Out West

Shana, Anja, and I have been having a great trip thus far! We are currently in Spokane, Washington and we head to Everett, WA tomorrow and then on to Vancouver. Anja has been a trooper, despite an additional tooth and what looks like more on the way. She has also really started to cruise around on her feet. While she's balanced a few times on her own, she is walking all over the place with help. Here she is with Grandpa Erickson near the Lower Falls in Yellowstone.

We are also relieved to hear that to our knowledge, all our friends and family are safe and sound after the 35W bridge collapse. We were shocked to hear of it and our hearts go out to all those who have suffered from this tragedy.

Our trip started out with a brief visit to Alexandria, Minnesota where we saw Shana's grandmother. Beverly was looking much better and she was in good spirits. From there we spent our first night in Dilworth, Minnesota with a wonderful stay at the Traaseths, Erik's godparents. As always the food was great and so was the conversation. Al and Jan even gave us a great restaurant recommendation and we are looking forward to eating at Confluence in Prescott, Wisconsin sometime when we got back.

Our next stop was Fort Smith, Montana where we met up with the rest of my family. Fort Smith lies at the start of the Bighorn river, which could be the premier trout river in the world. There are some 5,000 catchable fish, meaning they would be worth keeping, per square mile, and that is a conservative estimate. While Fort Smith is basically a small village just filled with fishing guides and shops, it was originally created to house the workers building the damn. Once the damn was finished, the town basically dried up. Fly fishing is probably the largest reason for the town's existence today. Evidently Dick Cheney came to Fort Smith and shut down a good stretch of the Bighorn river so he could fish it a year or so ago. Hopefully Dick was a better fisherman than hunter . . . somehow I doubt it. He probably used a spinner reel anyway (using a spinning reel on a trout stream might as well be blasphemous). For our part, we had some decent luck despite some tough fishing conditions. My dad and brother fared the best and I at least caught one fish. Shana even gave fly fishing a try and we were impressed by her natural talent. For anyone who has ever attempted fly fishing, it is not something most people can just pick up in a day and while I might be a bit biased, lets just say Shana isn't most people. The photo above is my dad in action while the two below, from left to right, are a section of the Bighorn river near 3-mile and the local baptist church in Fort Smith around sunset.


The best part of this portion of our trip, at least for me, is that we were joined by my brother. Karl is currently living the ultimate bachelor lifestyle in Japan where he is in the JET program. He is also a total surf bum, if the picture didn't make that perfectly clear, and just does his own thing. We really haven't seen him for over 2 years so it was great to do some catching up.

From Fort Smith we headed to Roscoe, Montana where we stayed with the Arthuns. We had great fun and we extend a huge thanks to our wonderful hosts. We went on a great little day hike up to Slough Creek where we got a little fishing in as well. The photo above is of my brother from across the lake. Mountain lakes can be a lot of fun and we managed to catch a decent number of cutthroat trout. By we, I really mean everyone else as I wasn't able to land a fish on this occasion.

From Roscoe it was on to Yellowstone and Anja's first camping experience. This was our last stop with the Erickson's. We enjoyed some great fishing on Slough Creek and saw a good deal of wildlife. If anyone can identify the yellow bird in the picture to the right we'd love to know what it is. The big adventure was camping with Anja. The photo on the left shows her cruising around the campsite. To give ourselves some extra space we borrowed my parents old expedition tent. It was fantastic until it started to rain and we found out that the once premier tent now leaks. Luckily it was a short rain and we are able to keep ourselves and Anja warm and dry. She was a real trooper, especially considering she was also in the process of getting her second tooth.
After the first day of fishing and getting settled in, we toured some of the sights. The above photo is the lower falls of the Yellowstone canyon. For the second night we stayed at the Roosevelt lodge in a quaint little cabin. It was a great little one room cabin with a little wood stove and all. While it was nice for us, I'm sure Anja also appreciated it as she was really in the process of cutting her second tooth and it was sure giving her some grief. The photos below are of a wildflower in some valley Northwest of Tower and a closeup of Anja walking around with Grandpa near the Lower Falls.


I also did a bit of reconnaissance work for a winter ski trip across the park. In the winter of 2009 I, along with some other adventurous souls, will cross country ski from the Southern edge to the Northern edge of the park. I got a lot of good information from the Rangers and now the major challenge is simply deciding which route to take. There really are just too many good options!

From there we said goodbye to my parents and brother and headed off to Bozeman where we stayed with Eric and Elizabeth Gilje, college friends of Shana and mine. It was great to catch up with them and to introduce Anja. We look forward to staying with them again on our way back. Eric also introduced me to some great Montana beer and I'm excited to get my hands on some more of that as well!
We'll try and post a bit more regularly as I believe we'll have more regular internet access for the remainder of our trip. We'll have to see.