Just ride up the road to Jardine, go past the town, and start adventuring.
Past town
I mean, don’t park at any turnouts because the local Forest Service Office seems to want to ticket you for camping. Even though you’re just parking for two hours. They think you’re camping will get a nasty note, but if you leave from town, it’ll be fine.
Don’t park here
Just go nosing into the woods and you will find wildflowers, Old Mines. Animal tracks some frogs.
So a couple weeks ago Gardner was on fire and Rosie’s Bistro was destroyed. So today’s photos are about just going for my morning walk and checking out. The reason that I couldn’t sleep because of smoke inhalation from the fire was still raging. They’re still trying to put it out even though they said it was under control, only had one fireman on it. I could hear it crackling. I could see Flames.
So I swung wide and walked around to places in town that were smoke free and discovered an old Gardener jail historical building. Kind of fenced-off. Nobody ever gets to see it. Cool. It’s so small. I wonder if this was the first jail and Gardner.
Later on that day when the skies cleared, it was so stressful. Mr. Bear started drinking.
We all know why I live in Gardener, but sometimes in Livingston. If you don’t, I would give away too many details and in this day and age with all the haters out there. You don’t want to like, let anybody know your schedule right. I’m in Livingston right now on my morning walk. Kind of Cloudy.
I was like, walking by the… don’t know what Livingston people call it. I call it the moat, but I guess it is not exactly a swamp. I don’t know, anyway. I’d like to think about the variations between the two towns.
Photo by Mo
Obviously one town is on the border of Yellowstone National Park where Snuggles works. But Livingston is about an hour and a half away. Our little apartment is a studio and downtown, which is cool if you like city-dwelling. Let’s be honest. It’s a tiny town. So in Livingston my day usually includes going for a walk and/or doing some kind of work-out, so I don’t age so fast. Sometimes I stop by Town and Country to find out that all the meat has been bought up by somebody in town. There’s an investigation on that. Usually early in the week I have a chili making project which will sustain me throughout the week. Afternoon excitement includes knocks on the door from the UPS and USPS people delivering me nice little cool bike parts to update our rigs. And then there are the Buttons projects that are always ongoing, in which today I installed a stainless steel valve in which we named B.
This is turning out to be a total ramble, so I will stop myself right there. I could have written an entire blog on why we name all our inanimate objects. Maybe later.
Looking at the history of today, July 17th – https://williammartin.com/0000/07/27/. Looks like two years ago I was perfecting the Suce Trail. Four years ago we are making adventure decisions. Eight years past it headed me to the Butte 100. Wow. Diverse. Now we just bike. Is this healthy?
Hiking is always in the equation. So is just sitting around drinking beer. And last year we didn’t even put on a pair of skis. I feel I am becoming rigid and detrimental to others. Like Mo. I feel in love with her diversity. Even I was into back country skiing and snowshoeing. I skate skied and hiked in the summer. I back packed often and climbed mountains. What an awesome life.
Sure, I was as obsessed with cycling as I am now. But in years past, I kept it at bay to enjoy other flavors of life. Now, because of my obsession, we hide from others and are never available for other of life’s offerings. We just bike. I just bike. And if I can not bike, I get depressed and make life miserable around me. I feel bad.
So guess what we did on that Saturday a couple weeks ago? Right!
We planned the day to be full of adventure and possibly epic. And it was.
Even I at one point wanted to just give up. Which is exceptional? I love these moments when I find I just persevere. The toughest part was when we started the hike-a-bike climb up to a saddle on a ridge.
And it was hot, real hot. Oh, and I must not forget about the bugs and meat eating fly. Just before I turned around I left Mo in the shade of a tree and instructed her to save herself if I don’t come back. I headed up the trail.
Which went upwards even more than before. At one point I became delirious and kept telling myself to turn around and catch up with Mo.
Finally, I found a suitable turn around point. It was a prime point at an intersection. Good enough. I rode enduro style back down the ridge.
I found the genuine challenge of enduro which in races we don’t really touch upon. Being so fatigued that the extreme downhill becomes so hard. One mess up and you launch off a cliff. So you keep focused. As much as you can.
I did a drop section and put some feet on the ground. Which means I didn’t crash or jump off the bike. I just cheated a little. “Common Bill, stay focused”, I scolded myself.
The day started out normally. Get up, make coffee and sign in at work. After a bit of programming, I went for a walk to plan the day ahead. Day ahead in that the time that occurs after I clock out at work.
Yellowstone River
As I walk down the Yellowstone, my alarm goes off. My break is over and I picked up the pace to get back to work. Today we would go to Dry Fork Creek Road.
(1) If we have been on that road before, then it usually means up the road. (2) But if it is our first time on the road, it could mean all night or until we have had our fill of adventure. And as per usual, that could take a while.
Mo is in town, which is prodigious. She is never here. We did the usual and pedaled our bikes to “the bench” as we call it, or some of the locals would know it as the BLM parcel. I stopped to interrogate her on a flower since she is a smarty pants plants wiz.
“Milkweed”
“What? No way”, I uttered.
“Showy I think”
Turns out she was right.
As our ride went on, I thought back to when we first moved to Livingston and the subsequent walking around I did to get the “lay of the land”. And how I found this place to ride and to expeditiously to get out of town. And that is what we were doing. Just going out for a quick and dirty.
recently I have noticed somebody taking pictures that have bypassed me in beauty and composition. Mo is in Yellowstone National Park. And of course she’s taking lots of images of plants. My favorites are the flower close-ups.
Meanwhile back at the ranch, I mean Livingston Montana, I am working remotely and hanging out in our downtown apartment. I look out the window and dream of my bike right after work where I will be immersed in wildflowers.
And yes, Mo is also working. But in a different way. I mean, she’s immersed in flowers all day long and hangs out in her apartment after work. And I am immersed in my apartment all day long, but get out in wildflowers after work. Funny how that works.
At the beginning of every week in the summer I head out to Suce Creek and hit up Suce. Its steep and loose in parts although near the end of summer tends to get overgrown. It is a fun little “quick and dirty”.
Do my thing over at https://photos.google.com/, pro tip is to save a link to the gallery. You know, in case I want to blog a few sentences and lure in people to share with.
We are out on an evening walk. And recently I have gotten into the habit of putting so much stuff on my calendar I combine things even during my walks. For instance, I just thought to myself okay. I’m on a walk. I might as well combine my daily exercises into this, right?
Like, stop! Find a big rock and do Turkish get-ups. Stuff like that. Heck, why not answer emails? And do some work-related items. I think this has to stop and I need to enjoy one thing at a time. Otherwise, I’m just going to get bent out of shape again.
“Like Friday”?
Suddenly realizing I was talking out loud and my partner chimed in.
“uh, yea, perfect example”, referring to a blowup when my phone stopped working.
Actually, you know, what’s funny? I’m walking and blogging now, haha.
And that’s what we did. It was a great loop and included some amazing wildflowers up on the passes. And a pretty snowy but rocky downhill coming back.
One thing to note was a run-in with a couple four-wheelers. This young boy on a four-wheeler tried to run down Mo and intimidated her. But as they turned around to head back she caught up with him, jumped in front of him, and gave her gave him hell.
Was quite extraordinary high tension and really stressful.
Boneshakerbike 