My third season on the mountain has come to an end. Winter is predicted to be another snowy one but thankfully hadn’t settled in before I left. I was stuck in rainy season since Mid-October. After a storm lasting 3 days, I had 5 inches of water in my rain gauge. There isn’t much to do when it gets like that other than slip and slide across the yard and spend too much time taking off and on my (not as waterproof as advertised) boots in a vain attempt to keep the mud outside. So I packed up, locked up and headed out just before Thanksgiving.
As this post’s featured image suggests, I will be spending the holidays in Wyoming. Not in the lap of Jackson Hole luxury or its historical heart of Cody. But my own little slice of nowhere that is Powell, Wyoming. The city’s website does say that it is the gateway to Yellowstone. That’s like telling a kid in the back seat we’re almost there 2 hours into an 8 hour road trip. I find myself here for no reason in particular, excepting maybe that it was the cheapest long term AirBnB rental for like 1000 miles. Could be even further but lost interest in looking.
Before I get too far into this and lose most of you who have far better things to do than humor my rambling thoughts put to paper (so to speak), I have a new phone number. Again for no reason beyond a wish to shake things up and see if it’s true about old dogs and new phone numbers. I won’t list it here for the whole internet to see. send me an email and I’ll get it to you.
Ok, back to idle ramblings…..
I do have to admit that I have been looking forward to a break from the mountain life for a while. As I mentioned earlier, rainy season arrived right on schedule in mid-October and it has been downhill ever since. I slowly learned my lesson over 3 years of getting my car stuck on my access road bad enough that I have had to call the neighbors for a pull out 3 times that I remember and several more where I just gave up and left the car for drier days. Maybe not smarter but definitely wiser in my old age, I now park on solid ground a mile away at even the hint of humidity and a cool breeze. It’s a nice walk but I do get a bit pissed when I get back to camp and realize that I forgot something in the car (or worse, in town) and have to walk it again.
MY Seat
As winter approaches, my window to walk the mile in daylight gets significantly more narrow. Not wanting to be on the breakfast menu for the local fauna, I have to wait later and later in the mornings to head to the coffee shop. Which means, MY seat is usually taken by then!!! Ugh. 😉
On the sunset side of the day, my night life entertainment is limited to whatever happens before 3pm. Sadly, that seems to be true regardless of the time of the year anymore. Whether I am in the mood to party or not, At it’s shortest, the day turns to night before 4pm for a few weeks in December and January. I make it a point to start the walk back to camp at least an hour earlier. The walk doesn’t take an hour but when I get back to camp and realize that I forgot whatever it was I went to town for, I’ll need the extra 30 minutes to go back and get it. The black bears we have around here are mostly curious cowards and will take a powder long before you see them. The mountain lions keep themselves scarce up until they are chomping on your head. As the animals prep for winter they do get a bit more bold as they want to settle into winter with a full belly. So I stay out of nature at night.
I forgot to mention in last year’s note that I saw one of those murder hornets flitting around camp. It was as big as my index finger. I tried to get a picture but I was too slow and it was too fast. I am over 100 miles from where they keep finding the nests so I think it’s safe to say ‘Too late”!!
The last few weeks of rain had me almost forget that it was another nice summer. Except for a couple of those +100 degrees that the news talkers were all
excited about, it was not a warm summer. I had a jacket on almost every night. It was drier than usual though. So much so that they put the burn ban up a month earlier than usual. This, after everyone was saying it would be a limited fire season because of the deep snows we got. Not so much….
 Daily forest fire smoke 20 miles away |
 Yakima city lights, Milky Way and the forest fire glow |
The no open fire rule is kind of a drag because poking a campfire is a good way to stay up past 8pm. That is if you like the feeling of hot knees, a cold ass and lungs full of smoke all at the same time. I have plenty of wood to burn from the 3 acres of overgrown brush I cleared this summer. I am just making that number up cause I still don’t know how big an acre is and I have 23 of them. Something about the size of a football field but that means nothing to me. Until I figure it out, it seems like 3 acres is a reasonable amount to clear in a summer so I am sticking with it.
