'4 Days in Utopia.....'

8:01 am - Wednesday - October 11th - Deer Lodge, MT - 40° F, humidity 99% (makes sense....it has been raining all night....lol), wind 5 mph out of the northwest....cloudy today with a forecast high of 55° F.  On this date in 2011 TLE and I were getting ready to fly back to SoCal from Spokane, WA after a long visit with my sister Hilary, and her husband, Bob....ironically, today we are getting ready to fly back to Medford, OR from Deer Lodge, MT after doing the same.....↴

.....the view this morning after rain all night.....↴

Tuesday was our next to last day here in Montana.  We awoke to clouds on the eastern horizon as the sun slowly rose into the sky.....

.....portending the rain that would come later in the morning, and then in the evening.  It was cold and breezy outside, so we spent the better part of the morning indoors.

Around lunch time TLE came into the bedroom to let me know Hilary was grilling Elk Burgers for lunch.  I've only had elk a couple of times in my life, and loved it each time, so no one had to tell me twice....I 'dropped' what I was doing and headed into the kitchen to claim my Elk Burger.....

....have you ever in your life seen something more tantalizingly delicious?  In case you are wondering, those are 'kettle chips' next to the burger.  I cherished every bite.  Little did I know at the time that the evening meal entrée would be Roast Elk, and that is a whole 'nother story as they say.

After finishing my lunch I returned to what I had been doing, which was watching the movie version (on Amazon Prime) of the book I wrote about yesterday.....'7 Days in Utopia'.  As is typical of movie versions of books the writers changed up a lot of things, but they remained true to the essence of the story.  I cannot compare the book and the movie as they were significantly different as far as the story line goes, but the message was the same.

After the movie I laid down to take another Montana nap, which lasted almost two hours....there's something about this Montana air!

Around 2 pm TLE, Hilary, the dogs (Georgie and Archie) and moi took a 2 mile loop walk up Big Horn Road where we could see the house, and the valley in perspective.....

.....at some point we left the dirt/gravel road and walked back across the golf course to the house......

....I discovered that in addition to 'punching' the greens, they also punch the tee boxes here at the Rock Creek Cattle Ranch golf course....there are anywhere from 3-5 tee boxes for each of the 18 holes, so that is a lot of punching!

'Punched' tee box at #9

.....upon our return to the house I changed into my swim shorts, and headed out to take another soak in the Jacuzzi.  I've taken one each day we have been here, and it only serves tro remind me of how much I miss Glamis North Hot Springs, and their wonderful mineral hot spring pools.

We ate a late dinner, alfresco once again, and were treated to a wonderful Elk Roast dinner with roasted vegetables, and fried, smashed potatoes.  The meal was paired with a wonderfully smooth and silky Malbec, and great conversation, which kept us outside until well after 8 pm when we headed indoors to continue our conversation over more wine, and some cherry ice cream, which we ate directly from the container.....how decadent....lol!

By 9:30 pm the bell was tolling for TLE and I so we bid our hosts adieu, and headed off to dreamland here in Montana one last time.  We will be leaving Rock Creek Cattle Company around 3:30 pm for the drive back to Missoula, and our 6:30 pm flight back to Medford, OR.  We will arrive at the Rogue Valley-Medford airport around 11:55 pm, so it will be a long travel day with a 3+ hour layover in Salt Lake City.  

And with that our 4 days in a utopia that is called Rock Creek Cattle Company has come to a delightful conclusion.  It has been a wonderful interlude between our summer season, and the approaching winter season.  In just two days we will be rolling our wheels southward from LPG&RVR to new adventures in the low desert of SoCal.

Thanks for stopping by!