I was home a whopping 48 hours before heading to Bozeman, Montana yesterday. I had a meeting with Simms then I presented “Trout Bumming the World” for Madison-Gallatin Trout Unlimited in Bozeman, Montana. The meeting with Simms was great and my talk went fantastic, but my drive up – not so good.
I took my old Explorer, the one with 275,000 miles on it, only because this weekend Granny and I are heading on a ten day road trip to the desert with our newer Explorer, the one with 175,000 miles. The newer one was at the shop getting a new muffler, something it’s needed for about four months.
Our weather is simple, disgustingly cold for November. Yesterday was 10 below zero in Victor when I left. Just as I got comfortable in my car, the XM was blasting and the heat working lovely, I hit a bump on the Bitch Creek Bridge. A god-awful rattling sound started and before I got up the hill on the other side of the bridge a part broke lose spinning crazily down the 32. I stopped and picked it up. I’m no mechanic but it sure looked like a piece of the exhaust system.
I tossed the dirty-rusted-out chunk of Explorer in the back seat and got back in the car. Lucky enough she seemed to run fine. I hit the next bump at the Pillsbury silo and an even worse sound started and sparks went flying behind me. My entire exhaust system broke loose and was dragging down the road. A long story short, I was desperate to make it to Bozeman, so the Explorer and I limped into Ashton and I found a mechanic that cut the exhaust system completely off.
Let’s just say it was a loud trip to Bozeman and back but a little suffering builds character. And I made my meetings. Next on the agenda is earning some credits with Granny. We’ll head for the deserts of Utah this weekend. Hopefully it won’t be 18 below zero like it was in Bozeman this morning!
Jeff Currier Global Fly Fishing
Talk about an exhausting trip.