National Bison Range

The smoke of this Summer's fires is really starting to clear out in earnest, but it's had us socked in for about a month and-a-half. That, along with this, and 100+ temps means we haven't done any camping. But before the smoke really was a problem, my family was here and we took a trip to Glacier National Park. On the way we drove through the National Bison Range, near Dixon.

Buffalo, bison, whatever. This cow seemed not to mind the cars driving past her and her calf. Mmmmm...Veal-alo.

This is some early-season smoke obscuring the Mission Mountains. Later on in August we had a couple stage 2 air quality warnings in Missoula. Almost made me wax nostalgic for SoCal (actually, Santa Barbara didn't have especially bad air).

The buffalo (bison, for you prescriptivists) are kept on the range by the Feds for some reason or other. Every year they sell some for the slaughter. How close will they get to your car?

Pretty close.

At the top we took a walk and looked around. This is my Dad again.

Not all the animals on the range are big.

Melissa really likes antelope. (Wait'll we see a dead one--we'll have to buy a chip for the camera.) I think they seem kind of dim-witted, but they definitely look kind of cool, with those weirdo horns. They can run really fast.

Mission Creek runs along the Northern border of the range. Last year we saw a bunch of elk (wapiti) along here. Some of the bulls were bugling. Man, that is an eerie sound.

They don't let you have these. In fact, there's a camera on them 24/7.

Maybe next time I'll post some Glacier pictures, if we don't do something first.

Fish Creek Road

My parents, one brother, and a niece came to visit us a couple weeks ago for a week. One day during their stay my dad and I hopped in Ludwig and headed down I-90 to see the largest (known) pine tree in Montana.

I-90 Westbound

We took the wrong exit and strolled around the banks of the Clark Fork River (full name: Clark's Fork of the Columbia) for a bit.

Back on track, we found the monster Ponderosa. It's located just a bit off the interstate at the Big Pine Fishing Access Site & Campground. Standing just shy of 200 feet, the 335 year-old Ponderosa would probably seem a bit of a yawn to readers who've seen Sequoias and other Redwoods in situ, but we native flatlanders were duly impressed. Say what you like: it's a damn big tree.

You could make two normal-sized houses with the wood from this tree (really).

The tree sits right next to Fish Creek, which is apparently a decent fly fishing stream. These guys are serious. (I prefer ice fishing, myself.)

Just for the fun of it, we decided to follow Fish Creek Road up into the mountains, to where it eventually meets US 12. The road twisted pleasantly through meadows, pine forest, and deciduous forest, and past talus piles, never straying far from the creek--except for the final three miles, where it climbed up and over into the Lolo Creek watershed. Ludwig was happy to let us bounce along at a restful 25-30mph and enjoy the Bitterroots.

When we got to the highway, I turned East to head back to Missoula via Lolo. A few seconds later we passed milemarker 7, meaning that the state line was not quite ten minutes behind us. We weren't on any serious kind of schedule, so I asked Dad if we should turn around and head to Idaho. He was game--I don't think he'd ever been to the Gem State.

Now he has.

At the vistor's center straddling the border (free coffee and tea!), we parked next to this monstrous VW Eurovan. A lot more than just 30 years of technology separate Ludwig from this behemoth.
Something I found strange was that the visitor's center was clearly marked "5225 feet", yet I've got maps telling me the pass is at 5233' and 5235'. In any case, I erred on the side of caution when listing Lolo Pass on the list (on the right-hand side of the blog, above) of mountain passes Ludwig has traversed.

Heading back into Montana, we stopped for a picture of this kind-of-balancing rock along the highway. The water is Lolo Creek.

This Summer has been exceedingly hot in Western Montana, but there were still a few pockets of snow up on Lolo Peak (9096') in late July.

All in all, it was a great jaunt through a chunk of the Bitterroots that I'd definitely visit again. Thanks to Dad for being a good sport, and for taking many of the pictures seen here.

New Passenger

As some of you probably already know, we are expecting our first kid this February, around Valentine's Day.
Hopefully this excuses the recent poverty of posts.

Missoula County Court House.

The Missoula County Courthouse was finished in 1910, twenty-one years after Montana's admission into the Union. There is something kind of curious about the facade, or rather, what's written on the facade, or rather again, how it's written. Click on the picture for a larger image and see if you can figure it out. We probably would never have noticed it except that our downstairs neighbor (a Helenan) pointed it out to us.

Why is there a period at the end, as though "Missoula County Court House" were a sentence?

Up and Running

While Melissa was gone I did manage to successfully install a whole new driveshaft (replete with new CV joints at both ends). It wasn't a Lobro (the original manufacturer), as I'd hoped, but an EMPI. Given EMPI's reputation as of late, I'm keeping the old assembly.
(Also, another ACVW freak told me that the joint in fact didn't look to be beyond hope; all I needed to do was reassemble it and exchange it with the passenger side assembly--thereby re-wearing it on the unworn side--and I could expect to get many tens (or hundreds) of thousands more miles from it. Alas, it was too late as I'd already ordered the replacement.)

* * *

I was quite perplexed after taking Ludwig on his shakedown run by what seemed to be a fairly massive oil leak. I had an inkling what it was, but as a natural and unrepentant cynic I dismissed this first impression as far too facile. Thus began several days of fretting and preparing for the worst, as I had convinced myself that we had a leaky oil cooler, the fix for which requires an(other) engine removal.
However, in a conversation with 01Melcher, he mentioned six words that took me directly back to my dismissed initial thought:
"Are you sure it's engine oil?"
No, of course it wasn't engine oil; it was CV grease, the very grease that had been flung from the ripped boot way back in May. It got everywhere, including the front of the head. Once the head heated up the grease, it ran all over Creation, creating the illusion of a leak. (Part of my dismay earlier was learning that oil cooler leaks tend to manifest themselves after the engine is nice and warm, and that the "leak" was on the side indicative of an oil cooler leak.) Everything cleared up after I cleaned the head.

Slightly cleaner cylinder head (center)

It's nice to have a fix that cost $2 at a car wash.