Balloons

Yesterday morning, I woke up to a soft "whoosh" sound coming through the open window in my bedroom.

I ran downstairs, started water boiling for my morning cup of tea and went out to the deck to listen.  Yes, it was coming from the school grounds a little over a block away.  I finished making my tea and settled into a deck chair.

Within five minutes, the first hot air balloon was in the air.  I waved at the people in the gondola and kept waving as four more went over.

The hot air balloonists have been coming to Seymour for eleven years now, helping this little community celebrate the annual Burgerfest.  Seymour claims to be the Home of the Hamburger where the sandwich was invented in 1885.  We hold the record for making the world's biggest hamburger, over 8,000 pounds.

Today is the day of celebration, with a parade, games (including the famous ketchup slide), food, music and much more.  I will miss most of the festivities.  I leave in two hours to meet Gary in the forests.  But I will not miss the hot air balloons.

By late afternoon, my son Chris, his wife Tisha and my grandson Evan were here. The school grounds were filled with happy onlookers, eating hamburgers and greeting old friends. The children had games to play which held their attention for a while but then they began tearing around chasing each other.

At 6:00 pm, the balloonists held a meeting and decided yes, the winds were right. They began to inflate their monsters.

 The balloons come in all colors and shapes, but certainly the favorite of all the children was the octopus

When all the balloons had flown away, the children went back to playing and the adults went back to gossiping.  The crowd grew as more came to see the highlight of the evening.  The balloons had gone north, landed in fields, were packed into trailers by the road crews and returned to the school grounds.  

At dusk, the inflating process began again but not to fly.  It was time for the evening "glow".   As night fell, the giants waved above us until the chant began:  five, four, three, two, one, glow! and the balloonists lit their burners in unison and balloon magic began.  The ten behemoths radiated light as if they were so many stained glass windows.  

Then the spectators were allowed to go onto the field then to get a closer look.

 It was was long past Evan's bed time so we had to leave with the balloons with the burners still firing their final glow.

And so ended another year's wonderment.  We'll be back next year.  

Campgrounds - final

Burgerfest has returned to Seymour with hot air balloons, parades and more. In addition, I'm heading out for five days of camping with Gary starting tomorrow afternoon.  I'll post some news about the festival tomorrow but after that I'm not sure how much blogging I will be able to do from the Nicolet National Forest. There isn't even cell phone coverage there!  

Meanwhile, the last of the campground photos from the summer reading program tour: 

I intended to camp in the Helena National Forest but the trees in the area had been hit with some kind of infestation, so most of the campgrounds weren't open or were in terrible shape.  Instead, I camped at the Augusta, Montana, City Park, a block from Main Street.  I was the only camper there.  A windstorm came through, but I still was able to sleep through the night in my little tent. Augusta residents kept coming by to check on me so I felt perfectly safe. 

At the West Boulder River campground near Big Timber, Montana, I could see the snow covered mountains through the trees surrounding my camp site.  I didn't pitch my tent because storm clouds were gathering and I wanted an early start. Instead, I made up my bed in the back of the Mercury Sable. 

 I walked over to the river and there I met Tom, a fisherman from Kentucky. 

 That night I was at the cabin he shared with two other fishermen.  I feasted on grilled hamburgers and a special treat, trout caught in the river. The men said they were glad I was eating the trout, they were getting sick of it. 

The final campground was a return stop at Buffalo Gap, North Dakota.    

My little tent served me well. It now has been dried, aired and packed away for my next adventure, but this next camping trip will be in a civilized trailer with electricity and a furnace. There will be a sweet, calm Wisconsin lake with a beach where I can finally swim. (The Western states mostly had raging rivers.) 

An actual bed?   It will be a different camping experience.  

Campgrounds - Part 5

Gary always tells me that if I have some money, I should never say the amount out loud, because the gods are listening and will sock it to me.

So when I said I had made a $400 profit on my tour, I should have kept my mouth shut.  Today my car had repairs. The bill was $998.00.   So though I am likely to make more from this trip, I will not mention profits in this blog any more.

