Upper Missouri NWSR Canoe Trip 2009

After getting up, enjoying a last civilized bathroom experience, and eating at the breakfast buffet, we headed to the hardware store for a rifle case for the pellet gun, and pistol belt for cowboyishness (and noticed DPMS Panther ARs for under $900). Then it was on to the local grocer for PBR, styrofoam coolers, and bags of ice. This was shaping up to be a classy trip already.

After lots of driving around to find the canoe place where we completed the paperwork and bought our "solid human waste disposal system" and more driving around for cash, gas, and water, we arrived at the Ft. Benton boat launch and found our vessel waiting. We chatted with a few other paddlers, including two older guys who were doing the same trip, and appeared as impressed with our whiskey supply as we were with theirs of ice.

Finally, at 13:30 we were on our way! After only about thirty minutes on the water, we spotted a bunch of dead trees and made the first of many stops for firewood, in the process reacquainting ourselves with the use of an ax. Several miles further downriver we stopped at a parcel of BLM land and did some target practice on the first of the empty PBR cans.

We saw several deer and lots of farming (beautiful Black Angus cows), stopped once more for firewood, and after 20 miles arrived at our first campsite. It basically consisted of a sun-baked gravel parking lot and was named Wood Bottom despite doing nothing to justify the name. We were both tired, being unused to paddling and carrying gear back and forth across two hundred feet of hot stones. Nevertheless we got set up, and made camp for the first time!

On the menu were bacon wrapped filets and asparagus, but I dropped one of the filets into the fire. I managed to rescue it, but it was sooty and both filets were undercooked and had to go back on the fire. Still, an edible meal, lots of whiskey, and a beautiful starry sky that night. The only other campers were a retired couple with a pickup truck and camper, we could hear them fucking as we sat by the fire drinking.