Centennial Valley Arrival

Recalculating…. Drive point-one miles and do a U-turn

The Girl, my Garmin nüvi GPS, had done a stellar navigating job to this point. She had placed us on a lightly used, beautifully scenic diagonal route through northern Colorado and southern Wyoming rather than along the sterile square of Interstates 25 and 81, she had all but parked us in the Lander Bar back lot where we found our buddy Russ, and she had motored us through the great national parkland, keeping track of where we were and where we were going so that we could gawk like slobbering fools at the delights of the Tetons and Yellowstone without getting hopelessly lost.

Recalculating…. Drive point-two miles and do a U-turn

But this time we were sure she’d gotten waylaid.  A half-hour out of West Yellowstone, as we skirted Henry’s Lake on MT87, with nineteen miles left to go to reach our destination, The Girl directed us to turn onto a single-lane dirt track. Obviously, she thought it a quick-and-dusty shortcut, cutting several hundred yards of 87 pavement. So we motored on, knowing she’d come to her senses and carry us the final nineteen.

Recalculating…. Drive one-hundred yards and do a U-turn… dammit!

It was either turn her off or do what she said (a not unfamiliar situation) so we did what she said (a not unfamiliar choice) and spent the final nineteen miles traveling the rutted dirt roads of Centennial Valley – the absolute correct, and only, way to get to our final destination.

But, once the shock absorbers settled in, we stopped worrying about what was under us to gaze at what surrounded us – nearly 400,000 acres of what the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service calls a mosaic of open water and emergent vegetation… characterized by lowlands dominated by sagebrush, grasslands, and lush willow dominated riparian areas.”

An oasis surrounded by craggy peaks. A cradle of a fishery. Our home for the next few days.

We had arrived.