But back to the campgrounds.  As time went on, I sometimes neglected to take photos of each place, however this campground on the Rogue River near Gold Beach, Oregon, was a particularly pleasant place.  I spent a little part of the morning wandering along the river looking for agates, but had no success, yet I am told others find plenty in that spot.  

Up the fabulous Oregon coast, I camped at Cape Perpetua in a site that looked and felt like a jungle.  Later I explored the shore.  By now I wanted to stay in Oregon forever and ever.

Then after a day of being lost, I found a sweet campsite at the Lazy River Campground in the Mt Hood National Forest near Escatada, Oregon.  This was one of two campgrounds where the host suggested to me that the corporation that managed the campgrounds really preferred cash to checks.  I thought how easy it would be for the campground hosts to skim.  I always wrote out checks.   

This sites were a real hodgepodge with people camping in big groups willy-nilly.  My site was reserved for the next two weeks but starting the following night. I only needed it for one night, so no problem.  Reservations in the national forests are relatively a new phenomenon, one I don't much care for.  I liked the free and easy old days.  

The next night found me in Pomeroy, Washington at the Garfield County Fairgrounds.  Workers constructing power lines leading to the state's fields of enormous wind turbines were staying there, donating whatever they could, living in tents, cars, or campers.  They were the new migrant workers, going wherever stimulus money was being spent.   The fairgrounds were a fine place to stay, even including a good shower. 

An added bonus was the farm machinery museum on the grounds.  The building was closed while I was there but there were plenty other machines outside that were interesting, especially the Case tractors that were like the ones I drove on the farm when I was a kid.  

Now I was heading east and the next day would find me in Montana once again.   

Campgrounds - Part 4

On the 4th of July, I found myself at an RV Park in Moab, Utah.   Located on a bluff, I could look out on the red rock all around the city.  That night, I sat with a German woman and watched the fireworks display which were set off at the campground I originally meant to stay in.  We also watched firetrucks zooming around putting out grass fires set by people who didn't notice the signs indicating dangerous dry conditions.

The temperature when I got to the RV park was 103 degrees, but it cooled way down at night.  I slept very well.

I didn't bother taking a photo of the campground near Huntsville, Utah.  It was next to a busy road and not all that interesting.   That was the place where a bunch of teenagers held a beer party in the adjoining site.  I scared them by hitting my car alarm.  Don't mess with this camper!

Though I found most of the campsites I selected during the winter months were closed or otherwise unavailable, I did go to Rye Patch Reservoir State Park in Nevada, west of Elko.  It turned out to be one of the best campgrounds with a lake (reservoir), held in by a dam, excellent tent pads and good showers for a quarter. I threw caution to the wind and put in 50 cents for a fifteen minute shower.

I came away refreshed and happy.  Who knew such a beautiful place could be found in the middle of the Nevada desert?  

Next came another National Forest campground, this one  near Susanville, California.  By this time in the trip, I understood that the rangers at the stations took a look at me, figured I was old, and sent me to campgrounds that were filled with people.  I always smiled and headed to another camp.  In this case they wanted me to go to Merrill campground in the Eagle Lake District of Lassen National Park.  I went to it, took a look at about a hundred RVs and kept going to Christie Campground six miles beyond, where only ten campsites were filled.  It was still on Eagle Lake but oh so quiet.

This campground was among the tall Ponderosa pines.  I laid my tent on the pine needles which made for extra soft sleeping.  It was here I spotted the white headed woodpecker.

I slept soundly but covered with extra blankets, because the temperature plummeted to 40 degrees, the coldest night of the trip. 

The next morning, in spite of the cold water, I went into the silty lake, just to say I had done so. I only lasted five minutes.  

Campgrounds - Part 3

It's a rainy day in Seymour.  I can't get into the garden so I guess I will reminisce some more.

In Colorado, as usual, I sought out a National Forest ranger station to get advice.  The ranger in Loveland sent me up to Jack's Gulch in the Roosevelt National Forest (named for FDR not TR).  It was the 4th of July weekend, so he figured I needed to go to a place where I likely would find a site, and that meant a long drive up along the Cache La Poudre River.  It was high and raging as were most of the rivers in the west.  There were signs everywhere that said, "In case of flood, climb."  I looked up at the canyon walls and said, sure, that'll work.  But Jack's Gulch did prove to be another lovely place to pitch my tent.  I selected a walk in site, carrying all my gear to be away from people.  (Didn't work, people with two children and two dogs moved their tent into an adjoining site soon after.)

