We Live A Parade

Last Saturday, our friend, Lisa Sabena, who runs the best motels in Three Forks and Bozeman, asked us if we'd lend our old ranch truck to the Lewis & Clark Motel float in the annual Three Forks Rodeo Parade.

 

 

 

     Three Forks is where the Gallatin, Jefferson and Madison Rivers come together to form the headwaters of the Missouri.  It's a ranch town.  Kathryn and the truck looked perfect.

 

 

 

 

Even with a Colt six shooter in my holster, I felt like a department store dummy. Three Forkers are real cowboys. They ride in rodeos.

 

 I did my best. I beaned the urchins with salt water taffy like a real cowboy

 

 and the float won first prize.

Good Evening Deer

The deer stroll onstage at dusk

 

 

to graze (there are two deer here)

 

 

fly

 

 

schmooze

 

 

and stare at us



Swimming Down the Waterfall

Our friends Tana & Don in the bow, their son Josh behind me and Kathryn alongside. River guide, Patrick in the stern

We live on the Gallatin, the river that runs through the movie.  So when our visiting friends Don and Tana Fowler said "let's go whitewater rafting on the river", we said "sure."  It was raining, there was some hail, and the water was 45 degrees.  It was great.

The fastest, roughest part was a flume alongside House Rock.

Where we hit a boulder sideways and I flew out of the boat. That's me, 10 yards downstream.

Another boat ran into ours while I tried to swim to shore and kept banging into rocks. It was like swimming down a waterfall, it didn't matter much how hard I swam, I went where the current went.   I slammed into a big boulder, turned over and came up a twenty yards downstream.  Breathing was beginning to be a problem.  Someone threw a rope but I missed it.  Another boat turned sideways downstream.  As I swept by they held out a paddle and I missed that too.  They held out another paddle but I was drifting away.  I thought this is my last chance. It probably was. The sky and the water were the same grey and swimming two yards upstream grab that paddle took everything I had. They hauled me in and I collapsed on the bottom of the boat until I could sit up.

Back home, I was still shaken  It hurt to walk and sitting down was painful, but I was OK.  Everybody was watching Madmen but I could not stand the flickering TV.  I sat on the back porch and watched a couple of bucks in the back pasture. . .

and the light in the sky, glad to be alive.

Good Grief, Kathryn. What have you done to our house????

Kathryn smushed our old ranch house while I was in Maine.

 

The dog said his dish used to be right here

 

 

It used to look a lot better.