Bergjord Boarding

July 29 – August 7 2016

By Luke

It’s funny how an idea starts. In the summer of 2016 between spring and fall classes I worked road construction. Those months consisted of 12 hour days full of dirt and sweat. Meanwhile Samie was working at the local humane society getting covered in pet hair and poop.

We did not see a lot of each other that summer and it was hard on our relationship. When we did get together we were dead tired and trying to recover enough to go back to work.

Our summer of hard work was the genesis of our west U.S. road trip. We wanted to cross off as many states and national parks as we could. Samie gets all credit for planning this adventure. The most I would contribute is saying, “yea that sounds cool” when she suggested a place to visit. And our first destination was Yellowstone National Park.

We started our journey westward early because we had some miles to cover. As good midwesterners we don’t think twice about a twelve hour drive. This was our longest day of travel out of 10 days nearly all full of 6-8 hour drives. That didn’t dampen our spirits because we were free and on the road. We weren’t just driving through flat prairie land, we were taking it by storm.

It is very easy to take pictures next to state border signs when you’re the only humans for miles in each direction. This is probably the only interesting thing that happened on the first 6 hours of the drive. We stopped for gas station coffee in Bowman, ND and Starbucks in Billings, MT. Our next stop was at a random pull off on highway 89 right along the Yellowstone river.

This was when our scenery really started to change and we hit a second wind. We took this new found energy all the way into Gardiner, MT. It is the last town before you enter the North gate of Yellowstone. I would describe it at a classic mountain town. It had places where you could hire a guide to take you on different outdoor adventures or places to rent the gear to do it yourself. Everything seems to be made out of old wood beams and you can walk everywhere in town.

After a pleasant stop in Gardiner we headed into the park. It is 14 miles of beautiful country until you get to the small town of Mammoth. There is lodging here as well as shops and restaurants. We of course had a quick look around before heading out to our campsite, This was another bit of driving because at 2.2 million acres, Yellowstone is absolutely huge.

We got to our campsite and got to work. This was one of the first times we had set up this particular tent and I remember it going smoothly. It was also one of the only times we got to set up camp in daylight. I worked on getting all of our necessaries out of the car and into the tent as well as starting a fire while Samie cooked us dinner.

Sam had made “pizza cones” by wrapping up marinara, mozzarella, and pepperonis into a tortilla. She then wrapped those in foil and tossed them over the fire. After a couple of drinks we ended our night with another big day on the horizon.