Adieux, ou: le Pari du Pascal

La semaine dernière, j'ai vendu Ludwig vieille 009 distributeur à un certain type en France. 

Je me sens un peu mal que je n'ai pas essayé de lui parler hors de lui - mettant ce distributeur dans n'importe quelle voiture est une mauvaise idée - mais quelques mauvaises idées collent toujours et sont impossibles à déloger, non? Je dois supposer due diligence de la part de l'acheteur, et qu'il est venu à la conclusion que John Muir est juste et ingénieurs de VW tous avaient tort. Il est probablement moi un hypocrite à fustiger 009s d'une part et de les vendre à des âmes égarées de l'autre. Peut-être. Au moins ce n'est pas dans Ludwig plus.

Il va passer le reste de ses jours, sans doute, qui luttent pour aider à alimenter ce beau petit Ghia (il m'a envoyé la photo) dans le pays du vin collines.

Bonne chance, Pascal.

Dad + Daughter = Camping

Last week Melissa flew to Wisconsin for a social call. Her flight left at 6 am from Bozeman, but getting up at 3 in the a.m. and driving for two hours is no one's idea of fun so we left the afternoon before and spent the night in the WalMart parking lot.

There's so many campers in this picture. The guy manning the RV to Ludwig's left said the Bozeman WalMart parking lot is, and I quote, "the nicest WalMart parking lot between Great Falls [MT] and Pensacola Florida." Point taken.

Sometimes I wonder if I shouldn't permanently mar some of Ludwig's cabinetry and add a paper towel holder.

Melissa on her way (she took a late-night cab to the airport), me and the Tater Tot drove down the road a little way to Missouri Headwaters State Park to spend the night. This marked TT's first time camping alone with her Dad, or alone with anyone for that matter. I declared it a "Tater Tot Day" (she calls all the shots), so there was some aimless--though lightly coached--hiking, and lots of playing dentist (?) in Ludwig.

another site 17; in the remote chance a reader plans to spend the night here, sites 16 and 17 are easily the best in the park, and are reservable

I'm pretending this cattail is a roller brush.

I see Ludie!

I'm helping a deer make its bed. (Right behind our site was a patch of tramped down grass with a bunch of deer hair interspersed; an obvious deer bed.)

helping Molly get used to being in Ludwig

Tater Tot was quick to point out I'd walked right past these cactus, which the park brochure told us we might find on some hikes.

I am throwing a rock. (Her commentary doesn't always have to be insightful or endearing, does it?)

I had to get up four times that night.

The next three are TT's pix:

TT got her own fire poker and was very respectful and careful in using it. She later said that sitting by the fire was her favorite part of camping. Hey! Mine too!

Don't you see the sun is red? Plenty of smoke is pouring into Western Montana from a few big fires in Idaho, but the air was still a lot better than it has been at home.

It's a different day. She slept like a rock. 
You wouldn't know it except for the signs, but this unassuming (if not downright bland) stretch of water is the Jefferson and Madison's confluence, and is thus mile 0 of the Missouri River.

Driving home, past what I think is considered the Northernmost part of the Tobacco Roots.

We got to the top of Pipestone Pass (6453 ft) without any trouble. TT promptly renamed it "Pikaho" (pie-kuh-HOE) Pass in honor of a dead thing we found there....

This is a dead pika. Yeah, I was thought it was a pika too, until I remembered pikas don't have tails. I'm pretty sure it's actually a Bushy-tailed Woodrat. But she says we still have to call it "Pikaho Pass".

Why was that pika [sic] dead, do you think? 'Cause a car ran over it. No nonsense, this kid.

avocado and cheese and bread, for the third time

She said she had fun and wanted to camp for five more days and four more nights. Success!

(miles 224,359-224,617 ←click for map)

Such Great Heights

Ludwig taking on Homestake Pass from the East, August 2012

A comment on facebook, a couple posts by The Air-Cooled Pig's driver, and Ludwig's recent return to a running condition have reinvigorated a back-burnered dream of mine, which is to take Ludwig over every Great Divide pass in Montana. I think there are not many more than a couple dozen [edit: wrong! it's at least 37 and as many as 44, depending on how one defines "pass"], of which maybe eight or ten are on the Montana/Idaho border. Ludwig's been over ten already.

