This is the Bell Street Bridge, spanning the Yellowstone River at Glendive, Montana.

  The Bridge was built completed in 1925 and linked Glendive with West Glendive for automobile traffic. The bridge is constructed of six 219 feet long steel and concrete spans, with 40 feet of approach on each end. The Bridge deck is 20 feet wide with 18 feet inside from curb to curb. The concrete piers extend 30 feet below the surface of the river, through shale and down through to the sandstone below.

The total cost of completion was $305,000. Half the funds came from the Federal Government, and the balance was the responsibility of Dawson County, of which the City of Glendive is the county seat.


Today the bridge is closed to automotive traffic, and serves as a pedestrian crossing over the Yellowstone.

This black & white view of the Bell Street Bridge shows the repeating spans and intricate patterns made by the struts and girders. It is a visually interesting bridge, and as there is no vehicular traffic, the bridge is a wonderful place to walk, explore, and contemplate the power and majesty of the Yellowstone River as it makes its way to it's confluence with the Missouri River just inside the North Dakota border.


The Yellowstone river originates in  Absaroka mountain range in Wyoming before entering Yellowstone National Park, where  it fills Yellowstone Lake and creates the spectacular Upper and Lower Yellowstone Falls.

Each winter theriver ices up, making for ever-changing scenery as seen from the bridge. Standing on the bridge and watching the ice make its way down the river is a fun way to spend some time on a winter day, provided the wind is not howling furiously, as it often does this time of year.






 The Yellowstone River flows northward through Yellowstone National Park, feeding and draining Yellowstone Lake, then dropping over the Upper and Lower Yellowstone Falls at the head of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone within the confines of the park. After passing through the Black Canyon of the Yellowstone downstream of the Grand Canyon, the river flows northward into Montana between the northern Absaroka Range and the Gallatin Range in Paradise Valley. The river emerges from the mountains near the town of Livingston, where it turns eastward and northeastward, flowing across the northern Great Plains past the city of Billings.

Anyone who uses our public lands has a stake in the upcoming discussion of how our public lands wil be used.

Basically, there is a movement afoot that would possibly put some of our public lands into private hands. This has the potential to dramatically reduce access to some of the most beautiful parts of America. For those of us who treasure the ability to explore our vast tracts of public lands, It makes sense to be informed about this issue. 

To learn more about this, click here. 

If you're like me, and really - why wouldn't you at least aspire to be like me - then you are already planning next Spring and Summer's camping trips. If that is the case, you may want to consider this if you're going up Yellowstone National Park way. 

I've been making visual images for over 30 years, primarily through photography. I've posted many of them on my Hudson Artworks website (www,hudsonartworks.com) as well as on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/HudsonArtworks). I've made images for personal satisfaction, not for notoriety or for money. I had never entered a photo contest or art show before.

 

Recently the city where I live held an art show, and on a whim I decided to enter. Each participant could enter up to three pieces of work. Not thinking much of it, I decided to enter. I selected three pieces and turned them in. I never even went to the show itself, which lasted a week.

 

After the show was completed I received a call from the organizers asking me to come and pick up my entries. When I picked up one of my photos, I noticed it won an award for Honorable Mention.

 

 

The photo is of an old church in northwestern North Dakota. It has been years, if not decades that this church held its last service. The stark beauty of the church against the bleak, empty prairie was a scene I could not pass up.

Sometimes I feel like I am being dragged kicking and screaming into the social media world - and this from a guy who works in advertising.

While it is true that I have neglected this site for some time, I have recently begun thnking that I should put a link from this bold and website to the Facebook page, and vice-versa, just to see what woudl happen.

I need 25 'likes' to get a cusomized url for the facebook page. If you would be so kind as to visit

 http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Camping-Machine/239772126061787

and click 'like' I woudl apprecaite it very much.

 See you down the road! 

I found myself in North Dakota looking for some additional farmland to purchase. It happened the Realtor I was working with had her office in the town of Steele. Steele happens to be the county seat of Kidder County, and I happened to take a photograph of the Kidder County Courthouse.

 Kidder County is located in North Dakota. The county seat is Steele, located on I-94 about an hour east of Bismarck. As of 2000, the population was about 2,753. 

Lots of great work on display at the 2010 Utah Arts Festival in downtown Salt Lake City. I have added several artists links on the LINKS page of this site. Scroll down on the right side and you will come to a section of links to various artists.  Take a look at some of them, there is truly some unique imagery on these web pages.

