Nice quiet spot by the lake

The sun comes up at about 5:20am in this part of the world right now, so we like to get up early and do some driving. There is hardly anybody on the road, and there's very little wind, if any at all.

So Wednesday morning, we were on the road by about 6:15am and headed further east. The only problem with getting up at that hour and heading east is that the sun is shining right in your eyes!

Nice visit to Devil's Tower, Wyoming

Woke up Tuesday to a windy morning in Moorcroft, Wyoming. It looked like we were going to have a heavy crosswind for our drive up to Devil's Tower, but once we got on the road we were pleasantly surprised to find that we had a nice tailwind helping us along.

Devil's Tower is located kind of in the middle of nowhere. Arriving at the entrance, we found ourselves in tourist land. A big KOA campground on one side, and a tourist trinket shop on the other side.

We found a local park with a big tree...

The eastern part of Wyoming (and Montana for that matter) is not very exciting. The mountain scenery that we so enjoyed for the month of June is gone.

And so it wasn't a very photogenic day yesterday as we made our way further east towards South Dakota.

More beautiful Wyoming scenery, and some nice bike paths...

We were on the road at 6:30am Sunday morning in order to do the steep climb into Bighorn National Forest. At that hour, temperatures are much lower and Sherman would have less risk of overheating.

In fact, now that we've done it I have little doubt that we would NOT have made it had we tried to do it on Saturday afternoon. Sherman had to work hard for a solid 8 miles (13 kms) while he climbed another 3,000'and there was very little opportunity to pull over and let him rest.

Well, that was a pretty good day!

We set off at about 10:00am Saturday morning. Used the nice clean dump station at the free Lovell municipal campground before we left and filled our fresh water tank with the available potable water.

Thanks Lovell!

And then we headed up to the Bighorn Canyon National Recreation Area. I had never heard of this place before, which is kind of surprising. When you see the photos, you'll understand why we are surprised that it's not more popular.

Happy 4th of July!

We wandered over to the local grocery store here in Lovell, Wyoming to pick up a few things. Things are typically a bit more expensive at these independent stores, but they have sales too, so you never know what you're going to find.

First stop in the produce aisle, we saw iceberg lettuce at $1.69 USD ($2.29 CAD). A bit pricey, but you have to eat! We hummed and hawed between that and the romaine, but eventually grabbed an iceberg.

The strange people you meet in a laundromat

So I was looking at the map the other day, planning our route east. I saw that Lovell, Wyoming has a free campground in town with a 3 day stay limit and I figured that might be a good spot to ride out the American 4th of July long weekend.

With that in mind, I started to look for things to do in the area. We had been through these parts back in April of 2016 but we were on a mission at the time and so we didn't stop to see anything along the way. This time, we are in no real rush.

Red Lodge, Montana is a nice little town

We woke up on the ridge above the town and the forecast was for mostly sunny skies with a high around 70F (21C). So we decided to stay one more day in the area around Red Lodge, Montana.

We were doing some internet work first thing, and I got a text message from Telcel (we still have a Mexico SIM card in our phone) saying that our data had run out, and so had our balance. I'm usually pretty good at keeping an eye on it and recharging it the day before it runs out... but I missed it this time. And normally a screen comes up asking how you want to recharge, but this time I couldn't get it to do that.

June Expenses

Well, it was a pretty good month other than the fact that Sherman needed a water pump and a battery at the beginning of the month. That's 3 expensive months in a row, averaging $2,845 CAD per month. Good thing the first 3 months of the year were fairly reasonable while we were in Mexico. (They averaged $1,715 per month.)

We spent a total of $2,785 CAD ($2,047 USD) for the month of June.

Blizzard at the end of June

Well, yesterday was officially the day we begin the trek east to Ontario. And did we ever start it off with a bang! We knew the scenery heading east through the northern part of Yellowstone park would be spectacular, but the weather forecast was far from great.

It turned out that overall it was a little better than expected... until we got to the top of the Beartooth Pass where we encountered near blizzard conditions!

Lots of wildlife around Gardiner, MT

We spent the morning waiting for the rain to let up. Fortunately, we have a fast free WiFi connection from where we are parked opposite the Gardiner Library. We used some of that time to do a bit of research on our upcoming drive across Wyoming, South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan during the month of July.

Then, I spent 45 minutes on hold waiting for a live person at Saskatchewan Government Insurance. When I got connected, I was number 43 in the queue. Usually, they are really fast so I don't know what happened yesterday. I renewed the motorhome for another month.

I also tried to fix our oven. That didn't go so well.

Bought some more flight tickets!

Back in April, we were scheduled to fly with Delta Airlines from Kansas City to Ottawa. Of course that flight was cancelled by Delta, and eventually Delta gave us a total refund when the U.S. Department of Transportation Aviation Consumer Protection Division mandated that they had no choice in the matter.

Unfortunately, not the same story here in Canada where the government stands behind big business instead of the consumer.

We also had purchased Westjet tickets for our daughter and grandchildren to come visit us at Cabri Park at the beginning of June.

