The trip that wasn’t to Canada (Trip Twelve A)

COVID and foot surgery messed up a few things, like our plan to wander up to Banff, Canada this summer.  Instead, we were lucky to make it to southern Montana.  So while the final northern destination wasn’t so north, the experience and friends we saw along the way made time during COVID not so bad. 

Like the last trip, this one began slowly with Matt finishing various improvement projects. He is a wanna-be engineer, architect, mechanic, and inventor all-in-one when it comes his projects.  There is nothing he cannot tweak, sometimes with less-thandesirable outcomes.  But, hey, that’s the joy in inventing.  When the first attempt doesn’t work, try, try again. 

This time the project was installing a pre-designed (courtesy of his newly learned CAD programming skills) under-belly storage.  Airstreams, and Aristotle in particular, are high on design, and sometimes low on function.  The only outside storage, or even storage space that is accessible from outside, is what they call a “trunk”.  Think fanny pack on the back of the trailer.  It’s narrow and thin and fits almost nothing.  So after much designing, even planning each items location, Matt had an aluminum (he has corrected me to be exact, 0.09” 5052 aluminum) “belly” box that would supposedly install across the belly of Aristotle and slide out from either side.  I could go hours and hours on the installation process, as it took many, many hours, but instead I will just show you the result. 

Matt’s installation held as we got to our first campsite in the Dinosaur National Monument.  Lovely spot, by the way, but lacks any cell service and if you are going to work on the road, it’s just not the right spot.  We did venture out for a short hike before packing up and heading onward.

I should mention that while the belly box held during our quick stay at Dinosaur, our electric hitch literally burned up.  Say what?  Well, that’s kinda of an inconvenience and a lot of workout when you have to hand crank 1,000 pounds of tongue weight on our 8000 lbs of a trailer up and down. 

To make it even more interesting, Matt tried really hard at the second campsite to lose the belly box.  I distinctly heard something like, “WATCH THIS!” while Matt proceeded to drive up a steep, gnarly, boulder strewn, pot-hole ridden forest service excuse for a road  outside the Grand Tetons.  It was definitely not meant for cars pulling 28’ trailers.  After about an hour of inching up the road, being chastised by locals passing us by running over the bushes on the side, and a little bit of yelling at each other, we called uncle and u-turned at an already occupied site.  The following video is part of our downhill crawl.  Hey, at least the belly box stayed intact.

That video showed us coming back down the road with our tail between our legs.  Why, you ask, did we think torturing Aristotle and Plato by traversing a steep, pot-hole, rock ridden road?  Well, frankly we arrived late to this popular national forest area and all the flatland spots were taken.  Unfortunately, all the spots up the crazy road, at least as far as we got, were also taken.  Luckily, someone took pity on us after our descent and offered to share their rather nice, large spot on the flatland campsites.  Our campsite was officially called, Antelope Springs Designated Dispersed Campsite.  We ended up spending four nights there sharing food, beer, wine, and dog walking fun (that’s a shout-out to TJ and his four-legged kids, Achilles and Hades).  All in all, it was a great stay, good biking from the site, good biking east of Jackson, and, of course, a great hike in the Grand Tetons to Delta Lake. 

For those of you interested in staying at this area, know that it’s very popular and a vacant site is like gold.  But, people, in general, are quite nice, and there are some that will offer to share their spots.  Also you never know when someone is going to bug out and leave a vacant spot.

Alas, it was time to explore again, so we hit the road headed North.  This time, I selected Red Cliff Campground in Gallatin National Forest just north of Yellowstone and south of Big Sky.  Would I recommend it?  Not really my style, but  the hosts were nice and it was convenient.  The silver lining was the crazy coincidence of meeting a couple that grew up in the same area of Austin that I did!  We first connected as they also had an airstream.  It’s a small, small world.  However much I would have loved to swap stories, the smoke was rolling into the area and the campground was a bit too close to the road to really enjoy.  We did find a good hike/bike near Big Sky, though. Notice the smoke… that’s from California and Oregon. It was suffocating. Can you imagine what it was like in Cali or Oregon?

Bozeman was our next target, not just because one of my college friends, Shawnee Spitler, lives there, and that was a strong attraction, but also because we could get an electric jack replacement.  I love exercise, but cranking that jack is a bit more than I wanted. 

Bozeman, what a great college town!  We marveled at its thriving downtown with eclectic shops and a local flair.  Too bad the smoke from western fires were a bit overwhelming.  Otherwise we would have stayed much longer.  Instead we had a nice dinner with friends, overnighted on a fellow Airstream owner’s yard, spent about four hours installing a new electric hitch, and hit the road to cleaner air.  Bozeman, we will see you again – you can count on it. 

Better air was found in Pocatello, ID, at the southeastern part of the state.  We pulled into town a bit too late to ascertain campsites, so used our handy Harvest Hosts and camped out at the Museum of Clean.  Yes siree, there is a Museum dedicated to a clean world – not just cleaning appliances, though they have corned the market in older vacuum models, but also a clean outdoors, clean energy, and clean people inside and out.  As expected the parking lot was also very clean and suited us, along with three other RVers.

An early rise (think clean living), gave us a jump start on securing a perfect campsite outside of Pocatello on Scout’s Mountain.  This was a great base for tons of hiking and mountain biking.  If you love mountain biking, there are tons of trails to be had in Pocatello.  If you like food, well, it’s not a foodie’s mecca.  It’s definitely not in the Bozeman category, but does have one fabulous brewery, Jim Dandy Brewery. So, if you stop in Pocatello, learn from the cleaning masters at the Museum of Clean, do an epic bike/hike, and recovery while drinking beers at Jim Dandy Brewery.

This marked the end of Trip Twelve A…. I’m separating the trip into two parts, the first part with Matt (Trip Twelve A) and then the second part of the trip without Matt (Trip Twelve Solo).  But before I go, here are a few shots of friends found on the road…