Matt and I headed up to The Hideout for the weekend, and he was mighty pleased with the two cabins. It had been a whole year since he’d been up, and then it was nothing but beautiful, wild land and a lot of talk. We spent Saturday walking around, collecting firewood, and then walking up the road 30 minutes and tubing down the creek. Through canyons and narrows we drifted, sometimes with legs straight out and preparing to push off from fallen trees and/or rock embankments, but it was a blast. Literally! Matt’s tube popped about halfway down and we had to share a tube for a while. At one point, we did have to stand up due to shallowness, and I walked for a ways after that. We ran into the neighbors from around the bend and chatted for quite a while before making it back to our place.
Sunday we headed down in the car to meet up with the family. Matt turned me onto listening to the Moth podcasts, personal storytelling in front of a live audience. They were touching, funny and only occasionally not so much.
It was a fine reunion and we had a splendid time at the Firehole Ranch in West Yellowstone
with mom and Lee. 5 days of waking up, heading to breakfast (what is the special for the day?), walking down to the dock, taking the 15-minute boat ride to the other side of the lake,
meeting up with our guides, Josh and Ryan, getting suited up,
stopping for fishing licenses:
setting down the river.
Mom rotated partners daily, but the two boats were always close together. Her highness sat in the front of her boat every day,
and after the guides figured out which nymphs/flies were biting, we were all geared up and ready to just haul them in:
Everyone caught plenty of fish.
I kept track daily of my “in the boat” versus “on the hook but not into the net” accomplishments. My best day was 18 – 2. So much fun. Midday we’d pull over to the bank and enjoy lunch, discuss the action so far, and take a potty break in the beautiful flowery field:
Some times I would just pull in my line and enjoy the beautiful views. Some times I would sit in frustration because I keep snarling my line (mostly the first couple of days). Some times I would be laughing ’til I fell down with mom (not often enough!). Some times the guys got out to wade for a while:
We’d arrive back at our cabins around 5 or so, and either warm up by the fire (the first really rainy, chilly day), play games, or veg out
until time to get dressed and head down for cocktails/appetizers (6:30) and dinner (7:30).
We sat with different people several nights, and had a table to ourselves several nights. The dining room had one wall that was all glass windows, with a spectacular view of the Lake.
Every night was a gourmet 3-course meal and no one had any complaints.
Verifying some arcane factoid:
Oh, and open bar each night. I can’t remember so many successive nights of drinking in quite a while! I especially enjoyed the night when Lee asked Matt if he wanted to head down to the bar and “tie one on.” I came into the room a few minutes later and saw Lee laying face down on the bed.
“I thought you were going to tie one on?” says I. “Matt didn’t want to go” says he. “I would be happy to go tie one on” says I, and we set out immediately to fulfill the goal – which we happily did, with the help of some Patron Silver!
Thursday was our one day off, and we piled into the Lexus and headed to West Yellowstone, to Arrick’s fly shop for some flies and directions, and the ranger station for a park fishing license and hiking ideas. We head into the park and the traffic is awful. Too late to the mark! Mom comments that it’s probably some people looking at animals, and I disagree. 30 minutes later we crawl past a single stinky buffalo laying two feet from the road and we burst out laughing (I let loose with some colorful language as well). Silly tourists. We did see some far away moose also.
Stopped at the trailhead and ate lunch in the woods,
then before starting our hike, decided to go elsewhere.
We start hiking in, the men with their fly rods, and dark clouds are gathering to our right. They seem to be moving past us, so we continue along, keeping an eye on them. When we finally come out of the woods and can see the lake, about an hour later, the clouds seem to have changed direction.
The wind kicks up and they all start to head toward us. It’s amazing – I go off in the woods to take a leak, because I am so sure that in an hour, I will be huddled with my son and brother over mom, protecting her from the midst of a tornado! It’s movie-style windy and the temperature drops rapidly. We dress her up in Matt’s waders and raincoat (and Lee does the same), bundle up, and head back.
The guys didn’t even get to set their rods up, much less cast them into the water. We get back, having to endure only a light rain, but nonetheless all relieved to be in a protected space.
On our last day of fishing, Josh gives mom another (someone took hers from last year) hat festooned with flies and she’s thrilled:
Thanks so much, mom!!!