Montana: Last Minute Change Gone Right!!

Yellowstone was supposed to be everyone’s first experience to Montana. We flew out on the 16th of June to get to Montana. First I rented a car through Turo https://turo.com/ on 6-15-2022 because the car rental prices at the airport are absolutely insane. Then, I get a notification that my rental has been canceled due the car being in an accident. The only available rental was $200 more! I called Turo and they were amazing, they got me another car booked and ready within the hour with a $200 credit so I didn’t have to pay extra! All of this took roughly 2 hours. We had a replacement car by 3 pm the night of the 15th. In total the rental cost us $404 after they gave us the credit. So I thought, ” Ok, we’re good, no more problems”. Then we got news that our campsite was one of the areas that was flooded. So my buddy immediately jumps into action, starts calling and looking around for more campsites and he finds one a few hours later that has space available and he books it by 7 pm. The name of the campground is called Beaver Creek Campground, https://www.recreation.gov/camping/campgrounds/233181. To rent out a campsite, this was $20 per night.

Shit was trash, book at your own risk. Bring some bug spray, candles, wrist bands and anything else you can think of, but honestly, the mosquitos are absolutely disrespectful. They do not give a flying damn about your bug spray or anything else. We arrived and set up our tents and after about an hour or so we realized, this is not a campsite we want to stay at. Too many bugs and they are trying to eat us alive.

We immediately started talking about looking for another camp site after we go and get some ice for our coolers. On our way out, we drive past a camp site and RV park called West Fork Cabin Camp https://www.wfork.com/. We go in and ask them if they have availability on the large area of open land that we saw and we booked it for the next day. This place was also $20 per night also, so it wasn’t a hassle to debate if we wanted to move. To be honest, we were moving regardless of the price of the new site. No one wants to get eaten alive by bugs. We slept the first night at the shitty bug mosquito infested site, then, moved to the new campsite before sunrise the next day. The campsite was spacious, great location close to the hiking trail, beautiful green grass, showers, a bathroom roughly 70 yards away and a basketball court. Absolutely fantastic camp site. They provided an ample amount of fire wood, the view at night was almost unreal. The beauty of the stars on a clear sky was enough to make the most excited and unrestful of minds calm. This is just a perfect location if you want to feel one with nature and enjoy the quiet and calm of the wind kissing your body. On the dates that we went, the temperature was about a high of 78 and a low of 40 degrees Fahrenheit. 10/10 recommend and we plan on staying there again when we go back camping in Montana. Just an FYI, the nearest grocery store is roughly 45 mins away from this camp site, so unless you want to drive back and forth, I suggest you pack accordingly. Personally, we went to Walmart close to the airport and brought groceries to cook for the 3 nights we were there.

Old Historic Town- Virginia City. 6-17-2022

So after we settle down, get our tents, hammocks and food stations set up, we meet a guy who is telling us about places to go to and one of the places was a city by the name of Virginia City which is roughly a 30 minute drive from the campsite. Now when you make it there, you are greeted by a horse drawn carriage that provides an intimate tour of the city, a tour that features an old school fire truck that takes you around and shows you some of the land marks. They have plaques around the city with historical facts and the buildings from the 1800s. It was pretty cool to go inside of some of those buildings and see the history that was there.

The building that interested me the most was the Virginia City Water company building. It was owned by Sarah Bickford, the first and only woman and possibly only black woman to own a utility company in Virginia City. https://montanawomenshistory.org/celebrating-sarah-gammon-bickford/. They tried to tell us about them using that building to hang some robbers in the area or something like that, but honestly we didn’t care about that after learning about Sarah.

Another building that caught my interest…. Cousin’s Candy Shop!! http://virginiacitycandymt.com/. This place was established in 1969 and they have a large selection of candy and homemade fudge. Y’all… that stuff is AMAZING, and absolutely addicting. I got the blueberry cheesecake fudge, strawberry lemonade and peanut butter chocolate. I got some huckleberry candy too. All of it is amazing. I spent roughly $15 on the fudge and candy. The fudge was soft and gooey, melts in your mouth and bursting with flavor. The people in the store were extremely helpful and made sure we left with a full bag haha.

The rest of the buildings were pretty cool too. A pioneer bar, a place called the gypsy arcade that had some old school games inside of it. An ice cream shop that made ice cream from scratch. The entire city is antique and full of history and plaques around so that you can read on the city and get to know it better. On Saturdays, they have a mattress race, where they take handmade mattress frames, put wheels on them and race them down the hill in the city.

The beautiful clear blue water of Wade Lake. 6-18-22

I was chilling in my hammock when my buddy suggested we all go to Wade lake. Another place the man from earlier suggested to us. Honestly, I didn’t want to go, but after a while I decided to go ahead and make the trip with them. From our campsite, Wade lake is roughly 45 minutes. The drive to there was absolutely gorgeous. The view of the mountains was a good reminder to stop and enjoy the life we are given. It honestly makes you understand just how small we are in this world. Those mountains are HUGE!! This place is breathtaking! The water was clear and blue. You could almost see to the bottom of the lake from where you stand at the lakeside. The people were friendly and inviting. Families kayaking and fishing. The water was pretty damn cold to be honest, as soon as you step in it, you feel a chill flow from the heels of your feet to the crown of your head. It wakes you up in the most amazing way. Putting your hands in it, had you feeling like you were one with nature. The fish were coming close to us like they had no fear and were wanting to be friends. This is such an amazing place that I think everyone should experience. Had a good conversation with someone from Boston about how the Bulls are the best team and had a laugh about it because he clearly did not agree lol. Our group decided to walk along the side of the lake and explore it. We ended up staying for about an hour and skipped rocks, talked, found cool looking rocks with my friends kids and just talked to other tourists for a while before it started to rain and we decided to head back to Victoria City for some more home made ice cream, then back to the campsite to relax, cook some burgers, chicken fajitas and hotdogs, eat and just talk around the campfire.

Last Day- Hiking 6-18-22

On our last night, after we came back from Wade Lake, we relaxed for a bit at the campsite, then we decided to go ahead and explore the walking path that was near our campsite. Honestly it wasn’t anything crazy, just a nice walk to take some pictures and enjoy the sights and sounds of nature. There were some fast flowing creeks that flowed in and out of the trees and created that wonderful rushing water sound as it flows over the rocks. The sound of the wind blowing as they make the trees sway back and forth. The trail was a road that they had already made out for cars and other vehicles. We walked for about 2 miles. It was an amazing feeling to be able to see nature in all of its glory, the smells, sights and sounds were just so refreshing to take in.

Now Montana was beautiful, the amount of people that stopped to talk to us and help us with directions. As a black man traveling to these places, I want my fellow black people to feel safe. I’m glad to say that felt extremely safe walking around and camping here. The atmosphere did not feel threatening at all. The people at the camping site were also very nice and helpful to us whenever we had questions about the areas around and helping us find the lake and the city. I think this is a great place for you to go and feel safe and comfortable as a black person and enjoy nature, hiking and a piece of history. I would love to hear your stories if you decide to go here.

As for pricing, the car rental was $400, the cost of gas was $100, groceries cost us around $300 ( of course this includes alcohol for the adults) for 3 adults and 2 children. $60 for the campsite and I spent roughly $30 on other food inside of Victoria City. So all in all this trip was about $900 split between 3 people, $300 per person

Thanks for reading and joining me on my trip to Montana 6/16 – 6/19 2022! I hope you enjoyed this blog and will join me for many more of my adventures. feel free to leave a comment and let me know your thoughts!!

Much love, Big Black Bold – Andre’ Brent