Month: May 2018

I don’t even know where to start anymore with this place. I am finding it incredibly and increasingly difficult to portray how much I am loving it and how beautiful it is here. I was tempted to just post a bunch of pictures and let your imaginations run wild. But I’ll say a few words..or a million words. Saddle up.

I’m back with another slew of soul rejuvinating, magical weekends of fun. This place you guys. When I told people I wanted to go to Montana for the summer I got a lot of “are you going to live on a ranch?” “Why are you going there?” etc. There are a lot of actual cowboys out here but to me that’s all part of the awesome culture of this area. That being said, I came out here to see what you have all seen in my photos because I knew that was waiting for me. I guess when you don’t know much about an area you rely on the stereotype. I hope I am changing some minds out there.

In my previous post I talked about meeting Brad while we were in Bozeman and how he ended up joining us for our last adventure. Well, Brad and I have had a few of our own adventures the past couple weekends and it has been THE BEST.

Two weekends ago he and I went to East Rosebud  on Sunday morning. It’s about an hour or so away from Billings in the Beartooth Mountains. Brad had borrowed a sprinter van from a family he’s close with (also came with a dog). Anyway, this van had a small kitchen in it and the top popped up into a “bedroom.” So we were not roughing it. We hiked to Elk Lake – which I posted a photo of on the insta account. As you could all see this place was beatuiful! I was walking slower than molasses because I kept staring at everything. Everything is SO BIG. You guys, we are so small in this world. It’s insane. Also everything is SO GREEN. My head and heart want to explode when I look at all of this. There are a select few humans who are probably close to their wits end with me saying everything is pretty and green. 🙂

I was telling Brad I feel so sad for people who can’t enjoy things like this. I also feel so sad for people who can enjoy it and choose not to. Blows my mind.

After we were done hiking we (when I say we, I mean Brad because I have no idea what I’m doing) found a campsite right next to the creek. Although the “creek” is currently the equivalent of a engraged rapidly moving river because of all the snow melting. It was such a pretty spot. It should be mentioned that the areas to camp here are in the middle of nowhere and there is no one around you. We actually moved a fence and went down some random dirt road to find this place. We made dinner and had a beer while the mountains and the sunset served as our television for the night. We just sat by the creek and watched the light change on the mountainside. So so pretty. When the sun did go down we ended up taking out the sleeping bags and the mattress from the top of the van and laying outside, had some wine and good tunes and watched the stars slide across the sky again.

The following morning we woke up and Brad made coffee and breakfast while I took a stroll and grabbed some awesome morning light photos. After breakfast we walked back down the path near us and picked a wildflower bouquet. Both of us had plans for later that day so we had to head out of the camp and get back home.

We got back to where my car was parked in Columbus and grabbed some lunch. It was sunny, warm and an all around gorgeous day. At some point in this time frame we both decided to completely ditch our plans for the day and keep going. I told him last weekend you can’t have a time like that with another human and not keep going. So that’s what we did. We drove back toward the mountains, grabbed a six pack from an incredibly tiny and hilarious town store in the middle of nowhere and proceeded to spend a solid part of the afternoon driving and following the river through the mountains. We made multiple pit stops along the way and laughed so hard we cried.

Since we had only planned on camping one night we had run out of rations for food for our spontaneous second night. Luckily there is a fantastic little bar and grill in Roscoe called The Grizzly. You have to experience this place to understand the uniqueness. Half of the events that happened during our two days of adventure are not even worth trying to describe via blog post. Just know the hilarity that ensued included terrible country music, a prom queen bartender, half of my food on the floor and a gentleman in a cowboy hat, cowboy boots, a nice button up with cows on it and two people who thoroughly enjoy eachother’s company and have a wicked sense of humor.

Last weekend I ventured back to Bozeman to spend the weekend with Brad. Friday we drove out to Hyalite Reservoir to paddle board as pictured on my instagram. We paddled across the reservoir and sat in the grass watching the mountains and having a brew. We got back out on the water for a bit before we were hoping to go hike to a waterfall. However, I decided to move my feet around too much on the board and went right on overboard. This water is unbelievabley freezing. It literally took my breath away. I actually panicked for a few minutes because it was such a shock that I felt like I could not breath. Remember Rose from Titanic? My voice sounded like hers did when she was on that board in the ocean. I feel you Rose, I feel you. I managed to get back on my board and muster up the inner warmth to paddle around a bit more before Brad told me my lips were turning blue. The hike did not happen.

