Chapter 6

Someone needed to set the pace for us on our hike, and I elected myself – intending to get a little exercise before lunch. About thirty minutes in, the beauty of the landscape began to register on me, and I slowed, thinking about what Dad had said about the destination. When I did, I caught a grin flashed my way, along with a, “Welcome to the journey.”

After that, we rested when we found a spectacular vista, strolled a little, dangled our feet in the stream and what had started at a three-hour pace ended six hours later. Our gorp was exhausted, water gone, but we were mellow as we walked past the little Ranger hut where Lewis was stationed. We received a cheery greeting and wave as we headed on past to our camp. Everything there was as we had left it, so we made a late lunch of sandwiches, using ingredients found at the store yesterday. Following lunch I grabbed my bedroll and took a little siesta.

The nap was refreshing. I exited the tent to find Dad still at the picnic table, bent over a biography of Frank Lloyd Wright. I turned my phone on long enough to find that it was a little after four, then shut it back down again to conserve the battery. When my thoughts drifted toward dinner, I realized that all we had was the freeze-dried equivalent of cardboard, and 10 pounds of potatoes, sour cream, and butter that had found its way into my grocery sack yesterday.

Deciding that fish sounded like a good dinner, and probably breakfast the next day too, I unlocked the Tahoe, rummaging around until I could find my fishing gear. I made enough noise that there was a request for me to bring Dad’s rig as well. Everything in hand, we headed off to try our luck. That was how the rest of the afternoon was spent – casting flies and reeling in the fish. We only caught enough for dinner, and I knew where I’d be when the sun woke me again in the morning.

Before we packed it in, we were inspected by Lewis’ afternoon replacement. It was only a few minutes back at camp before we had the fish cleaned and ready for heat. Speaking of which, someone needed to build a fire. I left Dad to rinse down and make everything sanitary once more, while I got a nice burn on. As soon as I had some coals, I wrapped about eight of the potatoes in foil and threw them into the pit. We sat around the fire, giving the starch 40 minutes or so to bake before I got the big skillet out again.

Simpler is often better, and to that end the fish only received a light salting before being laid in the bath of browning butter sizzling in the pan. Barbecue tongs worked nicely to snatch the potatoes from their beds, just as the delicate smell of perfectly cooked trout hit the air. The tongs also worked well to grab the two opened cans of corn, simmering in their ready containers, from atop the grill grate.

We each grabbed a Weinhardt’s Root Beer from our stash, took our plates to the table, slathered the potatoes with butter and sour cream, sprinkled them with a perfect mixture of salt and pepper, and began to feast. In less time than it takes to describe, the only things edible that were left were the four extra spuds I had thrown in the fire.

Dad cast a curious eye on them. “Why so many, Tim? Were you that hungry?”

I gave him a one-word answer, “Breakfast.”

“But what about all the bacon we packed and the supplies you bought yesterday?”

I looked at him like he was crazy, “Dad, what do you think we’ve been eating?”

He laughed, “You mean we’ve gone through four pounds of bacon and two dozen eggs in the last two days?”

It sounded sort of excessive when put like that, “Well, Ranger Lewis helped...”

Dad laughed and started to clean up. I pitched in, making another serving of coffee in the French Press to cap off our meal. We spent the rest of the evening talking about everything and nothing, and fielding reproachful stares from other campers as they passed by our site on their evening strolls. Whatever. We were feeling pretty mellow when we hit the sack.

Morning dawned, but there was something different about today. Oh, yeah, there was a light rain coming down. I was glad for the tarps we had strung over our camp, as I was able to get to the SUV without getting very wet. Rain didn’t bother me much, so after taking my ritualistic freezing shower, I dressed in clothing appropriate for the weather, grabbed my pole, and headed back to the inlet to the lake. The fish were hungry this morning, enabling me to catch breakfast and get back to camp before Dad had risen and finished his daily ablutions.

He had laid the makings of a fire before heading off to get clean, so I started it and got to work on my morning catch. I had the fish cleaned and ready for the pan before he made it back. I was working on slicing up the leftover spuds from last night in order to make home fries this morning when Dad got back.

“Ah, now I understand, grasshopper.”

I answered with a grin, getting to work on cutting up an onion for the pan. The butter was coming to temperature over the fire pit when I added the fruits of my labor to the mix. Soon the sweet smell of onions frying wafted over our camp. It wasn’t long before they softened, allowing me to add the cubed formerly baked potatoes to the mix. I waited until they began browning and crisping nicely before adding in my morning’s catch. Our mouths watered as we waited for perfection to arrive.

Ranger Lewis found us finishing our meal and starting on coffee. He didn’t stand on pretenses this time – he had brought his own camp plate. We invited him to our fire, opening a spot for him at our tarp-protected table, and dishing the leftovers from the fry pan onto his plate. I poured him a cup of coffee as soon as it was ready.