I was finally in the mountains with snow covered peaks off in the distance.  There were hiking trails all over, though nearby equestrians insisted on taking their horses on them, ignoring the "No Horses" signs.  Can't these people read?

Two nights later I was at the Blue River Campground in the White River National Forest.  On July 2, it was still the Independence Day holiday and I had to take the only campsite left.  I didn't know why that one was open until I took a look at an adjoining loop.  It had been closed to the public because of a bad infestation of fire ants.  Still, my tent was pitched and I stayed there.  I did squash one ant who came over to my site for a visit.

Again, I was getting a joyful view of the mountains, so why worry about a few  ants? 

The ants kept their distance and the next morning, my tent was on its way to a new destination.

Campgrounds - Part 2

Gary left on his own camping trip this morning.  He called to say he is at Laura Lake in the Nicolet National Forest.  I will be joining him this weekend.

Meanwhile, the last check from my tour arrived this morning. It was from the Dugway, Utah army base, so it was a U.S. Government check.  Just to be on the safe side, I took it right down to the bank and cashed it in case Congress couldn't get their act together by tomorrow.  With that check, it looks like I made about a $400 profit on the trip.

I am still going through photos from the trip and found more campground pictures.

On June 27, after a performance in Circle, Montana, I drove south.  At Miles City, a family talked me out of going to the campground I planned on because of the flooding.  They suggested I go to Broadus to stay at an RV park.  I didn't like the idea of an RV park because they usually are crammed full of giant buses, but in this case, there was a separate tenting area, and I was the only camper there.  I was next to the corral.  The horses came over to greet me.  Most of them soon left, but this one kept coming back.

The next afternoon I stopped at a Wyoming visitor's center in the middle of nowhere.  It was totally unexpected.  The woman at the counter immediately told me to go to Ayres Natural Bridge State Park.  To my amazement, the beautiful park and campground were free though donations were accepted.  The manager was meticulous in his care of "his" park.  That's my car and tent seen through the arch of the natural bridge.

But there was more to the park than that.  There were paths that led along the river and rock formations.

  

After a long drive through the hot, grassy prairie, this was a cool respite.

The next campground was in Colorado.

Campgrounds - Part I

The last two days, I've been working on photos from my trip west.  Now I can finally show people where I pitched my tent and what I saw.

Let's start with North Dakota and head west.  I'll leave the Wisconsin and Minnesota campgrounds out because it was raining in both places, so no good photos.

In North Dakota, I first stayed at Devil's Lake, a lake that keeps growing, swallowing up farmland at an astonishing rate.  I stayed at Graham's Island, which once was an isthmus entered by three separate roads.  Two of those roads have disappeared.  Now there's only this causeway:

The creeping water is threatening this road as well.  

When I camped here I wasn't even sure I would make my performance the next day.  Twice that month, the road had been closed off.  I loved the students that worked at the camp.  They come back year after year to take care of the hundreds of fishermen who love the lake...though local farmers do not.

I managed to escape the next day.

The next stop, Buffalo Gap National Grassland Campground, was my favorite, in fact I stayed there three days on my way west and two days on my way home.  With my senior access pass, I paid $3 a night, yet the campground had showers, good drinking water, and flush toilets.  The hiking trail adjoining the camp led through to a connecting trail through the Theodore Roosevelt National Park.  I took this photo of the camp from that trail. In the middle of grassland, trees nestle around the Little Missouri, bringing shade to Buffalo Gap.  

It was here that I began to really enjoy my little tent.  Before this, I slept in the back of the station wagon because of the rain.   

The camp hosts were so good to me, telling me where to find groceries, telling me about things that were happening in Medora.  I met them at the free (donations accepted) dinner at the Medora Lutheran Church, one of the great bargains in that tourist town.

The wooded campground is a haven for birds, and that kept me busy with binoculars.  I began to feel the love my mother had for the wide open spaces, the prairie flowers, the big blue sky.  No wonder she felt claustrophobic in Wisconsin!