It is a truth universally acknowledged that vacations usually spring from idyllic visions that have sprouted in armchairs at home while we pore over guidebooks. A two-week road trip to Montana and the Grand Tetons! Camping! Unhurried days, invigorating hikes, restful nights, simple but hearty meals, space and time for drinking in the fresh mountain air and scenic majesty!
Well, today was a pretty amazing day. But it also held some frustrations, reminding us that this vacation is still real life, not just a glossy commercial for Big Sky Country.
Number one, we’re spending an awful lot of time in the car. Which is to be expected on a road trip, duh. I just forgot how sore my seat gets after 10 hours of driving.
Number two, we’re spending an awful lot of time in the car together. This is fine for an extrovert like my husband, who processes every thought verbally. And now he has a captive audience! The captive audience, however, is an introvert.
Number three, I am just as prone to be busy-busy when I’m camping as I am at home. No chance of taking an hour to sit and drink in the gift of the present moment, because breakfast must be cooked, dishes washed, crumbs of food cleaned or packed away (bears), shopping done, trips started on time to get to the next campsite on time!
Okay, now the good stuff. We awoke this morning in the Theodore Roosevelt National Park to mist rising off the river, shrouding the cottonwoods like tall ghosts leaning over the campsites. As we were packing the trailer, a massive beast strolled up out of the mist, cropping grass, moving across our site—a large, dark-maned buffalo. We stopped packing and stared, snapped pictures, and reveled in the gift of this visit from the safety of the camper door.
The trip to the Bozeman area was uneventful, except for two deer leaping in front of the car early in the trip, and an antelope bounding in front of us over I-94 near Billings.
We camped twenty miles from Bozeman in the Absaroka Wilderness in the small Pine Creek campground—primitive, but a scenic delight compared to the dusty, crowded KOA campground up the road. We chose to forego showers and a swimming pool, trading these for lush grass, private sites, shady pine and fir, and 8,000-ft. mountains towering over us, their massive peaks shouldering their way into our view every time we stepped out of the camper.
Bear had been seen in the campground that day, so we picked up every crumb, wiped up each drip of juice, and packed everything edible back in the car. We went to sleep with bear spray at our side, and slept like babies in the sweet, cool mountain air.
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