Thursday,
6/26/2014
Browning,
MT
Blackfeet
Indian Reservation
Raining
today and our plans are to visit Browning and then spend the night in the
Tipi. I know several people have been
wondering how this adventure would go for 2 senior citizens. Browning is only 12 miles from East Glacier
Park, both are within the Blackfeet boundary.
We decided to find the tipi village first and check in and then do some
other things. Ok we could not check in
because the internet was down probably due to the rain. We waited about an hour while the lady rebooted
the router, unplugged the computer and restarted it and nothing worked. Finally said we would give her our credit
card when we returned. I was not too
surprised to see the poverty or the fields of horses or the numerous dogs
running loose around the town. I was
surprised to see a couple of liquor stores.
We visited the Museum of the Plains Indian which had a lot of exhibits
of the Blackfeet Indians and their way of life.
While there Zoey started complaining again about her ear hurting so we
went directly to the Blackfeet Hospital where she was registered and then seen
by an ER doctor. He confirmed her left
ear was beginning to show signs of an ear infection and gave her some amoxicillin. The hospital was very impressive and the
staff excellent and our total time in the hospital was about 1 hour. Leaving there we rode around and stopped at a
couple of trading posts and a pawn shop and finally decided to do the
laundry. Still raining. Ate lunch and dinner at the Junction Café which
was very good food and then around 5:45 headed back to the tipi village. Still raining. Still no internet but she did have a credit
card machine hooked to the telephone lines which worked fine. After paying $143 she showed us the toilet
and shower house, and then we began the ¼ mile walk out into the field to the
tipis. The grass was high and wet (still
raining) and the field was full of prairie dog holes. We had ordered air mattresses and sleeping
bags. In our tipi were 4 2 inch thick
foam mats, 4 sleeping bags with pillows & sheets, 4 blankets all wrapped in
tarps to keep them dry. There is no
floor in a tipi, the outside walls do not go all the way to the ground but
there is an inner lining that reaches the ground and goes up about shoulder
high. This is to help with ventilation and
to keep the tipi warmer. Tipis have the
top open so while it stayed mostly dry there was some rain coming in. There was a small fire ring in the middle of
the tipi about 6 inches deep ringed with rocks.
A small load of wood had been placed in the tipi but it was only small
sticks that would just be good for starting a fire. We had brought with us paper towels, a fire
starter, 3 small blankets and Zoey’s medicine.
Still raining and we had already decided we were going to sleep in our
clothes. After walking to the tipi our
feet were soaked and cold. Don gathered
wood while I spread out the tarps, the mats, the sleeping bags, pillows, sheets
and blankets. All items had holes from
sparks burning them. Don built the fire
and the smoke did travel up through the top of the tipi but I think the heat
did too. It wasn’t long until the small
pile of wood was gone and the fire needed more fuel. Out to tipi door Don tripped again. Todd sat watching the fire and Zoey snuggled
under the blankets. Don returned with an
arm load of wet wood and fed the fire.
Zoey played her kindle and Todd continued to sit and watch the fire and
watch everything Don did. It doesn’t get
dark here in northern Montana until 10 pm and I think Zoey went to sleep around
9 and Todd finally dozed off around 9:30.
Don continued to exit the tipi and return with an arm load of wood
getting larger logs each time hoping they would burn longer. Still raining. I
listened to the crickets and then the coyotes; I began to wonder if snakes
would get in the tipi and how many other people had slept in this sleeping
bag. Don continued to go out in the wet
grass every hour seeking more wood to feed the fire hoping to get some warmth
from it. The tipi was warming up; you
could no longer see your breath but with the temps dropping to the mid 40’s and
your socks and shoes so wet you could wring water out of them we were still
very cold. The ground was hard and the
sleeping bags not hardly big enough for our large bodies. I checked the kids several times and they were
warm as toast and sleeping soundly. I don’t
think Don or I got more than 2 hours of sleep and that was in minutes at a
time. Every time he built the fire up
and sparks would fly up I watched to make sure none got on the kids; every time
the fire dyed down and he would go out to get wood I listened to hear if he ran
into any strange animals. Daylight could
not come soon enough for me. Daylight
dawned around 5 AM and I walked the ¼ mile up the hill to the toilets; the kids
were still sleeping. Don placed the last
of the wood on the fire and we waited until 6:30 and called the kids; gathered
our stuff; put on our cold, wet shoes and walked through the wet grass back to
our car. Don turned on the heater, I
dressed Zoey in the bath house because she had wet herself and we headed to the
Junction Café for breakfast. We were the
first people there and I explained to the older lady who waited on us why we
looked so bad (no hair combed, no make-up, and sleepy) and as soon as I said we
had slept in a tipi she said “Oh my I understand you need coffee.” The kids had a ball and Don and I survived so
I guess it was a good adventure.
 |
| About 2 or 3 AM. |
