MOAN COUNTRY

“Plans Are Made To Be Changed”

That's been our Main Motto for Many Moons.  And Many Years, too.  You make plans so you can change them.  Once you get into the rockin' rythmn of our motto, the whole Planning Paradigm will just never be the same.  Nope.  It will be better.  Much Better.  You won't worry about whether your plan is THE Plan.  Nope.  You know right off the bat that “Plans Are Made To Be Changed” so when you change 'em, you're good to go.

That's why we are camped in MOAN Country at a place called Willow Creeek Reservoir about 7 gravel road miles outside of Augusta which is probably in Lewis & Clark County, Montana, as nearly as we can tell.  If you were to drive forever due west of Augusta, you'd wind up at a major trailhead for The Bob.  Yep, the legendary Bob Marshall Wilderness.  

What with the fire smoke and haze,  we can only make our the faint outline of The Bob lying far west of our BFE location here at Willow Creek Reservoir.  For you GPS enabled map heads, we are at 47.54784 -112.44093  Look it up on your Funk-N-Googles.

There are more cows and calves here than there are people.  There are two people.  We are them two people.  Meanwhile, there are roughly 50-75 trespassing cows and calves.  Montana wildlife people really went the extra mile to keep the cattle out of this recreation site but, well, they failed.  Now the cattle have their own private bathrooms and they relish the luxury.

This lonely reservoir is huge and there's nary a boat to be seen.  Nary a human to be seen either, for that matter.  We don't care.  We're in the “any port in a storm” mode and this one fit the bill.  Turns out there are precious few (if any) campsites along the route we chose to travel today.

We left The Headwaters at 1 PM today after a lovely morning (to be described below) and thought we were heading to Helena to stake out our own asphalt turf at Chateau Wal-Mart.  Once we got to Helena and did a drive-by of the RV ghetto set up there in that blazing hot parking lot, we just kept on drivin'.

That's why plans are made to be changed.

Oh, the stories I could conjure just by looking at the ghetto of RV's stacked up like cordwood in that Wal-Mart parking lot. But I won't go there or it might turn out to be a reprise of the movie script from “Deliverance”.  Cue the  banjos.

So “we proceeded on,” as Meriwether  Lewis was wont to say in his journals of that epic journey from so long ago.

And we kept proceeding on and proceeding on and finally began wondering if we'd ever find a place to camp.  Finally, we washed ashore in Augusta, Montana, a five bar kinda place and we hit pay dirt.  Well, actually a pay dirt road that lead us to this campsite seven miles out of a small town in The Middle Of Absolute Nowhere Montana.

We stopped at the Forest Service Office in Augusta and I told Susun to go in here and do her “64 questions” routine and that's how we found this place.  It's not Forest Service.  It's a Montana fishing site.  Long story best told another time.  But it works for us.  The toilet is spotless and thank goodness the cows can't come inside the vault toilets to do their thing.  They do their thing outside---ALL over the place as cows are wont to do.
This morning was blissfull in every way, shape and form.  It was one of those lovely mornings wafting in the whispy curtains from some romantic movie scene.   Oh, how we love such days!

By and by, we finally left our tiny home around 9 AM and went to sit on a bench at The Confluence and huggle and hold each other as we admired the mingling waters.  Later, we walked up a historic knoll to read important history and then we threaded a thin river shoreline to find our way to the Gallatin Confluence, too. Afterwards, we drove into Three Forks for a most delightful lunch at the 3-4KS Cafe enjoying easily the best outdoor patio dining environment we've ever experienced.

And then it was back to Road Trip Reality to hitch 'em up and hit the pavement before campground checkout atime at 1 PM.

Susun loves Three Forks and wants to come back soon.  Me, too.

Life Is Good!  Happy August 1 and Many Cheers!  J&S