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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 made it to Livingston and then onto the Interstate 90 Highway headed west. Our destination for the moment was the small city of Bozeman (pop 38,000)

6:30am Tuesday morning.

Once the sun came over the hills it was really pretty.

On the Interstate 90.

Love the mountains.

We pulled into the Walmart. Actually one of the nicer Walmart parking lots. Trees, and parking that could space you out between other RV's who may also spend the night. And a view of the mountains. Of course the downside is that it's right beside the Interstate highway. There were about 12 or 15 RV's who had overnighted there.

But the pavement in the parking area was not in the best shape. In fact, the one lane we pulled down had some obvious huge potholes. One pothole they had even put two orange traffic cones in to warn people. There was some water flowing down the lane as well, and of course the potholes were filled with water.

I was only crawling to begin with, but I still hit a pothole with the left rear. It must have dropped a foot! We got parked up, and Ruth made us some hot drinks. She opened the fridge door to get the milk, and crash! A big container of leftover soup came down and hit the floor. Chicken soup everywhere!

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And they certainly did when I hit that pothole.

What a mess. But there is no sense crying over spilled soup.

We knew there was a free dump station across the street from the Walmart so we took advantage of that knowledge to have showers before going into the Walmart. We would estimate that maybe 30% of people in this particular Walmart were wearing masks of some kind, however all of the staff were.

Got our stocking up done, and then went across the street, emptied the holding tanks and filled the fresh water tank.

Next up was fuel. We found the second cheapest (the cheapest was a Costco and we are not members) gas station in town at $1.84 USD per gallon ($0.65 CAD per liter) and put in 50 gallons (189 liters).

So now with empty holding tanks, full fresh water tank, full fuel tank, and a full refrigerator, Sherman was a happy camper.

We stopped for lunch at a nearby park, and we got an email from Bob and Denise saying that our planned overnight spot wasn't going to work out. They had driven down to Hyalite Reservoir and the free overnight spots were all taken. It's a popular area and the forest service campgrounds are $20 USD ($27 CAD) per night and they didn't have many empty spots. We decided to go with plan B, which was a free forest service campground up in the mountains 20 miles (32 kms) north of Bozeman on highway 86.

In Bozeman, many of the big electrical boxes have beautiful wraps on them.

Leaving Bozeman on the 86 north.

It was a beautiful drive.

We got parked up across from Bob and Denise and got ourselves settled. Then the four of us went for a short 3 mile (5 km) hike in the area.

We saved the long hike for this morning! Today, we are setting off on a trail that is 15 miles (24 kms) roundtrip. We aren't planning to do the whole thing though.

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