Trailer Life Stop #3: Bozeman Again!

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  I very much hope they rescinded his hunting privileges.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!

 People in this part of the country are legitimately gun crazy.  It was practically impossible to go hiking or XC skiing anywhere without hearing gunshots or seeing spend shells scattered on the ground.  During one hike with the dogs, Mike actually heard shots whizzing over his head and arrived at the parking lot to find a guy blasting into some trees right in front of the trail.  We were also seriously concerned about Paddington’s safety, since she looks about as much like a coyote or wolf as a llama looks like an elk, so all of her time outside was spent in a high-visibility coat (to her immense displeasure and embarrassment).

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 19^th 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.

It turned our 10-hour drive back to Denver (according to Google maps) into a 24-hour ordeal, with about 4 hours of doing a tentative 30mph and a prolonged nap at a rest stop just south of Casper while we waited for the blasted cross wind to give us a break.  But we made it! Being back with family and friends for a couple weeks was heaven, and we also took the opportunity to make some modifications to increase the trailer’s comfort quotient in preparation for the next destination: that purported Mecca of mountain biking, Hurricane UT.