Brad had to work Saturday and Sunday afternoon so Saturday we went to brunch and walked up on these bluffs overlooking the town and then he headed into work. I decided to hike the “M” Trail in town. It was a really beautiful view of the valley and the wildflowers are unreal right now. The whole hillside was covered in them! We spent the nights cooking dinner and listening to good tunes, enjoying wine and sitting out on the porch soaking up the beautiful evenings. Again, I am not going to attempt to explain the hilarity. We are awesome and we are funny, that’s all anyone ever needs to know.

Yesterday! Casey and I ventured out onto the Beartooth Highway. We had plans to drive the whole highway and stay in Cooke City but there was so much snow this year that it was only open to the Wyoming state line. The part we did see was, as I have said about EVERYTHING, beautiful. I can’t wait to drive the rest when it is open soon! I’ll have several pictures posted below. We headed back towards Red Lodge and did a hike at Lake Fork Trail. This was a really nice trail that paralleled a creek so it was a really peaceful hike. Afterwards we met Dylan (the first straggler we picked up and went hiking with when we first visited Red Lodge a few weeks ago). It was such a nice day so we sat outside in the back patio area at the Red Lodge brewery with Dylan and a few of his friends and had a few post hike brews. See a theme? Hiking and beer go together like cheese and wine.

That’s the best I can do right now. My life is currently like a movie and I can’t properly exude the enthusiasm and content feeling I have so I’ll continue to let my photos speak for me while I occasionally throw a vague description out to you guys.

Enjoy the photos below, there are A LOT this time.

Cheers!

I feel like my life is a movie lately. The description of my last weekend probably won’t seem as magical to you guys as it was in real life at the moment. But, bare with me because it’s four days later and I’m still smiling at the adventures we had in Bozeman and Chico.

Amanda, Casey and I set out for Bozeman on Sunday morning after work. We had a literal written list of things we wanted to accomplish while we were there – most of them were breweries and restaurants with a museum and hiking trails thrown in the mix. I’ll just hit the main spots to save you all the mundain details of our twelve hour Sunday day o’ fun.

We started at MAP Brewing Co . It is this really cool log cabin type building that sits on this little lake with the mountains right behind it. The whole back side of the building is windows so the views are incredible. Beer was excellent as well!  We then moved on to Mountains Walking Brewery . This one had food so we ordered a pizza, soy and ginger brussel sprouts and tator tots. The brussel sprouts were sooooo good. It was all good but the brussel sprouts were delish! Beer was awesome, atmosphere was awesome..it was all awesome. Across the street is Bozeman Brewing Company and this is where we picked up our additional adventure team member for the weekend. This place is great, it’s pretty small and to me, felt alot like The Roman Coin (in Milwaukee). I felt very at home here. We grabbed a beer and ended up buying matching hats – which we proceeded to wear for the next 24 hours, only taking them off to sleep. It was adorable if you ask me. Anyway, we ended up chatting a little bit with the bartender and decided to invite him out with us that night which eventually turned into us inviting him to join us the whole weekend including Chico. Here enters Brad into our lives. Turns out this guy is one of the nicest humans I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting. Super genuine and down to earth guy. He’s also hilarious so that’s an added bonus. I’m honestly surprised he agreed to come along with us on Monday because Amanda, Casey and I were quite the act on Sunday night but I’m glad he was a trooper.

Moving on to Sunday night – Brad met us out after he got off work and we had a list of bars that a coworker had recommended. We apparently felt it necessary to hit every. single. one. of these places. I always jot down notes on my phone or paper of a list of events I want to discuss in my next blog post. This next event is one I wrote down while out on Sunday and it is very irrelevant to anything regarding the magic of this weekend but it was funny. In our very friendly state of mind we were walking down the street from one bar to the next and started talking to this other guy who had just come out of a work party. His name is Lovi. If this gives you any indication of the type of human he turned out to be. Long story short, we quickly found out this guy was THE WORST. Grade A Bro in the worst way possible. So we ditched him. At the end of the night he walked into the bar we were at and we had the pleasure of watching him get his ass kicked by a group of guys. Karma everybody, karma.

