Mile 10,143 (Part 2): The good, the bad and the very bad
Ok, I’m back. So sorry everyone for the delay but as I mentioned in my interim post I’ve been as close to my deathbed in the past two weeks as I’ve ever been and am just now starting to feel like a human. In light of this, I have not been able to do as much here in Montana as I would’ve liked so this post may be a bit on the lean side. I promise things will pick up soon… On the bright side…if you’re going to be sick it’s rather fortuitous to become ill at your mom’s house when you’re unemployed. I guess it could’ve been worse but you surely couldn’t have convinced me of that last week when I hadn’t slept in 4 nights and couldn’t breathe through my swollen, pus-covered tonsils. I was thinking about taking a picture of said tonsils as evidence of my blog-belatedness but was worried I’d lose all four of my devoted blog readers out of sheer disgustingness.
You may have noticed that I “Part 2’ed” my recent mileage for this post. That is because the Civvy has been taking a much
deserved break here at my mom and stepdad’s house. Fortunately Maxine and Tony have been willing to drive me around when I’ve been well enough to drag my carcass off of the couch. Before my tonsils revolted, we did manage to make it up
to Plains, Montana for a good old-fashioned county fair. I haven’t been to a fair in a very long time and since this one was pretty small it was quite manageable and we checked out all of the fair goodies…you know…like cattle…and pumpkins…and quilts. Afterwards we headed up the road a bit to Thompson Falls where my cousin Jenifer and her husband Colby and daughter Katie live. The first scenery shot is from Jen’s backyard and the picture is, of course, of Jen and Katie.
After being sick for what seemed like ages it was great to see my dear friends from Madison roll into town on Sunday evening. Matt and Jen (from Mile 3510 – the wedding reception in Ontario) arrived just as I was starting to feel better and decided to stop here in Pablo en route to Glacier National Park where they will be doing some back country hiking for the next week. Since Max and Tony are excellent hosts, the Schmidters (as we affectionately refer to these two) enjoyed a very Montana meal of moose roast with some local Mission Mountain wine. On Monday they were planning a day hike into the Bob Marshall Wilderness and with
some trepidation I decided to go with them despite my recent ill-health. We opted for a popular area near the northeast corner of Flathead Lake called the Jewel Basin in the Bob Marshall Wilderness. The appeal of this area is that there are multiple hikes of varying difficulty so we were going to pick an easyish one for Stacey since she’s out of shape and recently virus-laden. Further…the trail head was at 5500 feet so we could drive there and still get up pretty high but only had to hike about 1200 feet to be near the top elevation. Believe me when I tell you that this was a very good thing for Stacey…maybe not so much for the Civvy. As a California-born-and-raised-car…the Civvy had never encountered gravel (and the requisite dust) before arriving here in the great state of Montana. I’ve included a picture below of the Civvy in what I consider to be her camouflage outfit.
Remember these two?
I’m happy to report I made it through the 5 mile hike and really only felt lousy in the initial climb. We enjoyed some beautiful scenery and fabulous weather. The pictures above are on the trail…the first section was to some alpine lakes referred to as Twin Lakes. The other pictures are looking toward Flathead
Lake (largest natural freshwater lake west of the Mississippi River) though with the wildfire smoke and the reflection from the sun it’s a bit difficult to see. After the hike, we headed down to the lake where Max and Tony met us with the boat and we proceeded to head out to Wild Horse Island which is a primitive state park on an island in the middle of Flathead Lake. We did some exploring on the island and then got back in the boat to cruise up and down the shores checking out the rich peoples’ houses. It’s nice to wish isn’t it? Jen and Matt headed out this morning towards Glacier and since I’m feeling a lot better lately things have been looking up. Well, health-wise at least.
And now for the very bad…
When I started the Extravaganza blog I was willing to admit that a wide variety of topics were likely to be covered in the nine month duration of this trip. Some stories good, some stories bad…but never in a million years did I expect to report what I must today. It is with a rather heavy heart that I share with my readers the untimely and tragic murder of my 26 year-old cousin J.J. in Fort Benton, Montana last week. J.J. was the older brother of Stevie…who you may recall as one of my travel companions through the California section of this trip. The details are only now coming to light but the good news is that the two persons involved are in custody and facing both murder and obstruction of justice charges. I won’t go into the details here but those interested in what happened can check out http://www.greatfallstribune.com/ for details.
Matt, Jen and Stacey (timer shot, hence the pine needle close-up)
Baby Ayden, Kate and J.J.
Tags: 7 - Montana/Madison
Stacey
September 11th, 2007 at 9:45 pm
Good to see that Matt and Jen are still out there, somewhere! I am jealous of your hiking expedition; Jason and I were becoming huge fans and then we went and started having kids….needless to say, that threw a major wrench into all our vacation plans, and certainly our hiking! The pictures are fabulous. Thanks for also putting a picture of JJ and his family up; I did not know he had just welcomed a baby….the pain you must all be in is unimaginable. My prayers and thoughts are with you….
September 16th, 2007 at 10:52 pm
I really missed your catlike dry sense of humor. I think I may just have to put you up a few spaces on the Totem Pole.MISS YOU ALREADY!nrTori
April 9th, 2008 at 12:47 pm
[…] appearances on the blog – Matt and Jen: a. Mile 3510 for their wedding reception in Ontario b. Mile 10,143 in Montana and c. The Final Mile in Madison before I left for South […]