I have been the lone male in a family of women long enough to know that my idea of a perfect camping trip is not quite the same as theirs.

We picked our campsite on the bank of Slough Creek, no more than 10 feet from the water, started the campfire, tied up the dogs, and listened to the rumble of snowmelt coming downriver from the Beartooths. This was getting close to perfect, camped in the wilds of Yellowstone, in the middle of bear country;

- big bear country, Griz.

My daughters said long and heartful 'I hope you don't get eaten' goodbyes to the dogs and headed with the wife to the wilds of the Alpine, motel in Cooke City, which gets to my point about our differing visions of a perfect camping trip.

My wife and I agreed that if me and the dogs survived the night (her words) I could walk over to the Lamar Valley road in the morning and head north, scanning the valley and hillsides for wildlife as I walked. They would get up early and come south from the motel and our paths would cross.

I have to admit that I was surprised the first morning when I had barely walked 40 minutes and my wife's truck bounced around the bend. The next morning I got up earlier and hurried so that me and the border collies could at least walk a mile before being picked up. At 11am and seven miles up the road, the white Dodge cleared a rise in the valley. They had decided to sleep in a little later, being on a camping vacation and all.

Now I don't want to be bragging about this old guy having enough left after walking those seven miles to two step at the Cowboy Bar until the band quit and the lights came on. But just like the sound of a free flowing river or the wind blowing in the pines, I damn sure love the sound of a country fiddle.

And there it is, pretty close to a perfect camping trip:

Waking at dawn on the bank of a river in the land of grizzly and wolves, showing my border collies wild buffalo passing by on a walk north through the Lamar valley, then two stepping to fiddle music until the early hours of the next morning, with the best two-step partner north of Texas.

Amen.