Plot Twist

By Jim.

All sagas have an occasional plot twist, right?

Here’s ours.

The seed was planted when we had Mike and Lisa Foster over to the rig for a drink in Jackson Hole a couple of weeks ago.  It was, shall we say, snug with the four of us in our “living room” space.  Then, when we were in Missoula a week later, our next-door neighbor Tracy, a delightful old gentleman, invited us over for a drink in his 42-foot-long rig with slide-outs on both sides.  We walked in and did a double-take – waaay more spacious.  

Last year, when we planned this trek, we weren’t sure we’d like RVing and we had no experience living in something like this.  Since we’ve hit the road, we’re loving what we’re doing and we’ve learned a lot about RV’ing and RVs.

Just for S&G’s, I called a couple of RV dealers to find out what The Iz would be worth in trade.  They both said we could get almost 90% of what we paid for it – pretty much a  do-over on our initial purchase.  With some down time ahead of us due to bad weather in Glacier, we went back to Missoula, where there’s a big RV dealer, and did some shopping.

We found exactly what we were looking for.  However, we found it online at a dealer in Bend, OR (yes, back to Bend!).  I contacted the dealer, did a tentative deal and made the two-day drive to Bend last weekend.  My route included going down the Columbia River Gorge, which would have taken me to Portland (and gotten a lot greener en route) if I hadn’t turned left and headed south to Bend a few miles after taking this pic.

Mount Bachelor was resplendent in Bend while I was there.After all the paperwork and dealer prep, I was back on the road back to Montana Thursday morning.  In the meantime, Ginny (plus Sting and Roxy) spent some quality time with Greg in Pullman, a big bonus for her since he couldn’t join us in Yellowstone as originally planned.She then resumed our itinerary without me by going to Livingston, MT to visit her uncle, Dick Dysart, and his utterly delightful wife, Priscilla.  They’re a renaissance couple (they headed to France the day after Ginny’s visit).  Coley joined them when she arrived Thursday.One of Dick’s life-long passions has been clocks.  

He even played a role in the restoration of the enormous clock at the Old Faithful Inn in Yellowstone.

I pulled into Bozeman, MT Friday afternoon in The Iz 2 (Too?  II?  Two?) – a new Tiffin Phaeton 40, as in 40 feet long (by comparison, the model number of the original Iz is 33 – the math is compelling).  As I refueled Friday, a trucker in the bay next to me said, “That’s a beautiful bus, Brother!”  Ah, instant validation.

It’s a pretty bitchin ride.

Fun fact – Tiffin is an Alabama company.  Van, the son of the founder, kicked the most famous field goal in the history of the Alabama-Auburn rivalry in 1985…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2z8-i2YYQg

…and his son, Leigh, kicked for the 2009 National Champions.  They now run the eponymous VanLeigh division of Tiffin, which produces fifth-wheeler trailers.  Not incidentally, Tiffin is the consensus RV industry leader in quality.  We’ve already learned from a couple experiences, including The Steps Caper, how important reliability is.

I arrived in Bozeman just in time for a rollicking dinner with the Dokkens family, former across-the-street neighbors in Weston of Ginny, Gwen and Coley.

Saturday, we made the beautiful 90-mile drive to the west entrance to Yellowstone National Park, where we (including Gwen and Coley) will be until Wednesday.

The town of West Yellowstone, where we’re staying, is as nice a tourist town as we’ve ever seen.  And it has traffic signs you don’t see every day.