Greetings from Gardiner Montana and the gateway town to Yellowstone! It is currently 14 degrees and Shawn, the pigs, and I are bundled up in our new one bedroom watching Antique’s Road Show and eating Chips Ahoy cookies (the soft kind). We arrived to Gardiner yesterday evening after a two day drive through some of the most beautiful country I have ever seen. But first, let me brief ya’ll on the happenings after our truck “blew up” in southern California.
We DID make it to Vacaville finally – but in a much larger Uhaul. We towed the Red Ranger behind us and the trip was uneventful, as there were no Guinea pig escapes! After 9 hours, we arrived to Vacaville where my parent’s live. We had a lovely 3 day visit with them, as well as with Shawn’s mom and step dad, while we forced ourselves to downsize our junk. Thankfully, my cousin Carlos who is a dealer for Roseville Toyota, helped us find an adequate vehicle for the long trek to Montana: a Saturn Vue.
We left Vacaville on Saturday at 4:00 a.m. and arrived to Reno around 7:30 a.m. where we fueled up. After Reno, there were hardly any towns along I-80, except small truck stops spaced far apart until we reached the town of Elko, Nevada. (While many folks find it reassuring that you can visit nearly any town in America and shop at identical chain stores, I find it disappointing & slightly depressing: the golden arches, Staples, Lowes, Jack-in-the-Crack….I guess I was hoping to experience everything new on my first drive across country.) But the countryside left me breathless – gorgeous rolling hills in Idaho, and lovely sage-scrub desert in Nevada. I had no idea that so much open land existed in our country and that it is so beautiful. I would have been happy spending the rest of my life in Nevada watching the wild mustangs roam freely.
So what’s Gardiner like? Well, it’s definitely quaint – it took us about 1 minute to drive through the entire town! I definitely panicked at first sight, second sight, AND again at THIRD sight….. There are only 800 residents living in town and it is an hour drive to the next largest:Livingston (pop. 7,000). There are a couple of saloons, a couple of restaurants (most shut down for winter), a K-12 school, and a library that is open twice a week. The community center seems to be a node where most of the residents filter through. And yet, I am excited to immerse into this new community and volunteer. Shawn’s first day of work is today. He will be doing archival work at the heritage museum in Gardiner, helping to process park collections. I am happy that he is able to make a career out of his passion for working with old dusty papers. As for me, I will keep busy with my graduate readings, my water color painting, and my song writing. I am hoping to find some old Blue Grass dudes to jam with.
And still – I can’t wait to explore the "rocky cathedrals" that surround me – to venture into the rural countryside and truly discover Yellowstone. What new plants will I find? What animals will I meet? Winter has only just begun and it will be 6 more months before the snow lets up entirely.But I have my snow boots. I have my mittens and my scarf – a backpack and my journal – I am ready.
We DID make it to Vacaville finally – but in a much larger Uhaul. We towed the Red Ranger behind us and the trip was uneventful, as there were no Guinea pig escapes! After 9 hours, we arrived to Vacaville where my parent’s live. We had a lovely 3 day visit with them, as well as with Shawn’s mom and step dad, while we forced ourselves to downsize our junk. Thankfully, my cousin Carlos who is a dealer for Roseville Toyota, helped us find an adequate vehicle for the long trek to Montana: a Saturn Vue.
We left Vacaville on Saturday at 4:00 a.m. and arrived to Reno around 7:30 a.m. where we fueled up. After Reno, there were hardly any towns along I-80, except small truck stops spaced far apart until we reached the town of Elko, Nevada. (While many folks find it reassuring that you can visit nearly any town in America and shop at identical chain stores, I find it disappointing & slightly depressing: the golden arches, Staples, Lowes, Jack-in-the-Crack….I guess I was hoping to experience everything new on my first drive across country.) But the countryside left me breathless – gorgeous rolling hills in Idaho, and lovely sage-scrub desert in Nevada. I had no idea that so much open land existed in our country and that it is so beautiful. I would have been happy spending the rest of my life in Nevada watching the wild mustangs roam freely.
So what’s Gardiner like? Well, it’s definitely quaint – it took us about 1 minute to drive through the entire town! I definitely panicked at first sight, second sight, AND again at THIRD sight….. There are only 800 residents living in town and it is an hour drive to the next largest:Livingston (pop. 7,000). There are a couple of saloons, a couple of restaurants (most shut down for winter), a K-12 school, and a library that is open twice a week. The community center seems to be a node where most of the residents filter through. And yet, I am excited to immerse into this new community and volunteer. Shawn’s first day of work is today. He will be doing archival work at the heritage museum in Gardiner, helping to process park collections. I am happy that he is able to make a career out of his passion for working with old dusty papers. As for me, I will keep busy with my graduate readings, my water color painting, and my song writing. I am hoping to find some old Blue Grass dudes to jam with.
And still – I can’t wait to explore the "rocky cathedrals" that surround me – to venture into the rural countryside and truly discover Yellowstone. What new plants will I find? What animals will I meet? Winter has only just begun and it will be 6 more months before the snow lets up entirely.But I have my snow boots. I have my mittens and my scarf – a backpack and my journal – I am ready.
Now all you need is a Siberian Husky and some snowshoes!
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