Camping Down the Boulder

Cassandra decided to sell 'Storma', her Class C motorhome, since she wasn't using it enough to warrant the upkeep of another engine. She bought a 12 foot trailer that she can tow with her pickup, so we decided to go down the Boulder and camp for a couple of days so she could try out the tiny trailer. The beautiful Boulder Valley south of Big Timber is where 'The Horse Whisperer' and 'A River Runs Through It' were filmed.

We left Wednesday afternoon and drove about 50 miles south of BigT - the last 20 or 30 of those miles being on a rough, dusty road. There are several small Forest Service campgrounds in the area, so we chose an unmarked road and drove about 1/2 mile to a nice area along the Boulder River. We quickly settled in for a couple days of total relaxation. Cassandra has been super busy with her many projects and businesses and she needed to decompress.

****** Handsome Ham ******

Ham the dog and Binky the adolescent kitten were with us and Binky had great fun learning to hunt. He caught 2 or 3 mice while we were there - his first successful hunt I think. There were a couple of guys from Wisconsin camped nearby and they said they had caught about a dozen trout over a foot in length in the past few days.

Cassandra left a couple of hours before me on Friday. As I was leaving later in the day, a car passed me and signaled me to pull over. Surprise! It was Mitzi, a woman I had met at the RVW convention. She had planned to go through Yellowstone on her way to Washington and I told her to look us up if she came through BigT. Well, she had stopped by Cassandra's North 40 Coffeehouse and Vicki told her we were camped down the Boulder so she came looking for us. She had already checked out most of the campgrounds when she saw me zip by in a cloud of dust.

She and Cassandra struck up a friendship too, and Mitzi ended up camping on the property and hanging with us for a few days. Later Cassandra said to me, "Nony, you bring the most interesting people over - keep it up!" I had previously introduced my California buddies Anne, Holly, and Rosemary to our Montana circle of friends. (H & R have since moved to the Big Sky state.)

Medicine Wheel

Last night I pulled over at dusk onto a dirt road at the summit and spent the night with some cows. When I started driving this morning, I realized that I was near The Medicine Wheel in the Bighorn National Forest and decided to stop for awhile to experience this special place.

The huge stone circle is at an elevation of 9,642' and has an 80 foot diameter with 28 spokes radiating from a central stone cairn to an encircling stone rim. It has been there longer than any of the Plains tribes' ancestors can remember (500 to 800 years) and the native people still make pilgrimages to this sacred spot. It's also a tourist site though it was still early morning and I was priviledged to be the only one there, so I sang and chanted on the 1.5 mile walk out to the circle. It was a beautiful clear day and on the return hike I was rewarded with sightings of 3 marmots and a weasel.

Many people leave prayer offerings on the fence or at the perimeter of the circle.

RVW Convention

The annual RVing Women convention of the past six days was fun and educational. Almost 400 women arrived from all over the US to participate. I ran into friends I hadn't seen in years and met new women who shared their travel stories or wanted to hear about my experiences as a fulltimer.

*** Rosemary and Julie at the banquet ***

Care was here from Washington and taught line dancing one night; we had a large turn-out and great fun! Judy Lunn was the featured entertainer on concert night and treated us to a nostalgic evening singing John Denver songs. There were long lines of women waiting to buy her CD at intermission and after the show. http://www.judylunn.com

The talent show put on by individual members and regional chapters provided many laughs and an opportunity to sing along or get up and polka.


*** Marie from the FreeWheelers Chapter ***

My favorite seminars were the two classes on digital photography and editing. Judy recommended using the Adobe Photoshop Elements software for editing and she has written an easy-to-understand manual that compliments it and was provided at the class. I was amazed when Judy demonstrated what can be accomplished with the editing software, so I ordered AP Elements 2.0 on eBay. Now all I have to do is take the time to apply what I learned :-)

I love this organization. The support, education and camaraderie kept my dream alive for years before I finally bought my rig and started traveling.
http://www.rvingwomen.org