Vacation

Here are some pictures from our vacation. We started by flying into Billings, MT--late, with an injured wrist, and in the rain, so instead of embarking right away on our backpacking trip, we spent the night in Cody. We got invited to Laurence's friend's house for dinner with the friend's new mail-order Russian bride. He's a gourmet cook and the food was awesome.

The next day, we packed our backpacks and drove to the East Rosebud Trailhead near Red Lodge, MT for our hike in the Beartooths. The ultimate purpose was to leave Samuel's ashes (he was the greatest dog on earth). The weather was perfect and almost no people. Scott set up camp in the dark (I was no help with one arm) and we opted to skip dinner in favor of a second round of hot cocoa with Bulleit Burboun (by now, maybe it was bourbon with cocoa--at any rate, it helped the Vicodin take away the pain!). The night was cold, but not as cold as the one we spent in the Sister's Wilderness a couple weeks earlier. The next morning was sunny and warm on the small gravel beach of Rainbow Lake. The ideal conditions caused us to linger here until the afternoon, endangering our upcoming drive to the Badlands of South Dakota. The only other person we saw at the lake was from Bozeman and he knows my college roommate Cynthia who lives in Yellowstone Park. Bizarre!

We carried Samuel's ashes in two water bottles which got scrutinized at airport security. We set the bottles on the beach with us and one of them attracted a butterfly that stayed for over an hour. I called it Sam's gaurdian butterfly.

Hungry after our hike, we ate burgers and drank local beer in Billings, then bought groceries for our trip east. It was 9 p.m. by the time we started the 7-hour drive. At 2 a.m. we gave up and pitched the tent at a state park in eastern Montana. We finally made it to Badlands National Park the following afternoon. We did a couple easy hikes. The scenery was spectacular! But we once again (third night in a row) set up camp in the dark. On the drive to the primitive campground on the far side of the park, we saw the sun set and the full moon rise at the same time. Really cool. The next morning we drove into Wall, SD (home of Wall Drug in case you haven't seen one of the ten million billboards they have around the country) for much-needed showers and a hot breakfast of something besides instant oatmeal. We drove through the main part of the park in daylight this time, then explored the area near our campsite. Lots of bison and prairie dogs.

The drive back to Cody was pretty awesome, too. We went through Sheridan (where we stopped for Mr. Misty's at the DQ) and drove over the Big Horn Mountains, through Greybull, then into Cody.