Since he had been so nice to let us crash at his place and eat all his food we volunteered to help do some work around his farm and on a house he just bought and is going to renovate to make into a rental house on Thursday. It's was a good time with us working together and having fun. We also got to meet and work with a guy our age who was from Michigan nicknamed Henkley, him and his girlfriend have been cool to hang out with. After a little work we decided it was time to do some relaxing, hey remember it's holiday weekend! We went up the Ravalli County Fair to see the Bull-A-Rama, an all bull riding rodeo event. It was a really good show with alot of big bulls and exciting action.
The next day we did some exploring in the towns of Hamilton and Missoula. We had found out about a football game in Missoula at the University of Montana so we ordered some tickets and headed to the university to buy some Montana Grizzlies fan gear. It was a first time in over 2 years that I had been in a college building and I shocked to see how young all the students looked, I feel like I'm getting so old! After getting our bearings of the football stadium and finding a hotel to book for Saturday night we headed back to Darby to do some fishing. Lacy's house is located about 100 yards from the beautiful Bitterroot River and I just couldn't resist! I had snuck off while Cheggy ran to the grocery store and after fishing for about 2 hours I had a stringer of 7 of the biggest trout I've ever caught! After having such good luck we started planning for a Southern style fish fry in the near future! We had great dinner of elk tenderloin steaks, and Cheggy and I headed to bed to rest for our voyage north back to Missoula for the football game.
Saturday morning we packed up and headed to start tailgating for the big game. The University of Montana has a student population of over 14,000 people and the football stadium holds 19,000. It was a decent size school but it was no University of Georgia football game! So we headed to the game in our blue jeans and slip on boots and realized quickly that we didn't exactly fit it at the student section! It was a good game but a complete blowout with Montana beating Western State 38-0. After the game we went to a local restaraunt, advice given to us by some locals for a good meal. After dinner we decided to go downtown looking for a good place to watch some college football, but once again found out we stuck out in the crowd! After very little conversation with the locals and even being told that " the cowboys" were in the wrong town we packed it up for the night. It was a different town and fun experience but one day was plenty for Missoula.
On Sunday morning we headed back to Darby to catch up on our chores of cleaning the camper and doing laundry. But of course we can't spend all day working without having a little bit of fun so we headed back to the Ravalli County Fair to watch the demolition derby. I had never been to a demo derby but was aware of the general concept. It turned out to be alot more fun than I had expected and entertained us for about 3 hours! Bad news is it has given Cheggy and I some ideas for making a derby car of our own!
Sunday night we had decided that we wanted to have our big fish fry Monday night so our Monday "work task" was to catch enough fish for everybody! So Monday we braved the river in some recently colder temperatures to catch our delicious dinner. It was a great day with us bringing home a variety of 15 trout consisting of rainbow, brown and cutthroat trout for the frying pan! Cheggy, Lacy, Henkley, his girlfriend Brook, her friend Heather and I had a delicious meal of fried fish, homemade fries, and our " bootleg" hushpuppies (Thanks for the recipe Ashley!)
Tuesday was a fairly uneventful day but nice and relaxing with us taking a road trip. We first headed to the Anaconda-Pintler Wilderness Area in a little town about 20 miles south of Darby called Sula to do some exploring. On the way up we saw a pretty amazing sight of helicopter logging where they use a helicopter to fly logs off the mountain and drop off at a spot near the highway to be cut up and trucked off. We explored miles of dirt roads where we spotted some great 4-wheeler trails for our next trip to Montana! From there we continued south about 50 miles through beautiful country to the town of Salmon, Idaho. We once again trusted the advice of the locals to find a place to eat lunch and ended up at Bertram's Brewery and Grill. It was a great restaraunt with huge portions and would definitely recommend it if you ever find yourself in Idaho! We walked downtown stopping to buy some bargain t-shirts and get some fishing advice from the local sporting goods store. It was a cool town where everyone was really nice and totally surprised to see people from Georgia!
Today we got back to our construction roots and did some more work hanging sheetrock at the rental house. We're going to finish helping on some work in the next day or so and then we have some places in mind to head for the weekend. It's been a great time in Darby and I don't know if we'll find a place with so much stuff to do but it's time for us to get back on the road again! Stay posted for our next location!
-POTTS
Are you and Potts dressing alike now? That might be the reason people were looking at you.
ReplyDeleteHi guys,
ReplyDeleteDarby so has that affect on Brook and I just can't seem to stay away hoping all is as well as it appears have a great day!!! If you make it further into Idaho look us up!!
Coby