Above is a photo of the Uintah County Courthouse, located in Vernal, Utah. To see more images of county courthouses please visit the Seats of Power page. 

I've been someplace you have never been to, and probably never will.  The reason you will never go there is not because it isn't a scenic place, because it is. It won't be because it isn't accessible, because it is. And it won't be because you can't find it, because it is clearly marked on an map of the area. No, the reason you won't go there is because you've never heard of it.

And that's a shame, because it is certainly worth your time.

The place is Antelope Island, Utah. It sits in the middle of the Great Salt Lake.  You access it via Antelope Island State Park, and it is well worth a visit. We were there in Mid-April of 2010 on a fine sunny day. Despite having been in the area several times, this was our first visit to the island.

You may have heard of the Great Salt Lake, the largest lake in the Western United States and the largest saltwater lake in the Western Hemisphere. Antelope Island is the largest Island in the Great Salt Lake. The Island is home to several species of animals, including mule deer, pronghorn antelope, coyotes, bobcats, badgers, porcupines, jackrabbits and several species of rodents.

Not to mention a large herd of Bison.

Yes, there are over 500 Bison on Antelope Island. In fact there may be more Bison on Antelope Island than there are Antelope. I don't think anyone knows for sure.  What is for sure is that you are reasonably likely to see one if you visit the island, and you probably won't have to look very hard.  This one was only 20 feet off the main road.

Other than the occasional Bison, the best reason to visit Antelope Island is for the views of the Great Salt Lake and surrounding area. According to Wikipedia, the Great Salt Lake is the fourth-largest terminal lake in the world, the 37th-largest lake on Earth. In an average year the lake covers an nearly 1,700 square miles, but it's size fluctuates significantly due because it is so shallow. For example, in 1963 it reached its lowest recorded level at 950 square miles (2,460 km²), but in 1987 the surface area was at the historic high of 3,300 square miles.

 

From Antelope Island you can see the majesty of the Wasatch Mountains. The snow-capped peaks will have snow though June. The development you see at the base of the mountains are some of the northern bedroom communities of Salt Lake City - Layton, Roy, Clearfield, Syracuse, to name a few.

 It has been said that you can float in the Great Salt Lake due to the high salinitiy. In fact, if you are light enough and walk carefully, you can actually walk on the water of the Great Salt Lake.

 

Well, I wouldn't say that definitively, but in some cases it seems like it would be possible.

Should you ever find yourself travelling along I-15 in northern Utah and see a sign for Antelope Island, do your self a favor and take the short side trip to Antelope Island State Park in the Great Salt Lake. Not only will you enjoy your stay, but they you too will be able to say, I've been to a place you've never been to - and in virtually every conversation you will have, that statement will be correct.

 

Snow was falling when we woke up Sunday morning, Light, fluffy flakes, drifting gently to the ground. We haven't had much snow this year, so we were excited to see it. Not to mention the fact that we had planned to go skiing at Alta.

 

It is a short drive from our house to the Alta Ski resort, and we were early enough to secure a prime parking spot, backed in toward the mountain and close to the lodge. We went inside, had some hot chocolate, geared up and headed out for First Chair. There's nothing like First Chair, with the sun cresting over the mountain, backlighting the fragile flakes drifting slowly over the trees and toward the runs below. The anticipation of the first run as you ride up is topped only by the actual first run itself, which today was in untracked, knee-deep powder.

 

It absolutely lived up to expectations. The boys, my wife and I had a fantastic morning skiing the Greatest Snow on Earth at Alta. There was no worry about finding untracked snow. Having had passes for several years, we know some out-of-the-way places where untracked powder awaits locals only.

 

After the first four runs or so the lift lines grew very short, and most people who planned to ski this day made it a point to arrive early. When you can ski a run of untracked powder and ski right on to a waiting chair to do it again - well, that is a good day.  

 

And that's what we had today - A totally awesome, spectacular, powderhound ski day. Don't you wish you lived in Utah?   

Over the course of my travels I have photograped county courthouses when I have had the opportunity.  It is interesting to me to see the different buildings which represent and house the government of a specific county.

Some of the buildings I hae seen have charm and character, others are very utilitarian. Some have fascinating histories and legends, others are simply there. At this time I have photos of about 12 county courthouses in four states. 

I will put new ones up on the Seats of Power page on this website every so often. If you have an interest in county courthouses, please bookmark that page and visit it every so often.  If you have comments or stories to share about a county courthouse in your city, drop me a line at campingmachineguy@gmail.com.