Alpowa Summit (2785 ft; Eastern Washington), July 2009

Roadside trivia just West of Rogers Pass (5610 ft), October 2006

Georgetown/Flint Creek Pass, ca. 6400 ft, July 2011

Plummeting down Towne's Pass (4956 ft) into the Panamint Valley, April 2006

My desire to do so isn't rooted in anything like a Jeep commercial-esque drive to impose my manliness on nature, believe me. Each time we chug one of our cars, with their glorified lawnmower engines, over a semi-respectable patch of topography it's a more or less humbling experience. The map of passes I keep is a record of thanks, not of conquest.

Southward over Deer Lodge Pass in Ludwig, March 2010

Hudson Bay Divide, 6015 ft, September 2007

August 2008, heading back to the Pacific Watershed over Champion Pass

Into the Great Divide Basin at 7000 ft, Central Wyoming, July or August 2004

Pushing Gertrude over Mill Creek Pass from the South, October 2010

Montana is certainly no slouch terrain-wise: of the several states, it has the 11th greatest span in elevation and the 8th highest mean elevation. (Off-topic, but this chart also shows an interesting--interesting to me, anyway--fact, of which I was previously unaware: Nebraska has the highest mean elevation of any non-mountainous state.) There's plenty of up and down and variety to keep this personal challenge interesting. 

The most Northerly motorable Great Divide crossing in Montana, Logan Pass (6646 ft), Sept 2007

Gertie at the top of Skalkaho Pass (one of Montana's highest), August 2010

Elk Park Pass from the South, August 2008

A spot of OJ along the Southern boundary of Glacier National Park at Marias Pass (5216 ft), September 2007 (photo credit to EAA)

Mill Creek Pass in Ludwig, 6760 ft, late March 2010

Atop Pipestone Pass (6453 ft), August 2012

When it comes to high passes waiting to be traversed, Montana isn't Colorado, so it's not likely Ludwig'll ever be the mountain goat that the Air-Cooled Pig already is (not to mention Red Beard--16,076 feet!?--gimme a break), but it should be fun trying anyway. Let the climbing resume.

Brake Lights

Fun Camping Trip (title by TT)

With most of the kinks mostly worked out of the cars for the most part, we headed to Lost Creek State Park for our anniversary. We camp on or around our anniversary whenever possible.

  Me sitting in my car seat, worried. Why? 'Cause I'm nervous when we will have to get towed.

Entering the low end of Lost Creek Valley

We picked site 17, along the creek near some rapids, hoping the ambient noise would drown out any potential meth-head-family-all-nightfest, should that happen again. Fortunately the only sounds we heard from any neighbor were a couple songs plucked out on a lute.

One of TT's pictures:

 This is a pink rock 'cause you see how it's a little hard to see? I want to tell them so they'll know.

It's really cool how the whole creek flows over this one huge rock slab for a stretch.

In this sequence, TT is appointing her sleeping area exactly as she sees fit.

All set up

Last time she'd said the way the trees moved scared her, so this time we spent a lot of time discussing trees and how they have to sway or they'll break. She decided they look like arms.

This video's pretty crappy but maybe it gives an idea of what she's talking about.

Beer is just wasting space in the fridge when there's a 40° F creek flowing out back, so I sank a few cans of Oly in a crate for easy retrieval (another great use for milk crates).

As is my custom, I scrambled to the top of the falls.

 I'm saying "come down". Why? 'Cause you were up there. (She did not want me up there.)

 I'm dancing saying, "he won't come down" and now he is! Something's funny in the picture.

We did some walking around.

What were you thinking in this picture? I was thinking if I should blow my bubbles.

Yes, we should blow her bubbles. I'm leaning away from her because she'll pop them before they're free of the wand with that blurry little hand of hers otherwise.

Um, did somebody really push this apart? My answer to that question is "no".

Believe it or not, a little later this squirrel (or one that looks just like it) climbed onto my shoe and then up onto my knee. It made me a little nervous, to be honest.

Tater Tot did end up sleeping all night on the first floor, by herself (I heard her get up a couple times to get a drink from her thoughtfully situated water bottle). It was probably made easier by the fact that we gave her her own flashlight, and that she got to set up her space exactly how she wanted it. She told me about looking out the window when she was up taking a drink and that the stars and the trees were pretty. 

Heading home the next day, looking to the East, the haze is some indication of how smoky things've been lately--though this is considerably better than it was last week. When we were packing up to leave TT said she wanted to stay for five days, four nights.

And so ends another mellow adventure at Lost Creek State Park.