COVID-19 Affecting Your Plans?

[scatman]

Hey @scatman - here's a great idea for you - you could quit your job before you retire! Make up a bunch of plastic license plates for Montana and sell them to visitors - and the plastic probably wouldn't register on police/traffic cameras, either. Yes, I know, I'm a genious! Or however it's spelled...

@Rockskipper, I am officially eligible tomorrow! Yippee!!!!! And yes, you are a genius.

Plastic license plates huh? Can each one of them say Scatman on them? A state full of Scatmen! Can you picture it?

 

[Jackson]

Hope you all won't mind too much when someday my husband and I make it out West again. We will try our best to be inconspicuous!

I don't mind at all! Silly to think anyone is more entitled to live in or visit a place than anyone else, regardless of where they're from. My family is from out west, but I was born and raised in Indiana, so I'm a transplant out here too. I was just commenting generally that out of state plates don't really mean much with people migrating to and from different places all around the country.

 

[scatman]

Bozeman? Many fine adventures await you, and now @scatman has a place to stay when he's coming/going to Yellowstone. And Belgrade's a lot calmer than the Boze.

Congrats - I remember when you said you were taking your law exams. You'll love it up there, but watch out for those polar vortexes (vortices?).

That was part of the criteria that @Jackson used when searching for a new home in Bozeman: A spare bedroom for Scatman, with beads in the doorway and a bunk bed, along with a large wall sized map of Yellowstone National Park painted on the wall, complete with trails, campsites and locations of all my Grizzly encounters. He seemed quite agreeable to my demands. Do you think it would be too much to ask him to include the Teton Wilderness with that map?

 

[Jackson]

That was part of the criteria that @Jackson used when searching for a new home in Bozeman: A spare bedroom for Scatman, with beads in the doorway and a bunk bed, along with a large wall sized map of Yellowstone National Park painted on the wall, complete with trails, campsites and locations of all my Grizzly encounters. He seemed quite agreeable to my demands. Do you think it would be too much to ask him to include the Teton Wilderness with that map?

Come on up!

I honestly do have the goal of framing and putting a Teton Wilderness map or a portion of one on a wall somewhere in the house.

 

[Outdoor_Fool]

@Rockskipper, A state full of Scatmen! Can you picture it?

@scatman . It's called Florida.

 

[kwc]

We had nothing concrete planned for this spring, just some ideas, but we hadn’t made any reservations or anything like that. We’re keeping our hikes close to home, and usually we don’t see anyone when we’re out there, and if we do, they are usually off in the distance and so we don’t run into them. We are hopeful that we can go forward with our summer (July/August) plans.

We have cancelled our cross country road trip plans for this summer. We had planned on driving to Alaska but since the border has closed that went out the window. And then my wife re-injured her knee and needed a cortisone shot so that altered another plan. We have been doing a bit of canoeing in the Adirondacks along with some hiking ... Jackie has been able to do some shorter hikes now without any knee issues so that’s been promising. We did take a road trip to sw Virginia for a couple of days and we didn’t see too many people at all. We hope to get up to Maine at some point but right now Maine has a 14 day quarantine for all out of state visitors. So we’re just playing things by ear and hope that we can go forward with some travel plans in 2021.

 

[Yvonne]

I'm still hoping my Yellowstone trip will happen. I had to reschedule 4 times and moved it back several times. Now I'm supposed to head to Yellowstone on July 29th until September 12th. I'm still not sure if it will happen as cases go up in Montana.
I'm so hoping I can go, the hellish 110+ degrees in Southern Utah is killing me.

My chronic lung disease is getting really bad and in addition, I now have a heart disease as well. Not the safest conditions to be in Southern Utah with Corona Virus on the rise.
I mostly hide indoors during the summer, and can't wait for cooler temperatures and safer conditions to arrive

 

[Janice]

I'm still hoping my Yellowstone trip will happen. I had to reschedule 4 times and moved it back several times. Now I'm supposed to head to Yellowstone on July 29th until September 12th. I'm still not sure if it will happen as cases go up in Montana.
I'm so hoping I can go, the hellish 110+ degrees in Southern Utah is killing me.

My chronic lung disease is getting really bad and in addition, I now have a heart disease as well. Not the safest conditions to be in Southern Utah with Corona Virus on the rise.
I mostly hide indoors during the summer, and can't wait for cooler temperatures and safer conditions to arrive

Stay well and stay cool... I'll look forward to seeing your beautiful photos again sometime hopefully soon...

