Wrinkly Bits
A Blog by Gail Cushman
It was Sunday morning, the day after the Fourth of July, a day for doing nothing or having an adventure and Cowboy said, “Let’s go for a little ride after church on Sunday.” I was still stiff from the last trip, but never to be a nay-sayer, I said, “Sounds like fun.” That was my first mistake.
The post-church-service conversation went like this: “Where are we off to?”
“Just a tour of Stillwater County, maybe cross over into Musselshell. I used to live there. Renae and George are buying some property near Roundup, and they want us to take a look. We can meet them for a bite to eat at the Jersey Lilly in Ingomar.” Now, I was a bit suspicious, because I had been to Ingomar’s Jersey Lilly. I hesitated, but answered, “Okay. Do we have a map?”
“We have GPS, we don’t need no stinkin’ maps,” he said in his best Treasure of the Sierra Madre accent. He was right. We have two different GPS systems in our truck and I found two maps. A crinkled wreck of a map hidden under the seats and another that had everything you could possibly want to know about anything, except today’s mission. Towns of under 2,000 population were only a blip on the map.
Off we went. I-90, a Freeway, then four-laned state highway, then two-laned county highway, then a two-laned gravel, then one lane no gravel, which restricted its mileage speed to 70MPH. Good grief, where was he taking me? I saw a sign “Lewis and Clark slept here,” and I said, “Are you sure we are still in Stillwater County?”
“Not to worry, I know this country like the back of my hand.” The dirt road was being repaired, and said something like “Caution. Bumpy road next 1,000 miles,” and boy, were they right. It was probably 10 miles, but seemed like 1,000. The sign should have said, “Treacherous Road. Do not attempt.”
Another sign, “Ingomar, turn here.” The Jersey Lilly. I had been to the Jersey Lilly before and enjoyed its home town atmosphere and good food. We went in and met Renae and George, eating their Sheepherder Hors d’oeuvres. Suzanne, the owner, came over, “Do you have a reservation?”
Renae said, “Yes.“
I said, “Do you have a bathroom?” knowing the Bull Pen and the Heifer Pen were outdoor facilities, primitive, but better than Asian bathrooms we had encountered in Japan. The head facilities at the Jersey Lilly are one-of-a-kind, a must see, but Suzanne said, “I made some improvements, and you’ll like them. They are back there, past the pool table.”
After our meal, we followed Renae and George, backtracking toward Roundup, which would be their new digs if all went to plan. We drove out of Roundup on a variety of road surfaces, including an unpaved sand road with ruts nearly twice the size of Cody, who was cowering on my lap. We finally made it and congratulated them on the site, beautiful, mountains and trees, and then turned to go home. We somehow missed the turn to return to the most used road, and were confronted with a gate.
“We can take it from here,” Cowboy told George. But to me, he said, “This doesn’t seem quite right.” He pulled over and adjusted our two GPS systems. One showed squiggled, unnamed, unnumbered roads, the other GPS showed nothing. A blank screen. “Look at the map and find Roundup. We need to go west and south, from Roundup.”
Since I moved to Montana, I have become directionally-challenged, meaning I don’t know west from Green Eggs and Ham. In my brain everything is North. I tried to find West on my phone’s compass but it went blank. Dang. Nothing. Cowboy continued, “Rapelje is not too far, we can drive to Rapelje and go south and we’ll come out at the cemetery in Columbus. Home is just a hop, skip, and a jump away.” Right.
Ms. GPS came to the rescue, “U-Turn. Do it now. U-turn. Do it now.” After Ms. GPS repeated her message 15 times, Cowboy said, “I think I’ll do a U-Turn, hang on.” We got on some road with the number 3. I don’t know if it was a freeway or county road, but it worked.
Then, we saw a sign: Laurel, 22 miles. Ms. GPS said, “Unpaved Road,” and we turned onto it. Ms. GPS forgot to mention “Unpaved Road with Washboard Surface. Cody barked at the first washboard and looked at me as if to say, “What the…”
As Paul Harvey said: The rest of the story
We arrived home safe and sound and saw a lot of beautiful country, including Renae and George’s potential land purchase. We enjoyed the Jersey Lilly and Suzanne. It really is a place to see, but take a handful of maps, Just in case.