Looks like we're in for some bad weather

The main reason that we are heading south east instead of directly east is because we wanted to drive the Beartooth Highway. It's supposed to be one of the most scenic drives in the Unites States. It only opened on June 1st and we thought about doing it back then, but the weather was not great at the time.

Well it turns out that the weather might be even worse now!

You can actually rent this fire tower...

On Friday, we drove down from Whitefish down to Seeley Lake. A scenic drive, but a little too much traffic at times for our liking. Even though Montana has a low population for the size of the state, it's all very concentrated and if you're in one of the busy areas it can seem quite populated!

We're headed southeast now, back to Yellowstone Park. The eastern part of Montana is not as scenic to us, so we're going back to Yellowstone to head east through the park and exit on the Beartooth Highway.

This is why we came to Montana!

We woke up to blue skies and sunshine and it was forecast to stay that way all day.

There are a ton of great hiking trails in Glacier National Park. We wanted to do one that was away from the crowds and offered spectacular views. Hard to find one like that because the really good hikes are often also very crowded. And some are not even accessible for use yet. Ruth did some research and came across the Scalplock Mountain Lookout Trail.

Our first visit to Glacier National Park

One of our favorite Canadian National Park is Waterton Lakes National Park in Alberta. It borders Montana and actually is part of the Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park which is the union of Waterton Lakes National Park in Canada and Glacier National Park in the United States.

So it stands to reason that we would like Glacier as much as Waterton.

Even in town, you have to slow down for the deer

We left our spot near the Canadian border, and headed down to the town of Eureka (pop 1,100) where we wandered around a little outdoor museum and used a free dump station and filled our fresh water holding tank.

From there, we drove southeast on highway 93 towards Whitefish. Along the way were some National Forest Campgrounds. And also a lot of National Forest service roads, but it was tough to find somewhere to stay for the night without knowing for sure how far in there might be a suitable spot.

We had a great day... until right at the end...

Woke up to blue sky and sunshine. What a treat compared to the overcast on again off again rain that we've been having for the last week or more. Blue sky always makes photos turn out so much better, as you will see below!

There were only two other RVs parked in our area, and one of them had a small generator running on Sunday evening until about 8pm, but it was pretty quiet. Could hardly hear it when we closed the window on that side.

Camped only 3 miles from Canada

Pouring rain Sunday morning in Libby, Montana. When it finally let up around 10:00am, we said goodbye to Bob and Denise again. But we will probably see them in August or September in Ontario!

We went for a walk around "dowtown" Libby just to stretch our legs before driving to our next spot. Not much to see in downtown, but then again it was a Sunday so things were pretty quiet.

First day of summer!

Yesterday was the first day of summer. I remember when that used to mean a lot, but not so much any more. It used to be that summer holidays were coming up, and you could pretty much bet on shorts and t-shirts weather.

But now, we do our utmost to stay year round in climates where it is shorts and t-shirts weather! So the only thing that means much to us about the first day of summer now is that the days are so long in this part of the world.

You are in bear country!

We had a really nice day yesterday at our almost perfect campsite. Around 10:00am we set off on a hike through the forest, despite the fact that there were some ominous looking clouds. But hey, the weather forecast called for ZERO percent chance of rain, so who are we to argue with the experts?

At the trailhead, there are lots of signs warning about bear activity. We have experience hiking in bear country and so we were well prepared with both air horn and bear spray.

What is your perfect campsite?

Yesterday, I mentioned that unless we find a great overnight spot that ticks all the boxes, we'll be moving a little bit every day. Well, it ended up that we pretty much ticked all the boxes with our spot last night!

We realize that our overnight choices are not what everyone prefers, and it's a good thing. If everybody liked what we like, we'd have a tough time finding these sorts of places! But then it got us wondering... what is your "perfect" campsite?

Back to the boondocks

The word "boondocks" means rough, remote, isolated countryside. And the phrase "out in the boonies" came from the original word boondocks. And so the word "boondocking" came to mean RV camping out in the middle of nowhere.

Yesterday, after three nights spent in the small city of Missoula, we were due for some rough, remote, isolated countryside!

3 Days in Missoula, but it's time to move on...

Well, it's been a cheap 3 days in the city of Missoula, Montana but we really didn't want to stay here this long. The weather is still overcast with showers, although it looks like that will finally be clearing up tomorrow.

We are moving on today one way or the other. We filled up with cheapest ever propane at $0.99 a gallon. Sherman has a big 20 gallon propane tank, but it's a shame we only needed 11 gallons to top it up!

Brand new and it's already junk

We didn't originally plan on staying in Missoula this long, but the weather is not the best. Overcast and with a 50% chance of rain all day, it's tough to plan a couple of hours of outdoor activity. And it's now supposed to be like this through Thursday!

But, we got lucky yesterday late morning when we took the bikes off to go for a ride. We were out for about an hour and a half and did about 10 miles (16 kms) and it was only when we got back to the motorhome that it started spitting with rain.

Researching European motorhomes

We left our free camping spot in the hills early again, doing our driving right when we got up. We didn't really encounter any wind to speak of, which is what we've been trying to avoid. However, we did get some rain.