It was an all around awesome day. We got back to the hotel that night, raided the snack shop (seriously bought out the entire place, the front desk guy did not know what to do with us) and went to bed.

Monday morning we met Brad and went for a hike up the Drinking Horse trail. I was pretty under the weather for this hike and it’s not a bad trail but it was brutal when suffering from the irish flu and also altitude did not help. I like to blame everything on altitude when possible. The three of us girls were on a very real struggle bus and sucking air while Brad casually meandered up the trail. There were many instances where I was surprised he didn’t just run away. Nonetheless, we made it to the top – which I posted several photos of on instagram. It was so beautiful. I can not describe to you how green and colorful everything is here right now. I feel as though I am walking through a real life coloring book. The pictures I posted on instagram and below are hashtag no filter. It is SO GREEN!

After the hike Amanda, Casey and I went to visit the The Museum of the Rockies . I saw this while researching the area but would have totally dismissed it as a dumb kids place except everyone told us to actually go visit. Turns out it is awesome! Montana has had the most dinosaur fossil discoveries in the US. The majority of the museum is a display of all the dinosaur bones they have found. It is crazy!! We could not wrap our minds around the fact that they were real and also how huge these animals were! I definitely suggest going there if ever in Bozeman.

We met Brad for lunch in Livingston. Really cute little town! Afterwards we started our trek to Chico Hot Springs . Brad directed us down the backroads through Paradise Valley. There is a very very good reason why it holds this name. The drive was breathtaking to be quite honest. The pictures don’t really do it justice although some of the photos turned out beautiful. We were staying in a “rustic cabin” for the night. It was set on top of this hill overlooking all the mountains. Complete with a front porch! We immediately went down to the hot springs for a bit. This is a natural hot spring that flows down and the resort contains it in a pool area. There was a pool side bar down there and it was just such a relaxing atmosphere.

Around 8pm we got out of the hot springs, hopped in the car and chased the sunset for awhile. The lighting was so perfect this time of day as it reflected off all the mountain tops. The back road we were driving on paralleled the Yellowstone River so the combination of the light on the mountains and the Yellowstone was unreal. Before going back to the hot springs we visited The Old Saloon in Emigrant. It’s hard to describe this place without seeing it but we walked in and the crowd was older and about half of them wore cowboy hats. One guy walked through and was wearing cowboy hat, cowboy boots and legit spurs! It was so crazy to see. Anyway, really great place in the middle of nowhere USA.

We got back to the resort and went back down to the hot springs until they closed. We had an odd experience down there, one which I have not had before. The four of us were just sitting hanging out in this one area of the hot spring and a boy had been swimming around us. We were just friendly chatting with him and a few minutes later we heard his mom yelling his name from across the entire pool (this is a fairly large area) and then she started screaming “stranger danger.” It was odd – anyway the boy and his sister ended up going back towards their mom. The three of us were completely naive to the situation but Brad told us that it was most likely because a Native American boy was talking to four white people. I guess there is very much a divide when it comes to these races interacting. The Native American culture out here has been quite the learning experience for me. It is something I have never encountered and quite frankly don’t know much about. Along the way I have been researching different Native groups and their history as I run into different scenarios. Very interesting and very sad to be honest. It is quite awful how their culture has evolved. I recommend reading up on things like that at some point if any of you are interested.

Ok, moving on to the magical mystery tour. We left the hot springs and went back up towards our cabin. Down the road a bit from our place was a camp site of sorts that was not being used. We grabbed our bottles of wine, went down to this site and situated four chairs in the darkest part we could find. We proceeded to listen to Bon Iver, drink wine and stare at the stars. It was honestly one of the best nights I’ve ever had. This is like my heaven. The sky was beyond clear and it is so big! We actually watched the constellations move around us and had the pleasure of seeing so many shooting stars! At one point we were sitting at the edge of the world watching the sky and this large deer just came up and hung out right in front of us, ate for awhile and went up and over the hill. We sat outside until about 3am when borderline hypothermia forced us to go inside. I can’t describe to you how perfect this was. So many good conversations and being in the company of such good humans. It really felt like a movie. It’s so fun to be surrounded by people who so much appreciate all of this. It was just unreal.

