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3. Odd & Ennds from Spence's Trip (Warning: Non-Fishing Stuff)

Here are some odd pics from the trip...

The top one is HILARIOUS! And I wanna go to the Mint.

LOL - I don't seem to remember that bar, but could be... I have no memories of the bars I've been banned from. Funny how that works.:)

Yes...The boys of Wyoming love their beef...I kept looking through the window there to make sure someone wasn't going for grandpa's 12-gauge..."Damn hippie vegetarian! Lets put some buckshot in his ass." :)

The rodeo in Cody was a hoot as well. They had this clown out there with a mic who was hilarious. He would call out states to get a reaction from the tourists, like someone from Texas let out a war cry...When the guy from California jumped up the clown welcomed him to America.

There seems to be an underlying theme to their discourse...Something about "threats to their way of life". They opened the rodeo with that tune from Toby Keith, "Courtesy of the Red, White, & Blue", then a cowboys prayer, and then the National Anthem.

I will tell you one thing...If we had a Ram pickup dealership in Cody we would be millionaires. Every horse trailer is being pulled by one. They are everywhere.

Too funny Spence, where else could you be more out of place as a vegetarian? Maybe Argentina? Even Texas is pretty accommodating to us veggies...I know, I lived there once. OK, maybe not north of Abilene...

So finally we get to see some photos of Spence's better half! Tell Lisa with the onset of cooler weather it's perch fishing time again in some of my favorite waters...

Looks like a most fabulous trip there altogether, Spence. Now get them hoppers back in action before MI trout season closes!!!

;oD

Jonathon

Please, help end the violence, Spence.

Hey Spence
No one mentioned your pretty bride. You're an overachiever.

Hey Bruce...She's Italian. You trying to get on her Christmas wine cookie list? :) What did you think of the boot of Italy with spurs on it?

I pulled this back up for John S, Wiflyfisher...Theres a pic of cabin 4 and further down me having my tea on the Madison.

Spence

You photo that says underneather it: "Chilling on the Madison between Hebgen and Quake Lakes"

Wow!!! I know that spot very well and the river is really low!!!!

I always got the nicest cabin rentals out there..

Yeah. The river was low. Hoovler told me they had been working on the dam and had been messing with the water flow all summer. In 1995 I thought I was going to drown down by $3 Bridge. This time I felt fine wading.


The funny thing about the cabin was that when you were in bed your head was a little lower than everything else. We thought we were sliding into the river.

The woman that runs the place reminded me of my mother. I told her that in fact. The electric was installed after the cabins were built. I was checking out the fuse box and followed the wires with my eyes and no where in that cabin could I find even one cobweb! The knotty pine seemed polished. She's a clean freak like my German mother. We knew where our mother was, which floor in he house she was cleaning, by the time of the day.

One summer I was working in a large factory, a punch plant, fenders, bumpers, oil pans, etc...I was working the midnight shift and would get to bed by 9:00am...One morning, at 11:00, she was in my room with the vacuum! I tried to explain I had worked all night etc...This was her "normal" time to clean that room, and she actually asked if I was going to sleep all day!? :)

Very nice place. Slattery couldn't believe I wasn't out there fishing. I had promised my wife that except for a half day float on the Yellowstone, the rods would stay put away for our anniversary part of the trip. This was really difficult when we drove past the Tongue in the Bighorns!

Spence

Spence,
Somehow I had missed this the first go.
The Chief has got to be one of the prettiest "hiways" I have ever had the priveledge to drive. My copilot however was white knuckling the entire time as I took "wise and prudent" a little bit on the liberal side.
Then there was the near heart attack on the first walk up the hill from the General Store up to the Grizzly Pad in Cooke City.

Great pictures! It's nice to see the other side of fishing trips too not just the hero shots.

John...Did you drive the Beartooth Hwy from Cooke City to Red Lodge? Wow! No guard rails and on our way back a rain storm...Lisa felt so hardened after she had a Bison Burger in Red Lodge...She was going native. :)

Took her to a rodeo in Cody one night as well...

Just north of Sheridan, when you turn off and head west toward the Bighorns etc, you almost instantly realize you are "out west"...You look east and see the Great Plains, and west nothing but mountains...You are driving through free ranging cattle etc...Wonderfully different than Detroit :) and Michigan.

Thanks Matt...It was a special trip with my wife flying out and driving back home together for our 25th...We will never forget the trip. I have been out there fishing twice before this trip, 1995 & 2004 and had never bothered to stop and see Old Faithful...Lisa and I did all the tourist things I would never do alone with the fishing gear in the car. It was a lot of fun!

We visited the Park, Jackson Hole and the Tetons, just about every scenic drive out there, Beartooth, Chief Joseph, the Bill Cody Museum in Cody, some old village of old cabins, one used by the Hole in the Wall Gang, the Medicine Wheel, the Bighorn Mts, Black Hills, Mt Rushmore, the Bad Lands, and then home...

I did wander through the area in 1973 as a young hippie kid, but sans fly rods...

Spence, I did the same kind of tourist trip 3 years ago with the family. I hardly fished but we had a ball seeing all the sights. In MT, WY and SD.

Beartooth was not an option when I was out as it had been a very bad spring and there were no less than 23 landslides completely closing the the road.
The Chief Joseph was particularly spectacular to me in part because it was the first time I had ever been higher than 9000' (Dead Indian Pass) but also because it felt and looked so completely foreign. I actually have almost the exact same shot looking back to the start of the CJH with that spur of red rock. It wasn't until we made it into Cooke that my buddy enlightened me to free range "speed bumps". Needless to say wise and prudent was much slower on the way back.

As for Lisa going native that can only be truly said after sampling the "Oysters" at the steakhouse on the main drag in Red Lodge. Yes I did, and, honestly they were not that bad.

JohnW next time out I hope you can do Beartooth, it is spectacular, way more than Chief Joseph.

John,
There are 3 roads in that part of the world on my list:
1 Beartooth
2 Going to the Sun
3 Marias Pass

I think the reasons are all pretty obvious but none will ever dislodge the CJH. Like they say "you never forget your first (9000 foot pass)"
JW

When we were leaving Gardner for Cooke City we had been told that the Beartooth had been closed due to a fire...When we were checking in we were told that it had been reopened...We have some pics of what was left of the fire when we went by.

The story of Chief Joseph and the escape of his tribe through that valley made the trip through it even more special.

Spence