That's right...just slow drive dangle. Ain't no hurry a'tall. It's a lazy old Saturday, the flowers are blooming their late spring blooms, and there ain't no place in particular to be. It's a perfect day for ole Mr. Go Slow. Mr. Go Slow and us.
Mr. Go Slow has got the right idea, especially when you've got 25 miles of potholed dirt road to navigate in a van that likes macadam a lot better than mudpuddles. It took us nigh on two hours, but we made it in one piece, no worse for the wear.
Now, for those of you regular followers of this feature, you pretty much know that I've been a pilgrim in search of trout-filled waters for the last several days. So, although Rock Creek had literally been a washout for trout fishing, I was still hopeful that there was something out there that wasn't running 8 feet over flood stage and could conceivably be fished by a guy from Washington with a fly rod, a van, and a dream. Naturally, I was pleased to see a fly shop come into view. "Ah," methinks, "a chance for knowledge and insight! Let us sally forth anon!" Actually, since I didn't live during Arthurian times, I just said, "Wow. A flyshop. Let's stop."
It had the same net effect. We stopped and chatted with the flyshop owner, a charming fellow who initially refused to sell me a two-day fishing license, claiming that would amount to highway robbery given the likely state of Montana's fisheries for the next two days. "Toast," he said. "Everything is toast." When pressed, he did allow that if a fellow had a mind to, he might try wetting a line in Warm Springs Creek, right near Anaconda. "But it's like fishing on the moon, son -- and don't go eatin' none of them trout you catch -- that sucker's polluted clear to Butte."
Montana -- flyfishing mecca. Home of the legendary Madison, Yellowstone,
Big Hole, and Blackfoot rivers. Site of Norman Maclean's classic novel, "A
River Runs Through It." The veritable holy land of the sport, steeped in tradition
and lore, and where do I go to fish? A freaking drainage ditch
in the desert so full of mining effluvia that it stinks clear to the freeway. Mmmm, now,
that's Montana flyfishing!
But, as my dear old grandpappy always said, "go get me a beer, boy. And make it snappy." By which, metaphorically, he meant, that a soul should seek self-actualization through selfless works of human kindness but (and this is the crux of the axiom) not at the expense of self-denial! Yup, grandpappy was a regular Kahlil Gibran sometimes.
Never one to ignore the sage advice of an elder, we hied off to this Warm Springs place, eager to see if the half-dozen flies our mentor in Rock Creek had tied for us were Texas medicine or railroad gin. There you see me up above, outfitted in what Kristanne lovingly calls "the green sausage" -- my venerable pair of well-aged neoprene waders. Trust me -- they smell about as good as they look, which is why they ride on top of Otto in a sealed bag. We have to be careful that agricultural inspectors at state lines don't get a whiff of those waders, or we might be denied entry.
Unfortunately, Montana luck was not with us in the hour or so we had before a big rainstorm came through, but we did get Today's Scenic Picture as we pulled out of the parking lot, heading east for Bozeman. Keep in mind that the double rainbow you see there also means double rain. They have their drawbacks.
Pulling into Butte, we still hadn't put today's page up, and it was starting to gnaw at us. We figured we'd give the Koupler another shot, so we tried a payphone in a hotel lobby. No salami. We're going to try fresh batteries in the Koupler next time, just to give it yet another benefit of the doubt. What were we to do? We were left with no other choice but to get Extreme. We spotted a hotel room with an open door...should we do it? It's an 800 call to our internet service provider...they'd never know. No. We weren't prepared for that. Yet.
Instead,
we crashed the Young Christian's Convention at the Holiday Inn Express. Fortunately enough,
this was a new hotel boasting a "Business Center." The "Business Center" amounts
to a safety-glassed, fluorescently-lit cubicle with an electric typewriter,
a fax machine, and a computer. Ahhh, just like work, but without the bad
coffee. Once I assured her it was an 800 call, the hotel clerk was nice enough to let me use the business
center completely for free! We FTP'd up our whole site, checked email, and
were on the road again in 20 minutes. Here's Today's Extreme Shot, documenting
the whole experience.
Total Miles for 6\7 = 313