I leave you with that. It was a beautiful weekend and one that was really, really good for the soul.

Pictures, as always, are posted below. I haven’t decided if I’m jetting off somewhere this weekend or not. I may just stay in Billings and relax. I think my body is wondering when I’m going to sit still for a second. But when adventure calls… We are still planning our next adventures but a buffalo ranch and ice caverns, Yellowstone, Beartooth Highway and Glacier National Parks are all in the works! 🙂

Shine on!

#teamshrivel

Ok. I will apologize in advance because I may have quite a few posts the next couple months. There’s just too many activities!

I just got back from Red Lodge on Monday night. Red Lodge is a little less than an hour south of Billings. It’s just outside of where you hop on the Beartooth Highway to enter into Yellowstone. Everyone kept recommending this town so Casey and I headed down there Sunday morning to check it out! We stayed at Rock Creek Resort . Loved it! It backs right up to the mountains and the river runs right behind it. I highly recommend it if ever passing through this way.

Red Lodge is a really cute little mountain town. There’s one main street with actually quite a decent variety of art galleries, boutique shops, restaurants and bars. We started off at Red Lodge Ales . It’s right at the start of town and was also highly recommended so, when in Rome. It was super nice out so we were able to sit on their patio – had a few beers and some food. Both food and beer were really good!

We then ventured in to town and parked at one end and pretty much made an appearance at every gallery and store that was open on the street. Had some nice chats with the store owners. The town is quite the tourist attraction in the summer so I think the owners get a kick out of asking where people are coming from. Inevitably people are fascinated with travel nurses and think it is “the coolest job.” We don’t disagree. After we made it to all the shops we went back to one end of town and started our eating and drinking tour. We began at a cute little steakhouse with a really nice outside patio that overlooked the street. Good people watching!  On our way to the steakhouse we had passed a bar that looked like a lot of locals would go there so we headed there next. The bar is called The Snag Bar. It was basically love at first drink in there. The owner’s name is Carl and we are obsessed with him. He is the friendliest guy ever and was so welcoming to Casey and I. We both tried a local Red Lodge brew, both of which were fantastic. We asked Carl five million questions about where to hike and he so kindly obliged. We loved this guy so much that we left to go grab a quick bite at a restaurant called Bogarts (really awesome atmosphere and really good mexican food) and then headed back to the Snag.

Quick history on The Snag. It was built in 1902 and the tin walls and ceiling are still the original. So is the whole bar! The bar itself was made in Chicago and they shipped it up this way and then it was carried by wagon to the town to place into the building. But it’s so interesting because the tin wall and ceilings have this intriguing lady imprinted in all the tiles. If you click on the hyper link you’ll be able to see it. But she almost looks like the Starbucks siren. We asked Carl what the meaning was behind this but he didn’t know. His wife is the local art teacher in town and they were so interested in this woman that they made her the logo for the bar. Ok..carrying on…

Casey and I had planned on having one last night cap at the Snag and then we were going to head back to the resort to sit on our patio and have some wine. We took a different route. We ended up talking to this guy, Dylan, who was born and raised and still lives in Red Lodge. He is super cool and so nice. He introduced us to his crew he was hanging with all of whom were incredibly welcoming and a ton of fun! Two of the girls were actually travel nurses and ended up staying around Montana because they loved it so much. This seems to be a theme. Anyway we ended up grabbing a few numbers, closing down the bar and finally heading back. Then Dylan actually took us hiking Monday!

Monday, as a lot of you saw, we spent hiking through the Beartooth Mountains. We met Dylan in town and all went in his truck to the trailhead. There are multiple reasons why I was super happy Dylan came with us and one of them was his truck. After driving down the road that took us to the trailhead I’m not sure my little Honda Civic would have faired very well.

