Don't push any more damn buttons!

Well readers we have been out of touch with mankind for several days.  Most of the time we were camped forty miles from Billings MT in the Gallatin National Forest at the confluence of the Wise river and Lacy’s creek.  We are now settled on the banks of Slough Creek in Yellowstone. There’s lots to tell, some great some not so great. Let's get the bad out of the way, we were lost in Yellowstone for four hours yesterday because Frank can’t read a damn map, but on the up side we are now very familiar with the northern half of the Yellowstone Park.  Bob does however take 10.789% of the blame for the "detour" for not being a better supervisor.  In the end, we had to depart the Park because we were too late arriving to get a place in the campground.  We ended up in Cooke City, MT and decided to stop and eat, seeing it was 9:30pm and we hadn’t had anything to eat since lunch, and driving around Yellowstone’s 1930 roads with a 65’ rig had taken a toll on our driver.  As it turns out, all of the campgrounds outside the Park were also full, so we were trying to find out where there might be a place in the forest to park for the night when Frank decided to turn on the charm and see if we could just park in the restaurant parking lot.  Thanks to Frank’s smooth talking and $50, we slept in the parking lot.

Terry the pyro

Now that that is over let us fill you in on what’s taken place.  Our last day in Ennis, we drove about 2 hours over to the Gallatin river and had a mediocure day.  The Gallatin is fairly swift and very slippery.  Joe fell flat on his back and Bob ended his 41 year stretch of not falling in the river.  To top it off, we decided to take a short cut home, this time with adequate fuel, but after traveling down a dirt road for about an hour, we found that the road had been closed by our good buddy and fly fishing angler of the year, Ted Turner.

Joe on the Wise river, but he's not any smarter

So we packed up and headed to the Wise river, where Frank invented a new sport that is a combination of snake wrestling and urination.  The Wise river was great!  It was full of mostly wild Brook trout, but we also caught a Brown trout, a Rainbow, some White fish and the fish of the week was a 19” Cutthroat caught by Frank (after he missed 20 other fish.)  Almost all were caught on dry flies, but the best fly seemed to be the Fat Albert.

Frank does Lacy

On Saturday we said goodbye to Terry, but not before he tried to kill us all by mistaking the slide out switch for a light switch in the middle on the night.  We all shot out of bed as the slide outs started compacting the trailer in the middle of the night.  Bob was the first to realize what was happening and yelled, “Don’t press anymore damn button’s.”  When Bob got the light on, Terry was standing in the hall up against the wall in his underwear with his hands up like he was under arrest.  Quite a sight.

So after our night in the parking lot, we returned to Yellowstone and got a really nice campsite, right on the edge of Slough Creek.  Frank was not feeling well today, so elected to stay behind while Bob and Joe went off to fish.   Bob and Joe fished Soda Butte and the Lamar river, but it was pretty slow.  Bob ended the day with 2 nice Cutthroats on the Lamar, Joe got skunked and Frank caught a real nice fish while sitting at the picknick table at our campsite.

Bob verifying that it is indeed 1000 feet to the bottom and that the road in only 2' wider that the trailer.  For 4 damn hours, but he's not bitter.