In the Spring of 1987 I was a 26 year old TV News Cameraman in Great Falls, Montana.  If there was a local news story on the KFBB, Channel 5 local newscast, I shot it. One day in April we had a cold spell and a bit of a snowstorm, not an uncommon occurrence at that time of year in that part of the country. The day being rather slow for news, as most days were in Great Falls, I made my way to the banks of the Missouri River and took some video footage of the river as new ice formed.  It was beautiful, in its own monochromatic way.  Back at the station I cut the footage to music, and the piece ran at the close of the 5:30 and 10:00 PM newscasts. To see the movement of the semi-frozen Missouri river as it was over 20 years ago, go to the Multimedia page of this website and look for the YouTube video on the right side of the page.

In the town I live in there is a Holiday Tradition called the Festival of Trees.  It is a fundraiser for the local Children's hospital, and it has, over the years, become a much anticipated event in the community.Local businesses and individuals decorate and donate Christmas trees, which are sold at the event with all the funds raised going to the Chldren's hospital.

A few evenings ago our family went to the Festival of Trees, and while we did not purchase a tree, we spend a wonderful hour or so strolling among all the beauriffuly decorated trees. I could say a lot more about this wonderful event, but this it the type of post where a picture truly is worth a thousand words.

Enjoy the sights of the Festival of Trees. 

 

 

 

 

 

Confluence – defined as ‘a flowing together of two or more streams, rivers, or the like.’

Therefore the Confluence of the Missouri and Yellowstone rivers is where the two rivers flow together. I have been there, and you have not.

The confluence of the Missouri and Yellowstone rivers was first reached by the Lewis and Clark expedition in the Spring of 1805. After having spent the winter with the Mandan’s the Corps of Discovery was anxious to get underway.  They followed the Missouri on their way to the Columbia, not knowing at the time they would use the confluence of the Missouri and Yellowstone as a rendezvous a year later. 

What I do know, that you did not until you read this, is that there is a very nice interpretive center on the shore of the Missouri where the two rivers come together.  It is small, well-maintained and visited by very few people.  In fact I have been there twice. On one occasion I was the only visitor there, on the other I was one of three.

 

The most interesting about the site from my perspective is how the rivers have changed course over the 200 years since Lewis and Clark passed through the area.  There in an interpretive sign outside of the structure which shows where the banks of the river where when the expedition came through the area. This is the only way to try to visualize what the men actually saw as they made their key decision.

The only disappointment I had with the confluence center is that it is difficult to get an overview of the confluence itself. As you can see from this photo, it’s hard to see the actual joining of the waters.  It would be nice to have a tower or lookout created where a person could have a better, more complete view of this historic confluence.

But that is not the case. Perhaps it is better this way after all.  It isn’t today what it was 200 years ago, so you wouldn’t see what the captains saw when they first came to this site.  Like the captains themselves, the confluence of their day is no more.

So though I have been there, I arrived too late to the site the way the captains saw it.  But at least I have been there.  Add as we now both know, that puts me ahead of you, for I have been there and you have not. GPS Coordinates are 47.58.37.27 N 103.58.51.90 W.

It is a sad day today, Saturday November 7th.  As you can see in the photo below, there is The Camping Machine, parked on the RV pad next to our home.

Why should this be sad, you ask? Well, consider the photo below, taken only 20 minutes after the first one...

 

Yes, it is sad when you realize there are no more camping trips to be taken this year.  

Sleep well, my trusty camper.  Come next spring, you will need all of your energy - we have some fun adventures planned! 

You think it will never happen to you.  Halloween comes, Halloween goes, and year after year you take your kids trick-or-treating.  You never see a real witch, a real ghost, or a real Zombie.  At the end of the evening, you come home, your kids change out of their costumes and what do you know?  They are still ordinary kids. Not this year, not for me.  This year my son has turned into a real Zombie.  Don't believe me?  Check out the video on the Multimedia page!!

Phase two of our California Camping adventure continued with a visit to LegoLand. 

With The Camping Machine safely ensconced in spot 80 of the Mission Bay RV Park, we headed to the theme park built solely to sell billions of tiny colored plastic building blocks.

Before my lovely wife booked this week-long southern California adventure I had no idea there was such a thing as LegoLand. Disneyland, sure.  LegoLand?  Is this a joke?

 
Apparently not.  

