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.