Lots happened during our second stint in Bozeman!
Here are some highlights:
1. A guy shot a llama because he thought it was an
elk
During Mike’s first week at the Kurtz
clinic in Belgrade, there were several visits from drug reps. The reps mostly just brought lunch for all of
the employees, but one of them came with lunch and a bonus: news that a hunter
in Bozeman shot a llama, put an elk tag on it, and rolled up to an elk check
station with it, causing considerable consternation for the DoW staff working
there. I very much hope they rescinded
his hunting privileges. For life.
If it helps, here is a head to head
comparison of the four-legged fuzzy creatures in question:
 |
| Elk. |
 |
| Llama. |
And here's a couple of llamas having sex, because why not:
 |
| Ha! |
We weren’t as concerned about Ellie, although
she could conceivably be mistaken for a beaver, or perhaps an especially chubby
grouse.
2. The trailer’s water heater exploded
When we arrived in Bozeman, the high
temperature was a balmy 30ish degrees.
There was a brief snowfall, then a prolonged wind storm, more snow, and
then the temperature dropped to zero during the day. The pipes in the bathroom froze, but the
kitchen faucet kept working, so it wasn’t the end of the world. Then one
morning as we were preparing breakfast, there was a sudden and concussive thud
from under the oven, which I imagine sounded much like a whale giving herself a
head slap when her whale dad tells a terrible whale knock-knock joke. The thud
was immediately followed by the sound of running water getting into places it
shouldn’t. We frantically searched for
the source, and discovered that the 6-gallon water heater tank had frozen, expanded, and burst at the weld.
Up to this point, I think we had been
dealing with the trials of trailer life in Bozeman pretty heroically: the KOA
showers that lacked adequate pressure, heat, and a pleasantly non-sulfurous smell;
the wind storm that rocked the trailer for several nights, which is less
relaxing than it sounds; the bone-cracking cold that cost us a hundred bucks in
propane for heating in the course of two weeks; the constant humidity from the
exhalations of four organisms, which froze menacingly on the window frames
despite the constant running of the dehumidifier; and our faintly worrisome
neighbor, whose camper-toting pickup arrived in its spot on the flatbed tow
truck and whose occupant seemingly only emerged late at night to add more empty
beer cases to the growing pile beside. The water heater’s callous betrayal of
our trust, however, seemed to be the last straw.
Mike’s preceptor had offered his guest
house to us when we first arrived, but I initially didn’t want to deal with the
hassle of moving all our crap from trailer to house and back again, then having
to clean the place once we were out. But
the siren call of a hot shower and sunlight coming through the windows was too
strong, so we tucked our tails between our legs, vacated our space at the KOA,
and bailed.
3. We moved into the Kurtzes’ guest house
The guest house was built around the turn
of the 19th century and then updated with the modern amenities by
the Kurtzes after they bought the property around 20 years ago. It’s probably only around 800 sq ft, but it
felt like a mansion. Ellie’s favorite
part about it, we assume, was the heater, which kept things much toastier than
she had been putting up with. We think
Paddington appreciated the two queen beds in the upstairs area, which meant she
could have a whole bed to herself, while keeping an eye on us, her hopelessly
wayward human charges.
The coziness of the house was enhanced by
its being chock full of tchotchkes.
Every available surface, vertical and horizontal, looked like several
garage sales had been blasted into the house with a cannon.
The property was guarded by a ferocious
attack dog, a basset hound known as Sally Ann, who was always apoplectically
excited to see us. She liked to follow us around on P & E’s bathroom
excursions, but I felt bad that she had to heave herself around so
energetically to keep up with her longer-legged (and lower percentage body fat)
canine compatriots.
I very much hope that she gets dressed in a
hot dog costume for Halloween.
The house was also conveniently close to a
less-popular trailhead on the west side of the Bridger mountains, Truman Gulch,
where we had several very pleasant hikes.
Except for one, when…
4. We almost got smushed by falling trees
I’ll never forget the terror!
When we started, it was a totally normal
winter day for Montana: cold, cloudy, light winds. We hiked up a mile or two, then on our way
back I stopped to take some photos of the dogs launching over a fallen log,
which they seemed to be getting a kick out of.
Suddenly, it got much darker around us, a huge wall of wind came up the
gulch, and the spindly dead trees on the north-facing side of the gulch, which
we were on, started falling like dominoes.
So naturally, we started running for our lives, although every time we
heard the sound of a tree coming down nearby we had to pause and figure out
which way it was going to go. After thirty seconds of this I had a brain wave
and started bushwhacking across the ravine to the north side of the gulch,
which had fewer, and much sturdier-looking, trees. Mike and the dogs followed my lead, and we
could slow our pace to watch the other side flail and fall like bowling pins. Eventually, the wind exhausted itself and we
crossed back to the trail, where we noticed that the air smelled distinctly
pine-ier due to all of the recently splintered logs.
Despite the fact that Truman Gulch tried to
squish us, we returned there a few days later.
There had been a snowfall of a few inches, and we could clearly see the
tracks of two bikes (one fat, one regular) on the trail. The fun thing about snow is that you can see
what the people who were there before you got up to. In this case, one of them had a run-in with
gravity, and left a ‘bike angel’ in the deeper snow just off the trail:
Been there, done that.
5. I got a new phone
Because the one thing that makes a
smartphone still a phone, and not just a toy, stopped working on my deeply,
enthusiastically detested Motorola Droid.
Don’t get one. Ever.
But, being on a budget, I didn’t want to
spend any extra money. My free choices
were a Samsung Galaxy S5 and an LG 6. I
read a million reviews, which were completely unhelpful because the phones are
so similar, and ultimately went with the Galaxy because it was marginally less
enormous.
It also has a pretty badass camera, and I
immediately started playing around with it, and applying the photo effects:
 |
| (Selective focus) |
 |
| (Sepia effect) |
 |
| (Cartoon effect) |
6. We went to an ice climbing competition
This sounds much more exciting than it
actually was. The competition was at the
fairgrounds near the Walmart, which, being deficient in waterfalls or anything
else that could turn into a wall of ice, necessitated the employment of a tall
scaffolding with angled sheets of plywood bearing strategically placed climbing
holds. The climbers had crampons and ice
axes, as well as 4 or 5 minutes (depending on gender) to get as far as they
could up the rakishly angled surfaces to the top hold, some 3 stories above the
frozen ground.
We had taken the dogs with us, and
Paddington quickly took advantage of the freezing metal bleachers to cool
herself off:
Ellie, on the other hand, required a lap to
sit on to keep from shivering.
The technique of the climbers was
incredible, and the grace and power was easy to appreciate even at a distance
and a viewing perspective that made the overhang of the plywood difficult to
perceive. I was struck by how all the female competitors were uniformly tiny, even
in their bulky winter gear. If only I
had grown up somewhere colder! I’m made for that sport!
7. A big snowstorm finally arrived…just in time for
us to get back on the road
There is some really excellent downhill
skiing just half an hour from our location in Belgrade, and a couple of days
after our arrival, I took a quick trip down to Pocatello to retrieve our skis
from the storage unit, because we assumed that Montana might have some usable
snow. Crazy, I know.
NOPE! No snow when we got there, then too
cold to snow, then too warm to snow.
Then three days before we planned to leave, it dumped.
Of course.
