Drove six hours including gas and rest stops. Very tired by the time we arrived at the Small Towne Campground in Terry, Montana. We took a chance on this one; Jackie called ahead, but no one answered the phone. When we pulled in, except for a few full-timers, the campground appeared virtually empty. Not even the owners were around. We noticed a sign outside the backdoor of their house that told us to pick any site, which we did. The sites themselves were nicely graveled with plush, grassy sections right next to them, perfect for Roscoe and Louie to stretch out and cool themselves after a very long and rough ride.
Terry, Montana
It’s no secrete that when the body is overtired, the brain seems to shut down most of its reasoning capacity. For example, when I tried to extend the leveling jacks and slide out, nothing worked. Naturally, I overlooked the obvious, but I just couldn’t think through what I was doing wrong. After six hours of driving, my brain was dead. While Jackie took the dogs for a little walk, I sat down, pulled out the monster ring binder, and skimmed the manual for a solution. At least I still could read. And then I found it: “Apply parking brake fully” was clearly printed in bold font. If you get the body to relax, the mind will soon follow. And so, with jacks and slide out fully extended, our camp was fully in place.
Small Towne Campground site
When the owners finally returned, I sought them out to square the fee for the evening. Very nice people, but they were a cash only enterprise, and I had no cash. Not a problem. The Stockman’s Bank has an ATM in the lobby and only a mile away. The owner told me to be sure and check out the sculpture of two Montana cowboys standing around a campfire. The thing was welded out of sheet metal by a couple of local prison inmates and displayed in a neighbor’s backyard. I rode my bike to the ATM, got the cash, and looked for the sculpture. I couldn’t find it where she said it was; I even asked a few local Terry folks, but they didn’t know and looked at me as if I was crazy.
An inte
resting side-note about Terry, Montana, is the fascinating story of Evelyn Cameron (1868-1928), a British-born photographer, adventuress of some considerable reputation, who moved to Terry in 1893 with her Scottish husband, Ewen. After hearing stories about hunting expeditions in the Badlands of Montana, homesteading on the prairie, and living the life of a “pioneer,” Evelyn and her husband moved to Montana to see it all for themselves. Evelyn inherited enough money after the death of her father to purchase a ranch. After an initial failed effort to raise polo ponies to sell to wealthy Europeans, Evelyn raised vegetables to sell and took up photography after buying a nine-pound camera and tripod which she lugged around by horse, taking photographs of every aspect of frontier life in Montana.
Evelyn with horse:
Kneading dough:
Call and Response 