Monday, September 17^th

Livingston

                Ahh, a hot shower in the morning feels so good – especially when you don’t know when the next one will be available. Yesterday we had called Rolly, a co-worker at REI who just recently had moved to Montana. We were now on our way to visit with him and his family in Whitefish. While enjoying a cup of coffee and a chat, Jerry and I had to do a little homework for REI online. After saying goodbye to Rolly we were bound for Missoula, where a little REI store was the new home for yet another co-worker, Ryan, from our Brentwood, TN REI store. Unfortunately he was not working that day so we went on.

                The road followed a long lake through a lot of smaller towns. In one of these little neat towns we stopped at a Subway to get some lunch. It was the biggest Subway sandwich Jerry and I had ever seen. The sandwich was more like a salad with a bit of bread.

                At dusk we had yet to find a place to camp for the night. We were kind of ready, some might even say ripe, for a shower or three! Livingston I presume! Aught to have something there, but after searching the town passing by various bars, casinos, and questionable motels we had yet to find a place. Back on the road again, this time we headed toward Yellowstone National Park.

                It was really dark now and the road seemed completely void of anything that could possibly resemble civilization. At any moment I expected a deer or buffalo to come roaming onto the road. It wasn’t two yellow reflective eyes I saw though, but instead a yellow sign reading KOA. Yahoo, KOA is an abbreviation for Camp of America one of Jerry’s favorite camp grounds.

                Backed the car into the designated camp area and then it was hot shower time, nothing like feeling all clean again. Later we met in the common room to transfer another load of photos from our cameras to the laptop. Wow, what a camp ground. Hot showers, Wi-Fi, game room, and a heated pool! The only bad thing I could possible think of was that fact that there was only one chair in the room. With Jerry being the old one – he got the chair, while I wrestled down a black bear, dragged it over to the desk and told it “sit”! Well, it wasn’t too bad as it was a wooden one.