If you live in Montana, nothing feels quite like spring like that first float down a river with the sun on your face. It was a Wednesday – my shoulders were warm under my jacket, and in another spring first, I was wearing sunglasses, watching the dry fly my husband had tied at our kitchen table a few days before catch the current and drift along beside our raft. Best of all: This abundance was a 35 minute drive from our front yard.
This was far from the original plan of how this week would be spent. We were supposed to be on the Smith River, braving the elements with three of John’s groomsmen from our wedding five months ago. One by one through March, each of them had to pull out from the five-day trip. John and I began making plans to do it on our own – but in the end we were foiled by finances (April is also the tax crunch month), my panic about the lack of time to work on projects with rapidly approaching deadlines, and, of course, the never-ending question of what to do with our dog, Gabe, who is improving month by month, but still has anxiety quirks that make him a liability as a week-long houseguest for friends and family. Sending him to a kennel for five days would be expensive and it would likely undo the trust we’d been building with him since we brought him home from Missoula Animal Control in December.
The solution: a short drive to the $20 forestry cabin that allows dogs, a maiden voyage of a friend’s raft that has been parked on our lawn for ten months, pork from our freezer, a gifted bottle of whisky, supplies for margaritas, cards for poker, and as always, stacks of books and playlists of favorite albums.
So I’ve had some great memories walking through the doors of beautiful hotel rooms. There is that euphoria over the view, the sense of leaving responsibilities and stresses at the door, and little luxuries like fluffy spa bathrobes and perfect white king beds with the sound of the waves crashing on the beach below. But it’s funny how walking back to a bare bones one-room cabin at dusk, lit by a lantern, candles and the glow of a potbelly stove; smelling pork loins grilling on the coals in the fire pit outside and hearing Ryan Bingham’s Fear and Saturday Night on the stereo as I’m greeted at the door by a dog who seems born to live in the woods, evokes a feeling that has redefined “vacation” for me.
The mornings had late starts, with coffee percolating. Gabe and I let John explore Rock Creek on his own that first day, as we dropped John and the raft off, went back for a second pot of coffee and sat in the sun, then shuttled down the creek later in the afternoon to pick him up after wandering around the creek banks on our own. On Wednesday, we came back to Philipsburg to pick up my car and leave Gabe at the house – he hasn’t proven himself as a raft dog yet – then floated Rock Creek on our own. I realized I hadn’t been on a river since we floated the Bitterroot last August. I caught a few fish, lost a few too, but spent much of that late afternoon watching the sky and the cliffs that rose up over the creek.
It was a beautiful and quiet float, the definition of a lazy afternoon as the world around us drifted by. The light began to lower and there was a sharp chill out as we reached the bridge where my car was parked. We tied the raft to a tree on the bank and drove back to the truck and trailer, spotting a male moose in the creek on our left and slowing down to watch his deceptively slow amble through the reeds. We were quiet and suddenly exhausted as we continued along Rock Creek Road, in our dusty boots, our jackets and hair smelling of campfire and bacon fumes.
Maybe it wasn’t the wildness of the Smith. But it was 52 hours away in our backyard that made us remember how much beauty and adventure we have right here around us.