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We Met ’em in Montana, Part One … or, Smoke Gets In Your Eyes
Author’s Note: Owing to the difficulty I have in uploading multiple images to Ricochet, this meet up report will be in two or three parts.
The trip from Everett, Washington to Bigfork, Montana did not have an auspicious start. When we opened the garage door to start loading the car, we found ash on Ray’s car, and our suburban neighborhood smelling of wood smoke. This situation prevailed all the way from home to destination, I kid you not. Highway 2 over Stevens Pass was shrouded in smoke from Eastern Washington wildfires, and all of Eastern Washington, Northern Idaho, and Western Montana were the same. The first picture I took was at a rest area off the highway near East Wenatchee, on the east bank of the Columbia River.
We stayed Tuesday night at a Hampton Inn in Spokane Valley, and the room was fine, but the hallways stank of smoke. Here’s what I saw from the car window on Wednesday in Idaho and Montana. Lake Coeur D’Alene was blanketed in smoke, and we couldn’t even see the lake!
We finally reached the Cabin in Bigfork, and this was the view from the back deck. There actually are mountains and a lake out there.
See the sun up there? The camera simply can’t capture the orange color of the sun through the smoke. Since the view outside was so awful, we went inside. When we arrived, only @randyweivoda and his lovely wife Sarah were there. Later in the day, @vectorman and @katiekoppelman arrived. That’s Katie and @vectorman on the left, Randy and Sarah on the right, and hubby @RayKujawa.
Wednesday night, the six of us went to the Bigfork Brewery which was just a short distance away for dinner. Food was good, conversation better, since the view was so horrible and we pretty much had to stay inside. [How did Mother Nature cheat us out of our fun vacation?] Later that evening, Randy disappeared to go to the airport to fetch @MLH.
Thursday dawned smoky as usual. Poor MLH had to give up her dreams of a difficult hike, as the air quality was unhealthy, and since the west half of Glacier National Park was closed, we had to give up our ideas of a tour of the park. So, all but MLH piled into two cars and headed for…wait for it…the Smokejumper Museum in Missoula! The ride through western Montana was smoky (do you see a pattern developing here?). The territory around Seley Lake was even worse than in Bigfork. The tour of the museum was interesting, and @vectorman found a bit of himself there. Yep, the lady in the smokejumper gear was holding a radio that he had designed!
End of Part One.
Published in Meetups
Ooooh, sounds wonderfully sensual!
“Guests will be given the opportunity to spend a weekend in February stringing fiber optic cable to deserving rural residents currently without sufficient bandwidth. Frolic in the snow! Tents, mobile washroom facilities, grills and propane tanks provided overnight by Fiber Frolic of Central Maine. If we can bring “The Mindy Project” and “Master of None” to one, yes, even one elderly veteran or suffragette, isn’t it worth it?”
Way to harsh my happy, Gary.
Yeah, I had left already.
It was kind of obnoxious to pull photos off of my wife’s phone, so I only uploaded two.
I thought @rushbabe49 was the official photographer, anyway!
All you non-Ricochet-members, wanna see? Join today to read Part Two on the always-exclusive Member Feed, and see how I dealt with Hammer and his family.
I was pretty bummed we couldn’t make it but the smoke issues made me feel a little better
@katebraestrup, Don’t forget to post or PM when your plans are more settled, on that. Depending on “things” I hope I can get to Tulsa for a mini-meetup.
Part Two of the Meetup Report is here.
I’ve already got my Gore Tex jacket and long underwear ready!
Fellow huckleberry fans, you may be interested in reading @kayofmt‘s article about her friend the Huckleberry Man.
As of today, all three parts are on the Main Feed for the public to read. <grin>
The slideshow video is up, over here.