Dude, I'm going to a ranch

Except what we're supposed to call it is a guest ranch. But yesiree, that's where I'm going. Right here.

My family went to this ranch several decades ago to celebrate my grandparent's fiftieth wedding anniversary. We're going there in a couple of weeks to celebrate my parents' fiftieth. It's near the cabin my grandparents built and owned on the Boulder River for many years. My father spend summers there as a child, from their sheep and cattle ranch near Ismay, and we spent many summer vacations there as well. After my grandparents sold their ranch and retired, they lived half the year in their cabin on the Boulder and the other half in their Airstream trailer, touring Mexico, Central American, and the West. This part of Montana is a place that has a lot of sentimental meaning to me. The last time I was near, to visit the cabin and the people who had owned it for so many years they thought it part of their family, I cried so hard I could hardly see. I thought I would never be back to this place that I loved even more as an adult than I had as a child.

But I'll be there in just a couple of weeks, with my own family.





First, though, I'll go here.

In the Grand Tetons, we'll camp at Jenny Lake.

Then, we'll go to Yellowstone.


I've done considerable research on the options for camping in Yellowstone. What I'm looking for is no hook-ups, no generators allowed, no flush toilets. Not that I don't like flush; I just want to be away from people who insist on flush. We'll spend a couple of nights in the south part of the park, but then we're headed to a camp site called Slough Creek, which sounds like just what we want. Funny thing: My father remembers backpacking from their cabin to this site as a boy. Bet it looks just the same.


I've run myself ragged tying things down at work (almost all my projects are with authors, typesetters, or printers, all due to land back on my desk the minute I return), planning and preparing my camp kitchen and our food, and washing and packing everyone's clothes. I can't wait for the moment we pull away in that truck with the canoe on top. Just the three of us. Unplugged. On the road.