time changes, and after over 1200 miles we were a bit whipped, but it was a pretty drive, and got to glimpse the mountains we hadn't seen in 2 years.

First glimpse

We even managed to find a very good Mexican place, a hole in the wall we enjoyed immensely.

The next day's final leg to Ennis was 365, and it started off pretty ominous with rain, even hard rain for the first 100 miles or so, but it started to break and was just off and on drizzle for the rest of the ride.

The campground had been sold to new owners and is now called Starry Nights, and we managed to snag an exceptional view site in the back for our upcoming 3 weeks!  It was a little murky still, and even rained during cocktail hour, but we woke in the morning to a beautiful view, not that it was so bad to begin with:-)

We have a lot planned while we are here, fishing obviously, but several important errands, the truck has a problem, we need to wash the coach and truck, they are atrocious, we plan to paint the roof of the coach, find the problem with the brake system light, do a few small repairs, and did I mention fishing!?!?

So a quick view looking down on Ennis while I sign off for now.