Beyond the brush clearing, there wasn’t too much visible progress this summer given that a 2×4 cost upwards of $12 and a sheet of the crappiest plywood at $70 if you could even find them. I have almost finished up what I call the coffee deck off the trailer I have been living in though. I mostly used the old lumber and windows that survived the old cabin burn last spring. I pulled the best pieces but the results are a bit curvy and out of square. Below are some pictures so far.
| Its a bit warped & cluttered but I like how
it’s turning out |
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I never got on the Pallet wood design bandwagon. Up until now. Short of the hassle to haul them to the property and tear them apart, using them for the inside walls has turned out alright. Given their low low price of free, I am happy to ride this bandwagon for a while. I ran out of pallets just as the rain started so I’ll have to wait until next year to finish it. I have an old wood stove in there but it is only taking up space at this point. I still need to buy the stove pipe and cut a hole in the roof. Since the deck is barely closed on 3 sides so it will won’t be heating much.
Lumber prices started returning to normal-ish at the end of summer and I had run out of leftovers to build with. But short of walking more stuff in, finishing the coffee deck is going to have to wait until next summer.
That is if I have time. I am happy to say that I have jumped through all the hoops and paid a lot of money to get a cabin designed and permit application submitted for approval. My little corner of the world is growing quickly. A lot of Seattle refugees are moving over the pass to work remotely from here. All I want for Christmas this year is an approved building permit. Until I get that final approval though, it is still just a picture on an expensive piece of paper.
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Here is a link to the actual plans. Cabin Plans.
I wasn’t even planning to build a cabin but the water department is only giving out water permits if there is a residential building permit on file. Between the well and the permit fees, I think I am $30k into the effort and haven’t hammered a single nail. I am looking forward to getting started and hoping that I get a break fro the weather this winter. The road didn’t open up until Mid-April last spring because of all the snow we got. They are calling for another snowy winter here but I am hoping that it doesn’t pile up too deeply.
I don’t know if you can see the plan details very well but the cabin’s inside dimensions are small at only 13 feet x 26 feet. I think I will be spending a lot of time this winter researching tiny house and boat layouts to figure out how to cram a functional kitchen and bathroom in. Feel free to send me any ideas along.
I decided to get off of the Instagram earlier in the year so as to not As you are probably aware I am off of Instagram, or at least It’s off my phone. I am not posting anything new but I still have access when I am on the laptop with an internet connection but that is solely to be a fly on the wall. I am slowly weaning off that too. I still prefer to communicate through emails and texts (once you get my new number). I have created a photo presentation page for images I like, think of it as a little IG Lite webpage on Trippinwithdon where I post pictures of note.
I do not have a head for hats. More of a head for a bag. That being said, I do feel a little naked here with out a cowboy hat and am tempted to buy one. I try them on as I come across them and don’t mind the look. I think the white (not gray, dammit) beard helps and I plan to chop that off as soon as I get under some hot running water again. I must have pretty good taste in hats because the ones I like don’t come cheap. I’ll try to hold off on a purchase that will most likely end up as an expensive wall decoration.
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I have high hopes of getting out and playing in the snow while I am here. It will be nice to come home to a heated house afterward. A luxury I don’t have on the mountain. Since the drive over the pass, it has been 60’s and sunny. It even hit 70 here a couple of days ago. Cold temps have finally arrived but still no snow to speak of.
I finally finished crushing the neighborhood’s internet by uploading the video walk through I made of the completed-ish Wintershed that I have been working on for the last couple of years. Now that I have that last thing done (I have a link here if you are interested), I can sign off for 2021. I hope it was a good year for you and yours, but I really hope 2022 is even better.
Take Care
In Conclusion………
