September 19, 2017
We got up early and headed toward Montana. I noticed these huge wooden fences in spots along Interstate 90. Does anyone know what they are? They are easily 10 feet or higher and made completely of wood. Several of them appeared to have mile markers attached to them. Weird, we thought perhaps it has something to do with snow just not sure how. They are placed quite a ways from the actual interstate—a football field away or so.
The drive was uneventful except for the winds. We checked the Montana Travel and Weather webpage and learned that the winds will build up to 30 mph through tomorrow. We pushed as long as we could, I use “we” loosely. Actually all the driving falls on poor Joe. Make no mistake, hauling a 31′ camper behind a 2500 Ram with a 700 pound motorcycle in the 10 foot bed, is stressful. Joe is exhausted every time we stop–losing those two tires have made us a bit paranoid of a blow out while driving. Plus that wind is wicked! We got as far as Billings, Montana and decided to stop.
Our site is gravel and level, we miss grass (so does Apache) BUT were thankful we didn’t have to wrestle the camper to make it level. We decided to stay two nights as Thursday looks like a much safer day to travel. The main complaint with the site is that it’s too thin. Do you see that small area to the left of our camper? Another camper is supposed to fit in there and the way the hookups are placed, if another camper comes in, our doors & outdoor area would be facing each other. Yuck. There are several available sites here so let’s just hope no one has to pull in beside us.
This campground is pleasantly shaded with many large trees. They have a very nice “dog run” at the end allowing Apache to run without a leash. The wifi is decent and we are parked right in front of the shower house and beside the dumpster. There was a time I didn’t want to be beside either but experience has taught me that if we’re close by, we use their facilities more than ours. Dumping our waste still freaks me out.
I worked a bit while Joe napped and recovered from the drive then we headed for dinner. Billings has a cute little town and we got a bit turned around while looking for parking near a steakhouse suggested by the campground. Joe spotted the Parking Garage and took off straight down a One Way street while going the WRONG WAY. My gasp informed him and he hit the pedal to get in the garage before another vehicle came along. As soon as we got through the entrance we read the sign informing us that Joe’s truck will not fit overhead. Well, specifically, his motorcycle loaded on the back of his truck won’t fit. Of course, two cars had pulled in behind us so we were stuck. The guy immediately behind us jumped out of his car and into the truck bed, he lifted the overhanging sign which allowed Joe to pull forward into a parking spot–nice guy! We decided to worry about our predicament after dinner. We enjoyed our meal and managed to sweet talk the attendant to lift the gate and allow us to back out, with a promise not to do it again. This time I jumped in the back to lift the sign and we were off. We didn’t even have to pay for parking–lol.
Camp Pack 