"Livingston, I presume?"

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6:00 am - Tuesday - August 15th - 46º F, humidity 83%, wind 2 mph out of the east.....cloudy.  Forecast high for Gardiner, MT today is 73º F, and 62º F for Mammoth Hot Springs, WY.....that is an 11º difference!

It began to rain around 3 am Monday morning and was still raining when we awoke......"No hiking today" I heard myself telling TLE.  I alluded to 'The AP' yesterday (alternate plan), and we decided our 'AP' would be a drive north into Livingston, MT for the day....the nearest large city to Gardiner.  It is about 53 miles to Livingston so we left home a little after 10 am to make the drive.  First up on our agenda was to put fuel in the VW, so we stopped off at the local Sinclair for gasoline at $2.85/gallon....we use Premium in the VW per the owner's manual specs......as I pumped the gasoline I took a picture looking toward Mammoth Hot Springs.....very foreboding......I'm glad we went with 'The AP'........

.....we were on our way north by 10:30, and in old town Livingston walking from one thrift store to another by 11:20 (the speed limit on the two lane US-89 is 70 mph most of the way).....

 Main Street in Old Town

......I hadn't had any breakfast (forgot) so I was hungry, but the local micro brewery we had our sights set on did not open until Noon.  As it turned out we found nothing without which we could not live.....finally it was 12:10 pm so we drove a couple of blocks over to Katabatic Brewing Company near the corner of US-89 and Main.....

.....I ordered a glass of their 7.5% ABV Scotch Ale, and TLE a pint of their Tippy Truck Honey Ale......we both enjoyed our selections.....in fact mine was the best Scotch Ale I have ever had!

.......Katabatic does no food preparation, but they are right next door to Fiesta En Jalisco Mexican Restaurant, and they will bring over any food you order.....I ordered two crispy tacos, and TLE got their Chile Relleño.....on a scale of 1-10, 10 being best, we would rate this food at 7.....good, basic Mexican cuisine.....Yelp gives Katabatic 4.5 stars on 21 reviews (we would agree), and 3.5 stars to Fiesta En Jalisco (again, we would agree) on 26 reviews.

.....we were the first customers of the day so we sat at the bar.......it was a perfect way to spend a rainy afternoon!

I wanted to get a haircut, but of the three places we stopped at only one was open, and they only did haircuts by appointment......unfortunately, there are no chain haircut places in Livingston, MT.  Our last stop in Livingston was Town and Country Market (an employee owned supermarket) where we were pleasantly surprised by their great prices on everything.

We were on our way back south on US-89 by 3 pm with one more stop on our agenda.....Chico Hot Springs!  Why not have a nice hot soak before heading for home (the senior discounted price is $3.50/person!)?  We arrived shortly before 4 pm to find our Mammoth Hot Springs General Store friends Roscoe and Geni there, too, so we joined them in the hot pool for about an hour, then retreated inside to the bar for another beer before heading back to Gardiner.

We drove through a torrential downpour for about half the distance home arriving back at YRVP by 6:15 pm pleasantly tired and ready for a nice nap! It appears the weather guessers have given us a reprieve for Tuesday on the rain front, so we will return to regularly schedule programming......hiking......on Tuesday!

Thanks for stopping by!

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