 

[Yvonne]

Stay well and stay cool... I'll look forward to seeing your beautiful photos again sometime hopefully soon...

thanks

I actually still need to work on a lot of stuff I locally did this Spring but I'm so lazy.
I guess I will post a few pictures later this year when I'm back. I'm definitely excited for my six-week summer escape.
Working outside at an outdoor table in front of the Zion VC in 100+ degrees is tough.

 

[Rockskipper]

Come on up!

I honestly do have the goal of framing and putting a Teton Wilderness map or a portion of one on a wall somewhere in the house.

I think @scatman has designs on your garage for his budding license plate enterprise. You being an attorney will be a big plus. And think of how adept he'll be at it should he end up in prison, where they make the real ones.

 

[Rockskipper]

@scatman . It's called Florida.

So you're saying everyone in Florida wears kilts and bicycling caps?

 

[Titans]

We have cancelled our cross country road trip plans for this summer. We had planned on driving to Alaska but since the border has closed that went out the window. And then my wife re-injured her knee and needed a cortisone shot so that altered another plan. We have been doing a bit of canoeing in the Adirondacks along with some hiking ... Jackie has been able to do some shorter hikes now without any knee issues so that’s been promising. We did take a road trip to sw Virginia for a couple of days and we didn’t see too many people at all. We hope to get up to Maine at some point but right now Maine has a 14 day quarantine for all out of state visitors. So we’re just playing things by ear and hope that we can go forward with some travel plans in 2021.

@kwc : Maine recently changed the requirements, so residents of CT, NY, NJ are now exempt from the 14-day quarantine, See here

 

[kwc]

@kwc : Maine recently changed the requirements, so residents of CT, NY, NJ are now exempt from the 14-day quarantine, See here

Thanks for the link! Awesome news!

 

[ImNotDedYet]

My boss went to Glacier and elsewhere in NW Montana last week and he said that it was pretty nuts with the closures. For any popular spots, you had to get there well before 7 a.m. or in the late afternoon to get a parking space. I guess that's to be expected when half the park is closed off and people are going nuts with outdoor recreation trips.

Mom wanted to stay at Polebridge, and I wasn't going to stop her, given the huckleberry bear claws there. I've concluded I was a bear in a previous life due to my love of all things huckleberry.

We wanted to drive to Bowman Lake once we got there, but it was closed due to a full parking lot up until 6 PM or whenever the ranger went off duty. I think they said it closed at 11 AM. We finally went down around 7 or so and there were just a few cars down there.

This was the week before July 4. We avoided the main section of Glacier and West Glacier, but I could see it being a mess - especially with so little open these days.

On a side note - some older gentleman died in a meadow and some rangers had to go in and get him. Apparently he had a heart attack or something.

 

[blueeyes]

I was reading today about the massive case counts in Florida and it got me thinking about this thread today and how it had been silent quite a while.

Anyone been able to get out on some good trips this summer? I've enjoyed the trip reports I've seen on here. I've been able to go out backpacking once and hiking a few times, but haven't done much otherwise. Partly due to a big upcoming interstate move, but also because being shut in for a while kind of killed my motivation until recently. Seems like most places are open for camping, hiking, and backpacking to some degree now. At the same time, I've read lots of complaining online by people in various western states about people from out of state coming in droves for outdoor recreation.

I didn't want to post in here about plan changes until my big trip was either canceled or I got to go. I was afraid I would jinx the trip.

This has been the strangest year. Rather difficult one. We booked the trip the first week of January to raft the Gates of Lodore July 10-13th with OARS. Booked the trip before this COVID mess. My sister in law Jenni, my father in law Terry, and my friend Brete and his girlfriend Brandi. Brete and I had talked about going in 2019 but it wasn't a good year for either of us and we pushed it back to 2020.

I sat and watched all of my friends travel plans get canceled one after another. Trips to Paris, trips to Africa, to Disney. Graduation was canceled. In person labs and classes canceled. Felt like the world came to a screeching halt in March and stood in limbo for weeks.

My brother ended up in the hospital I work at on the weekends he was there 4 weeks left a couple days after our first case of COVID arrived. My brother was transferred to an assisted living center on hospice care. We thought we would lose him. He is still there and 2 staff members have tested positive so far. And we can't see him haven't been able to see him for weeks. He doesn't understand what is going on and thinks we have just abandoned him.

Of course this greatly upsets my mother. Who is overly stressed about this COVID situation. She won't go anywhere and has lost a friend to the virus. I think he was the 3 or 4th person in Utah to die. Older gentlemen in other wise good health but worked in a group home with challenged individuals.

In April OARS let us know they were watching the situation and would keep us updated as to the status of the trip. Jenni and I both wanted to still go, same with her Dad and Brete and Brandi.