I remember building with Lego blocks as a kid.  You could make walls with them.  Red walls, yellow walls, blue walls, white walls.  That was about it.  Oh, sure, there were some specialty parts, but basically what I did with my Lego's was to build little walls for my small green plastic army men to hide behind, so I could shoot at them with rubber bands.  The idea there might be a whole Theme Park built around Lego's was as foreign an idea to me as, well, putting a man on the moon.

Oh, wait.  They did that in 1969, right when I was playing with my Lego's.

As we walked in I had no idea what to expect.  It didn’t take long to figure out what was what.  The entire place is predicated on creating an environment conducive to selling Lego toy sets. 

And let me tell you, if you thought Lego’s were just those square blue and red bricks with four, six or eight little bumps on top, you are so 1960’s.  Just like I was.  Um, actually, just like I still am.

Today you can build almost anything out of Lego's.  For example, you can build a Salty Old Sea Captain, complete with spyglass.  And when you have your kid stand next to him, why it's almost impossible to tell which is the real person and which is the guy made out of Lego's.  In fact, I almost bought the Sea Capitan some Cotton Candy before I realized I left my son back at the pedestal. Of course, the person who built this has a few more pieces in his set than you or I do, um, did back when we were building with Lego's.

The more time I spent in LegoLand, the more I wished it was time to go home.  OW!  Just kidding, dear.  No, really, I'm having a great time.  What I meant to say was the more time I spent in LegoLand the more I realized just how much skill and talent the fine LegoLand craftsmen and craftswomen must have to build these fabulous creations.

Why, take this example of Fine Art.  Here is a realistic sculpture of a Great White Shark eating my son whole.  When I first saw this shark I thought I was back at Sea World - then I realized I was just having a savage flashback, due in large part to the drugs I was taking to get me through this week's ordeal of seeing how many southern California theme parks we could visit in a week.  Once my flashback was over, it was clear that my son had finally pushed his mother too far and she fed him to the monsters of the deep for not eating his vegetables at dinner the night before.  I believe her exact words were, "Either you eat your vegetables, young man, or I'll find something that will eat you."  It seemed perfectly reasonable at the time.  I'll bet my son will eat his vegetables tonight.

 

You might think that given the right amount of specially shaped Lego's, you could build a shark big enough to swallow you whole. Actually, let me rephrase that.  There is no way you, I or any other normal person could build a shark big enough to swallow you whole completely out of Lego's. You have to be some sort of Lego Savant to do this.  I may be a Savant, but it's more the Idiot type.  How else do you explain me agreeing to this adventure?

I read in the news recently that SpongeBob SquarePants is now 10 Years old and worth several Billion dollars.  Do you think Lego is going to let that go by without creating a whole set of SpongeBob Lego's?  No way

.
For the record, my kids love SpongeBob.  What's not to like? I guess I would prefer he remain a cartoon character and not have to become a LEGO  toy.  On the ohter hand, if I had invented SpongeBob, you'd better believe I would license his likeness to anything and everything I possibly could. In addition to SpongeBob, there are all kinds of Star Wars Lego Sets, Lego Indiana Jones sets, Lego Space Police and Lego Bionicle play sets, among many others.

.
.But LegoLand wouldn’t be able to draw kids in sufficient numbers to buy the toy sets if there weren’t theme park rides to be ridden.  No, the roller coaster is not made out of Lego blocks – something tells me that wouldn’t work out to well. 

 

So of course there are rides scattered about so the kids can go from one Lego-themed display to another, and along the way hop on a roller coaster, drive a car, or ride a horse like a medieval knight.

But that maks me sound cynical and jaded, which of course I am not in the least bit.  Really.  

When it’s all said and done, thought, Lego-Land is a good time if you are a kid.  After all, that's the reason we are here in the first place.  At least LegoLand makes no apologies for being so commercail.  If you were to come here and expect anything less than a full-on sales blitz to sell Lego sets, you've have to be on better drugs than I was when we were there.  I work in Advertising, so to me this was simply a well executed campaign.  And from my professional perspective, it is executed very well.  It's all about the Lego blocks, Moms and Dads, and the sooner you understand that the better off you will be.  Don't fight it, give in to the urge.  Buy some blocks and watch your kids have a good time.

And yes, we succumbed to the incessant beseeching of our two boys and bought them Lego sets to take home. So I am drinking the same Kool-Aid I am exhorting you to take.  Repeat after me - LegoLand is Fun.  LegoLand is fun.  LegoLand is fun.....