Anyway, it was so beautiful! The mountains still have a lot of snow in them but the weather is warm. I think it was about 70 and sunny while we were hiking which was perfect. We had decided at the beginning of the hike to just go until we couldn’t walk any further because of snow pile up. We ended up going about 8 miles round trip. Our end goal had been a lake in the middle of the mountains but the snow was way too deep. We were able to stop by this awesome waterfall and just relax on the rocks for a bit and enjoyed a beer. The pictures don’t really do things justice.

We did have multiple occasions where we had to either walk through snow, on snow (if it was iced over) or maneuver around the snow by climbing on rocks, trees etc. It was actually fun until the end of the hike when all of us were soaked. It felt like I was walking in a lake because I had so much snow in my shoes haha. If we fell in the snow or sunk into the snow it was up to my waist, so it was no joke. It was a really good trail to break in my hiking shoes because it wasn’t a terrible incline. So I was happy about that. Oh! We saw a moose on our way into the trail! It was so cool – talk about a large animal. I find it interesting because most people we spoke with in Red Lodge told us they were more scared of a moose than a grizzly. Sooooo, noted. In addition, we saw rockchucks (I’m not sure if that’s the right spelling). These little guys were so cute! I have a picture of one standing on it’s hind legs barking at us on my instagram. They cracked me up.

We got done with our hike and headed back home. We stopped at Dylan’s house and he lives in this super cute little log cabin. He said if we head back to Red Lodge this summer we can pitch a tent at his place and do some “glamping.” So that was cool. Really glad we met him and we all had such a good time together! The people in Montana are insanely nice. It is very bizarre. I’ve only been here a little over two weeks but almost everyone I’ve met has been extremely welcoming and nice. Casey and I are both not used to this hospitality and it’s a really really nice breath of fresh air!

Last night I did another hike with the Meetup group I joined. It was a really nice evening. We did it just before sun set and the lighting was so pretty (as I mentioned in my insta photo). We did Phipps Park, which I had hike last week but didn’t realize there was a longer hiking trail along the ridge. We did the longer trail last night and I loved it. I will definitely be back to do that again. After the hike I went with two of the guys and did trivia. I love trivia so much! It was a lot of fun. We sucked, but it was a lot of fun 🙂 I think I will miss the next two weeks of hikes with this group because of work but hope to join back up in a few weeks.

I work the next three nights now but Casey and I are headed to Bozeman area this weekend to explore the town and do another hike somewhere. I think we may stop at some hot springs as well. Multiple people have recommended Chico hot springs to us. So stay tuned for the next adventure!

I posted a few photos below of the Lake Fork hike and my Tuesday night group I hike with.

Cheers!

 

I made it to Montana last Sunday afternoon. My dad drove with me and we had a really nice time traveling out here together! Luckily when we arrived on Sunday it was sunny and 70s so we were able to explore because Monday was about 35 and rain/snow.

Sunday Dad and I went to lunch at Montana Brewing Co. downtown Billings. Really excellent beer and good food served as well! They have a nice little outdoor patio so that will be fun to visit in the summer. It also looks like a potentially solid spot to watch the World Cup over the summer so that’s exciting! We then went down to Riverfront Park and hiked around for awhile. It’s a really nice little park on the Yellowstone River. I’ve already been back there to walk around and just sit by the river with some coffee.

Billings is surrounded by what they call the RimRocks. It’s this huge wall of sandstone bluffs that surround the city. I was so curious about how these formed and turns out that this area used to be an outlet of the Arctic Ocean. As the ocean started to recede the waves slammed up against the coast compacting different elements of sand. This constant movement and compacting is what formed these RimRocks! Then the Yellowstone river started carving its way through these rocks and that is how the town became outlined. I found that very interesting. It’s so weird to think that this used to be completely underwater. Although, I guess everything used to be completely underwater but just bizarre when you see things like that. Anyway, Dad and I went and walked along these. There’s really great views of the Beartooth Mountains from up there. I’ve gone running along that path a few times since being here. Really pretty and very peaceful!