There was no preamble. “You guys are terrible.” This was said as he shoveled spuds and my breakfast catch into his Yellowstone maw. Lewis scraped the last of our food from his plate, looking wistfully at the now empty pan, “My afternoon replacement left me a voice mail. Apparently your fish fry last night made half of the campground envious. There were lots of good-natured complaints about how you were making everyone else feel bad about their cooking.”

I started to apologize, but Lewis waved me off. “Never mind them, they just planned poorly. Half the campers we get buy those freeze-dried meals for backpackers, while the other half expect to find full kitchens available for them. You guys seem to have found the perfect balance – catch what you can, and settle only for what you can cook over the fire.”

Dad and I started to laugh at that. Lewis had a confused look on his face, “What? Did I say something funny?”

Dad explained that we were well stocked up with backpacker food, but that after one meal we had improvised.

“Well, if this is you improvising, I’d love to be invited to dinner at your house.”

We laughed again and I explained, “This is just fire and fish; that much we can do. Cooking at home? Not so much.”

He nodded understanding while extricating himself from the picnic table and climbing to his feet. “This rain should stop in an hour or so, after which it’s supposed to clear up, with light wind toward evening. Should be a nice day.” He scrubbed his plate briefly in our wash water. “Thanks for the improvisation.”

Dad and I discussed our plans for the rest of the day over another cup of coffee. It had been a great few days of camping, but we had been on the road for almost a week now and needed to take care of some housekeeping chores, like laundry. We decided to break camp the following morning, allowing the evening breeze tonight to dry off our gear so we could pack it properly. Other than heading in to find a grocery store for steaks tonight, and breakfast tomorrow, there was no pressing need to do much today.

The sky cleared as predicted, leaving Dad and me to spend a lazy June day in camp, reading, drinking coffee, playing cards and otherwise generally relaxing. We loaded up into the Tahoe near noon, driving north along the lake until we found a store and a little grill selling pulled pork sandwiches. Our hunger satisfied and our provisions restocked, we headed back to camp.

I let Dad make dinner; he managed a pilaf to go with the steaks. Huge char marks from the grill crisscrossed the massive porterhouse offerings, leaving them crispy and smoke-seasoned on the exterior, but warmed through to perfection the rest of the way. Just in time for bed, the breeze picked up to sing a sweet song through the Lodgepole pines, marking the end of another great day.

Since we were planning to pack up today, I didn’t want to start a fire to leave it unattended. I broke out the little tripod camp stoves I had gotten prior to our trip. They were adequate, but there was just something about cooking over a wood-fueled fire that made my offering this morning seem pale in comparison to the other breakfasts we had eaten. Regardless, Dad and I finished off the stack of pancakes I prepared, washing everything down with the ubiquitous coffee our camp boasted.

We took longer to pack everything than it had taken to set it up. Almost all was put away when our Ranger friend reappeared. He looked around, inspecting our efforts, and nodded, “So what are your plans from here?”

Dad gestured to me, and I grabbed our map from the vehicle. Don’t ask me how we had gotten hold of such an archaic instrument of navigation when Google was freely available, but it felt good to practice our cartography skills with pen and paper rather than on a computer screen. I laid it out as Dad explained.

“We were thinking of heading to Mt. Rushmore next, but need to take care of laundry sometime yet. This being Saturday, we thought we’d stop in Billings for the night, use tomorrow to get cleaned up, and then drive to Black Hills National Forest. We’ll do some more camping, see the mountain, and then head further east.”

I interjected, “Dad’s an architect, so we plan to stop in Minneapolis and check out some of the Frank Lloyd Wright buildings there. We’ll research what else there is to do and see as we go.”

The Ranger nodded, “Sounds like a plan to me.” He stood up and extended his hand, “It’s been nice to meet you two, and I’ve enjoyed your breakfasts as well.” We shook all around, he tipped his hat to us and was off to tend to his duties.

I folded the map back up, putting it away in the glove box. “Let’s go, Dad!”

He took a last look around our campsite, hopped in and started the Tahoe. “Which way?”

I gave a gesture in the general direction of the exit. “Somewhere over there.”

The drive to Billings was fairly easy. Once we got under way, I turned my phone on and plugged in the charger. Mom’s Tahoe was fairly new still, having been purchased within the last year to make it easier for either me or Dad to take her to her doctor’s appointments. Being a recent model, and given the fact that Dad bought the fully loaded version, it had all of the accoutrements expected by the discerning traveler.

On my phone were a couple of texts from Aunt June, and one from Grandma and Grandpa Edwards. All of them were interested in how our trip was going, with Aunt June also congratulating me on my choice of girlfriends. I turned to Dad, “What did you do?”