June 30, 2005
Back from Yellowstone Park. When we left Cooke City, Montana yesterday morning I had on a sweatshirt and jacket. It was misting with a cold wind, high forties. Tattered clouds hanging over the high peaks (very Alps like). Cooke City (maybe 500 people) is just outside the northeast gate of Yellowstone Park. We got a great little cabin at the Antlers Lodge ($65 a night) and ate breakfast at the Grizzly Pad Cafe. I had a custom omelette, hashbrowns and whole wheat toast. Kath had the oatmeal. Also got a ham sandwich for the road ($22.50, includes tip). The Red Lodge route was closed because of mud slides, so we took the Chief Joseph Scenic Highway up over Dead Indian Pass (as Chief Joseph was escaping Yellowstone in 1877, the year after the Custer defeat with the U.S. Army in full attack mode), Joseph and the Nez Perce made a feint at the bottom of the mountain riding their horses in a circle to confuse the U.S. trackers and then made a run right up over the mountain leaving behind a badly wounded brave at the top, which the army quickly dispatched to the Happy Hunting Grounds (thus Dead Indian Pass).

Yellowstone Park was magnificent and weird. We stayed two days and saw most of it. Many stories to tell.

We’ve got a new poll up. A new book claims Lincoln was gay. Do you believe it? Vote here.

On our cold country trip we kept getting reports from Cave Creek on the big fire. Here are two of them:

"Sounds like you're traveling and missing all the fire fun in Cave
Creek. I flew over the fire Saturday in a friends plane and it looked
like Lew Jones place in Rackensack Canyon burned to the ground. I saw
him there about 2 years ago...was he still living there when the fire
hit? They are saying it's at 90,000 acres now, running north and crossed over
Bloody Basin Road....which is way north."
—Bill Poole

"Dude, we're down here listening to reports about the Cave Creek
Complex fire ("Second biggest in Arizona history! Aaggghhh! Aaggghhh!
Run for your lives! And don't forget to tell our advertisers where
you heard about them!"), and we're wondering how y'all are doing up
there. Which doesn't mean you have to tell us.

"Will's discovered a place that will make action figures from Poser 3D
art files, and thinks True West should do a series of collectible
characters of the Old West. And he thinks the series should include a
Bob Boze Bell collectible figure. I suggested that that one should
come packaged with a Buddy Boze Hatkiller, half-eaten Stetson in his
smiling jaws."
—Emma Bull

Yes, our house is still sanding, but the smoke from the fire is just above the ridge line north of our house and the smell of smoke is everywhere. Very scary.

Many Yellowstone stories to tell. Saw lots of beautiful country and of course bought several books on my heroes and their experiences in the park, like this one:

"I would like to have one more look at a game country before they turn the park into a sheep range and the geysers to a steam laundry, there’s an awful waste of hot water in the Yellowstone park, enough to wash inside and out all the reformers in the state and there’s a few of them."
—Charlie Russell