I started work Wednesday. My orientation group was me and another travel nurse and that was it. Turns out me and this other travel nurse, Casey, really hit it off so that was happy. We’ve already done a little hike together and hit up a brewery in town. We are planning out a few hiking trips over the next couple months. She’s from Seattle and also on her second travel assignment. So it will be fun to have a travel buddy. Also, as it turns out, the girl that she is renting a room from (who is also a nurse) is really good friends with the nurse that trained me at the hospital the last two nights. She and I also hit it off and are planning on doing a day trip or two next weekend. She is from Wisconsin as well and has been doing travel nursing for 3 years and loves Billings so she is actually permanently moving here. So I’m happy to have met two people in the first week here that seem like we share similar interests and will have some fun together.

Meeting them has helped my outlook quite a bit. I’ve told a lot of you that I’ve had a harder time adjusting to this Montana move than I did North Carolina. I have a sneaking suspicion it has something to do with the fact that I was only home from Vietnam for 24 hours before jetting off to Montana. In addition, which I’ve also told quite a few of you, I am living with a guy, his wife, their 5 year old daughter and three other guys who are renting from him and living downstairs. I was in such a rush to find housing before Vietnam that I did not ask questions and had no idea this was the case so I have been a bit shell shocked. It’s been quite an adjustment living with 6 other humans that are complete strangers. That being said, they are all incredibly nice and seem really laid back. I suppose you have to be to open your home to that many random people. I have my own room and my own bathroom – thank the good lord for that. My bedroom is upstairs and all the guys are downstairs. Also thankful for that. I have actually only met one of the guys. I haven’t even seen the others. They apparently work at the oil refinery here in town and I hear them get home around 9pm and get up at 4:50am so they must work awful hours.

Anyway, I am sure I will adjust. I am already starting to feel a little more comfortable. I say this as I am sitting in a coffee shop typing this up because I’m trying to stay out of the house haha. I told a few people I am going to have to print up a photo of my dream home and plaster it everywhere to remind myself why I am doing this. My ultimate goal is to save enough money to buy a house by the time I’m done traveling and I am saving a ton of money by just renting a room instead of an entire place. Full on gypsying here.

The weather has been gorgeous so I have been able to hike and go for runs around town almost every day since I’ve been here. I actually have a pretty solid tan going already! You all know how I love my summer tan. I am looking forward to getting paid this upcoming week. With every paycheck I need to start purchasing legit hiking gear. First on the list are some nice hiking shoes. I think I’d have some issues trying to hike through these Rockies in my running shoes.

Speaking of hiking, have any of you heard of the app MeetUp? I had discovered it when I went down to North Carolina and had joined a few “adventure” and “hiking” groups but never utilized it because of my work schedule. So I joined another adventure and hiking one before heading out to Montana. Last night I forced myself to actually go to an event. I’m really glad I did it. I met up with 8 other people at one of the parks in town and we did a two hour hike through this really gorgeous park. I was nervous going there, of course, as I did not know a single person. Turned out to be a lot of fun! Isn’t that always the way though? You are nervous to do something and then once you start in on it you’re always glad you did it. It’s like exercise. You hate the thought of it but you never regret it afterwards. Anyway, there was quite an eclectic mix of people who went and all different age groups. One of the ladies on the hike had grown up in Sheboygan and one of her brothers lives in Mequon and works at UWM. I’ve only been here a week and have met 4 people from Wisconsin. So funny. A few of us went out to dinner and grabbed a drink afterwards. We are doing another hike next week and then trivia after – love me some trivia!

I was thinking on the way home from the restaurant last night how it’s funny, my life, the last few months. I am constantly pushing past my limits of comfort. This is exactly what I set out to do but it is interesting the ebbs and flows of emotions that come along with it. I think it’s good though. This whole year is about me learning as much as I can and there’s not really a better way to do that than to push the limits. Plus good stories come from these types of things 🙂

So, I looked into fly fishing lessons because I fully plan on living out A River Runs Through It while I’m here. So stay tuned for photos of me in high waste rubber boots and a fly fishing pole. Lessons are insanely expensive though but I’m hoping to try and find somewhere that I can at least try it out. I think that’d be hilarious.

I’ll leave you all with the image of me struggling in the middle of a river in rubber boots. I’ll post after a few adventures next weekend. I am heading to Red Lodge next week with the two girls I had mentioned earlier. It’s supposed to be a cute little mountain town right outside Yellowstone and not too far from Billings. Looking forward to that!

Peace.