We haven't had many rain days since we arrived in the United States in early April. And in fact, yesterday wasn't really too bad either, but it was a mixed bag, and so once we arrived in Missoula it became a bit of a lazy day.

Odd art around Lincoln, Montana

We headed out from the city of Great Falls before the wind picked up. We were on the road at 8:30am. Nice drive through rolling hills, but not much vegetation... and not many vehicles either!

We made it to the town of Lincoln (pop 1,100) where we stopped at the Forest Service office where there was a grizzly bear display, but unfortunately it was closed.

Bike ride in Great Falls, Montana

We left our overnight spot in the Lewis and Clark National Forest at 6:30am. It's now light out by 5:30am, so we like to get our driving done while there is no wind and hardly anybody on the roads.

From the time we got on the highway, it was downhill pretty much the whole way. In fact, there was one section where I didn't touch the gas pedal for over 20 miles (33 kms)! Amazing. Sure, at one point we were down to 35 mph, but with nobody on the roads there was no need to speed up.

A visit to "the castle"...

We said goodbye to Bob and Denise at 7:30am, but we will likely see them again over the next couple of weeks. We headed over to the library to do some more free internet and then drove up to "the castle"...

There are a couple of interesting attractions in the town of White Sulphur Springs (population around 1,000). One of course is the hot springs themselves that are part of a small motel complex. You don't have to be a guest to use the springs... they cost $7 USD for a soak.

What footprint is this?

We set out with Bob and Denise at 8:30am yesterday morning. The trail we were doing is actually 15 miles (24 kms) round trip, and I don't think we were quite that ambitious but we didn't have an actual plan.

The skies were mixed, with a little bit of sunshine coming and going but the temperature was nice for hiking at around 60F (15C).

Everything You Need To Know Before Your First Backpacking Trip

Everyone loves to travel around the world from time to time. However, you mostly don’t like to move around with a lot of luggage. Your best solution is a backpack. If it is your first backpacking trip, you’re probably wondering how to go about it. Worry no more; you’re in the right place.

Before you leave for your trip, here are a few tips on the things you must know if you are a first-time backpacker.

Warning. Contents may have shifted.

Tuesday morning, we left Gardiner at about 6:15am. We were surprised at the number of people up and about at that hour, but of course it gets light out so early right now.

Most of the traffic was heading in the opposite direction though. Hardly any cars in our lane going north.

We hung around Gardiner

Which turned out to be not a bad thing. We kind of like the town and the area. Reminds us a little bit of Dawson City, Yukon!

But, had we known that the weather wasn't going to be nearly as bad as they forecast, we probably would have done things differently. Oh well!

So far, they have been totally wrong

We knew they had been forecasting this stretch of bad weather, with Monday (today) being the worst of it. But we woke up this morning expecting to see a dusting of snow on the ground... or at least some rain. But nothing. No precipitation at all so far.

We made a point of going out for a long hike yesterday because we kind of figured we would be stuck inside all day today. But that may not be the case now. We'll see.

Drive through Yellowstone National Park

Once again, we got up early and started driving right away. There's some bad weather coming this way, and we wanted to get into Montana. Our route would take us right through Yellowstone National Park, and all of the campgrounds in the park are still closed.

And, it was a bit of a drive with lots to see along the way. In fact, we took almost 125 pictures. I whittled them down to about 50, so prepare yourself for quite a few photos in this blog post!

Camped with a view?

We were on the road by 6:30am on Friday morning. We're not having any problem getting up early now that we're approaching the longest day of the year. Even now, the sun doesn't set until after 9:00pm, and it is light again by 5:30am!

And, it looked like another nice day although once again they were calling for the winds to pick up after lunch.

Camped beside the river

We got all our driving done in the morning, well before the afternoon winds picked up. Sooo much nicer driving when it's calm. Stopped in Pinedale to have breakfast and use the internet, then headed a bit further north.

We pulled in to the Warren Bridge BLM area. There are nine different free camping locations spread along the Green River over a distance of about 8 miles (13 kms).

Back on the road

We got a bit of a late start Wednesday morning. We had left the mechanic shop before they opened and headed to Walmart to do a bit of stocking up. When we left there, Sherman's volt meter was reading low. I figured maybe there was a bad connection related to what the mechanic had done since they had the alternator removed as part of the job changing the water pump.

So we headed back to the mechanic shop.

Motorhome repair and maintenance costs... and Sherman's future

We are back on the road this morning after spending another $798 USD ($1076 CAD) on repairs, this time to Sherman's water pump. But, we not only got a new water pump, we also got a new fan clutch, a new serpentine belt and a new thermostat. The labor and the parts were split pretty much half and half.

Rock Springs Auto Repair looked after us really well, They gave us an accurate estimate before starting the job, they ordered the parts right away, and they got to the job as soon as the parts showed up. They were also very fair on the labor costs, charging a total of 2.5 hours when I know the guy spent close to 4. I would not hesitate to recommend these guys if you need something done while in the area.