Then the first of May Jenni and Kerry were riding ATVs at Coral Pink Sand Dunes. Jenni drove her ATV off a cliff. She died on impact. I lost Tyler 16 years ago, Jenni was his oldest sister. Jamie the youngest sister lost her husband to heart attack 7 years ago. I feel like this family is cursed.

Needless to say the month of May was pretty rough. OARS was great they refunded Jenni's money. Terry decided he didn't want to go, partly because OARS discouraged anyone over 65 not to go, but mostly because Jenni had died. Brete and Brandi backed out without telling me. Both are in high risk groups and were worried about getting COVID. But I didn't find out they ba ked out until after I had payed the balance on the trip. So I went by myself.

This was OARS first trip of the season, they had to cancel all of the previous booked trips. There were 10 of us guests, usually they have 25 guests on a trip. We had 3 separate family groups, 4 guides and solo me. At some point I will do a report. It was a fun trip. But tough every time they called up each family pod to get dinner. Jenni would have loved this river trip. I missed having her. We weren't always on good terms with each other, we are 2 very different women. But the past year we had actually started getting close.

All I can say is 2020 sucks. I am glad I did the river trip it was beautiful and I can't wait to do another one. Had the tables been turned and I was the one to die I would have been pissed if Jenni backed out of the trip. We lose loved ones in life but you have to keep living.

I also may have had a midlife crisis in May. Jenni's funeral was Saturday the 9th. My birthday was 10 days later. I seriously had had it with bad news and life is short you never know when your time is up. I bought my dream car.

Then I high tailed it to Idaho and met up with some friends to ride 110 miles on our bikes in Northern Idaho on the Hiawatha, Milwaukee and Trail de Coeur d'Alene. That didn't clear my head enough so I Spent an entire week in Southern Utah and Northern Arizona riding other trails.

After getting off the river yesterday and being completely off grid for 4 days I am ready to go back. I could easily become a river rat.

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[Kmatjhwy]

Jackson, good for you in moving up to Bozeman. Hope this all goes well for you.

Now I know that I haven't posted in awhile. For a good long while tolerated the local library being closed. But got tired of it and bought a tablet for myself to stay connected. It is all going well.

Now this year so far has turned out so different then what I was thinking. I was thinking of quitting in the spring and then retiring and heading to the wilds. But this whole Covid virus thing has so changed my plans. Am still working here at Dollar Tree here in Jackson. It seems with this Covid thing, how many Parks and places have become closed or of limited use. So have just stayed working for now. But I hate everything going on now and just want to vanish into the wilds. Might leave work this fall and go south with starting my retirement or postpone till spring. It has became such a crazy world it seems out there now.

But one thing as current, every single time when able am out there hiking, biking, and birding here locally. Now up high here it has become so green and lush with all the moisture from this past spring and early summer. Just checking in.

Wishing Everyone the Best!

 

[Nick]

Glad you still got out there @blueeyes. I had a permit to float Gates on May 21 but they wouldn't let us. Crazy to think how much worse COVID has gotten since then but how different that particular situation is. Off topic, but how were the bugs along the river there this time of year?

 

[blueeyes]

Glad you still got out there @blueeyes. I had a permit to float Gates on May 21 but they wouldn't let us. Crazy to think how much worse COVID has gotten since then but how different that particular situation is. Off topic, but how were the bugs along the river there this time of year?

I hate biting flies. Does this answer your question?

Mosquitoes were annoying the first night. But the day I SUP'd all day those bleep flies kept taking juicy bites from the back of my legs and ankles. Bug spray did not help. By the time we got to camp my arms were toast because we had a pretty good wind and my general jovial attitude was at its breaking point because of the bugs all i wanted was to be in my dry pants. It was hot and I didn't care I wanted my pants. Too hot to set up a tent. Seriously ready to strip on the beach and throw shit on the beach to find the pants but we had a kid along and I didn't want to scare people for life. No one else seemed to be bothered by them. Just me.

That night the little bugs kept flying into the tent walls so it sounded like light rain even with my flash light off. They were not of the biting variety but definitely thick.

Also the next morning I may have swallowed a few for mid morning treat on the river. If that would have kept happening I would have pulled out my head net. But the winds kicked back up again and took care of them.

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[scatman]

@scatman . It's called Florida.

I had a good chuckle when I read this.

 

[scatman]

I think @scatman has designs on your garage for his budding license plate enterprise. You being an attorney will be a big plus. And think of how adept he'll be at it should he end up in prison, where they make the real ones.

I can't end up in prison, that would seriously compromise my Deputy credentials - and who would look after Dooley while I'm in the pokey?