Friday, July 8, 2011

In Yellowstone

Just a quick post to let you know that Beartooth Pass/Highway is great riding and that I am on schedule in Yellowstone.  I arrived at about 4pm yesterday and was unable to get camping in the park, but found a place 6 miles out.  I will stay there the two nights and spend the days in the park.

I picked up a new front tire from Bob Clement, famous BMW tech in Roberts, MT right before I entered the Beartooth.  It was pleasure to meet him and to be able to work alongside of him on the tire mounting and hear him talk to customers on the phone and fix a kid's bike for a neighbor.  This guy reflects the quality story in the book related to the fixing of the chainguard on Pirsig's bike.  Or the quality of the cabins he comments in the reading we are up to know.  It is so rare to see really quality work.  I am not sure if we have passed that yet or not.  BMW riders, if you need tranny or other work, I recommend this guy highly.  The new tire altered the handling for the better and I feel more confident of all the mountain roads to come.

There is no cell service out here, though there are supposed to be a couple of spots in the park where it works.  I am at a coffee shop now using their WiFi. It is a slow satellite connection so I'll skip the photos now, but expect to see them later on.  The name of the place is Loving Cup and I just had a Latte for breakfast.  It really hit the spot.

In reading the book last night I noted that this is the point that the narrator/author is strugging with his own past and as he approaches Bozeman it will get worse. If you are reading along with me feel free to skip his long tirades on education/depression/philosophy. This is about where I stopped reading the book the first two times I read it.

He spends time with old friends soon and, of course, I won't be doing that (yet) so my schedule goes ahead of his. 

An interesting quote is "Phædrus despised this park without knowing exactly why...because he hadn’t discovered it himself, perhaps, but probably not. Something else. The guided-tour attitude of the rangers angered him. The Bronx Zoo attitudes of the tourists disgusted him even more. Such a difference from the high country all around. It seemed an enormous museum with exhibits carefully manicured to give the illusion of reality, but nicely chained off so that children would not injure them. People entered the park and became polite and cozy and fakey to each other because the atmosphere of the park made them that way. In the entire time he had lived within a hundred miles of it he had visited it only once or twice."

I hope to find a better place.  I picked up my "interagency pass" yesterday.  Looking at the map and see Grand Teton is just a few miles to the south of the park, so I'll visit that as well.  What the heck!

I celebrated my birthday with Moosetracks ice cream. If you forgot to get me a birthday gift, it's OK - just make a donation to Not Alone by using the logo link at the top left of the page.

I am going to have a camp fire tonight at the campsite.  There are very few people at this site, and the ones there are in motorhomes.  The site I choose (Fox Creek #11) had a nice pine needle area for the tent.  It is near the Yellowstone River and I fall asleep to the sound of the water.  Gentle rain this morning at about 5 - 5:30, none last night though the clouds looked ominous.

Status:  I don't have my book with me, GPS locked up above 10,000 feet so I lost the track of most of the Beartooth.  I never looked down at it.  I will try and get the pictures posted someplace and give you a link in the next post.

Lesson Learned: Non-DEET mosquito spray doesn't work on these buggers, but the real stuff is effective.  The Aerostich suit in mosquito proof.

OK, I'm going into the park now.  I'll tell you what you are missing next time I get access to the net.

3 comments:

r_a_b said...

Ron-- Happy Birthday! The word's out; I'm older than you are. Guess that wasn't your Beemer parked at Tech, unless somebody jacked it after my post.

Anonymous said...

Hey, John here from the rained in rest stop in Madison (Yellowstone). Thanks for starting my rereading of ZAMM.

Beatrice P. Boyd said...

Belated Happy Brithday, Ron, from the Frog & PenguINN folks, Grenville & Beatrice. We will be making a donation to "You Are Not Alone" in honor of your special day. Been away from blog reading so awhile so have lots to catch up on tommorrow.