It's Hot In Three Forks, MT

Gerry and I are thinking about heading back to Tucson, AZ so we can cool off.  It's been running in the low 100s here in Three Forks and with only 30amp electric service we can only run one a/c.  It barely keeps it cool enough in the motor home but by late afternoon it is really laboring.   

We decided to have an early dinner at the Willow Creek Cafe & Saloon in the small town of Willow Creek.  It's a 20 minute drive from the campground to the Cafe and we enjoyed the blast of cool from the car a/c on the way over.  It was reading 102 at 4:15pm and it was like a blast furnace out there.

On the way to the Cafe we saw what we thought was an antelope out in a field.  The road wasn't busy so I backed a couple hundred yards so Gerry could get a nice photo of it.  It had a multicolored coat and looked quite strange with a dark belly hanging down.  We think it was ready to give birth in the field so we drove on.  A further check of the photo convinced us it was a doe deer.

Willow Creek is very small with a population of almost 200 hardy souls.  The Cafe is the only establishment open daily and the hardware store is a call in only place.  i.e.  Call the owner and he will meet you there.  It is mainly a farming and railroad town and the railroad presence is long almost all gone.

They do have a sense of decoration in the town and Gerry thought this one was neat.  It is across from the Cafe and looked like it's been well maintained.

 We were a little early for our 4:30pm reservation and decided to see if they would seat us.  The same waitress that we talked to yesterday was there and said she was glad to see us and that Gerry looked a lot better.  It seems she was worried about how peaked Gerry was on Friday.

The Cafe has two rooms and they seated us in the large room at a nice table.  When we were there yesterday, I noticed a couple very small tables in a cramped area and I wanted to avoid being seated there, so I mentioned there may be three of us for dinner.  It worked and we got a nice 4 person table.

 When we drove up Gerry noticed a car with a Montana license plate of "Escazu" which is a city next to San Jose, Costa Rica where we lived for 6 years.  Larry Jr. went to school in Escazu at the Country Day School and knew the counselors very well since he was in their office quite often.  

I asked around who owned the car and the gentleman on the far right side of the picture below said it was his.  I asked if he was a Tico and his eyes lit up as he said no, but he lived & worked there for a long time.  When I asked what was his profession he said school teacher.  I sort of recognized him and said he taught at the Country Day school.  He was shocked and wanted to know how I knew that.  I mentioned that our son attended the school and I remembered him.  He was totally flabbergasted that someone picked him out in a small Montana town of 200 people.  Small world, isn't it?

Later on he came over to our table and filled us in on what he has been doing these past many years.  It's too long of a story to tell, but he is living in Bozeman, MT and is still a resident of Costa Rica since he receives a pension from teaching there.  We enjoyed talking to him but he was with 4 friends and had to return to his table.

Our table was near the door in front and when we were seated there were only two tables occupied, but the place was full when we left.  The Cafe has a lot of charm and our meals were excellent, plus the waitress provided great service.   The kitchen is small and they limit seating to every 30 minutes so they can keep up the great service.  It worked.

We ordered some dessert to go and left there with our bellies satisfied and full.  Gerry took a doggy bag of the fantastic spareribs that she couldn't finish and it is enough for a nice lunch.

We drove by the garage on the way back to see if our parts had arrived and didn't see them at the door.  The owner was there but I didn't want to bother him and figured they would be here Monday at the earliest.

Nearby was a small RV park and we drove through it but it was full of construction workers and they didn't have any sites available.  We did run across an old sod roofed building and a very old covered wagon.  I think I'd prefer to live in the covered wagon vs the sod covered home.

By this time we called it a day and went back to the motor home to watch a movie called "Cloud Atlas" from 2012.  Halle Berry, Hugh Grant, Tom Hanks were the principle stars.  

IMBD states "An exploration of how the actions of individual lives impact one another in the past, present and future, as one soul is shaped from a killer into a hero, and an act of kindness ripples across centuries to inspire a revolution."

Gerry managed to watch the complete movie but it was so confusing jumping around back and forth that I lost interest.  I did manage to watch the ending and I was just as confused as ever.

That was our exciting day, how was yours?