8-23-17 - (Day 23 - East Glacier Park Village)

                                                             on a hill along hwy 2

When we got home from our Alaska trip in 2012, we thought we could convert our Canadian money at our bank in Bogalusa.  We could have, but it would cost a huge fee, so we decided to hang on to it.  It paid off at Shopko this morning.  It was like going shopping for free.

We ate the $6.00 dollar hot breakfast buffet at the Best Western Inn adjacent to the campground.  We got our money's worth and hit the road.

We rode 72 miles to East Glacier Park Village and are staying at Y Lazy R RV Park.  Amber has been cooped up for several days and was ready to ride. We rode about 4 hours and are back at camp after touching just a little bit of Glacier National Park and the outskirts.  We ate Mountain Blackberry ice cream sitting on a log at Two Medicine Lake, watching an Osprey dive for fish.   The closer we got to St. Mary the more smoke we saw from the forest fires.

                                                             Two Medicine CG

The last hour of the ride was windy.  It was a little annoying, but with the beautiful skies and the beautiful scenery, it was still enjoyable.

Some pictures click here:

8-22-17 (Day 22 - Shelby, Montana)

It was a nice, cool night for boondocking last night.  We took a stroll around the campground this morning, took a few pictures, then realized that we usually do this when we arrive the night before. We were so exhausted when we got here yesterday, that we just parked, ate, drank, and went to sleep.  I would have said went to bed, but I fell asleep when I sat in the recliner.  At noon yesterday, it was dark, then 6 hours later we were zombies.  I think it must have been an eclipse hangover..

We drove 98 miles through the country, watching combines,  hay baling,  a few pronghorns, and a lot of nothing. A very relaxing ride, until Ferny Kat was not a happy cat for the last few miles.

We are camped at Trails West RV Park in Shelby, Montana.  It is a great place for a clean up before we  head toward Glacier National Park.  They have the best laundry facilities, a great shower, and green grass at the campsite for Ferny Kat to eat.  Everyone is happy.

I hadn't multi tasked in a while, but it was on as soon as the camper was parked.  I "wershed" clothes, took a bath in the camper and took a shower at the bathhouse, (yes both back to back). I also cleaned the camper bathroom and kitchen.  All of this in just a few hours.  Whew!!

We took the truck to town for a bath, then walked to Shopko from the campground.  I was again in high gear when I saw all the clearance sales.  I went back, to get some more bargains while Lauren relaxed at the camper.

We had a delicious BLT and cucumbers for supper tonight.  We are in for the night with Ferny Kat giving her approval of one of my clearance bargains  that I bought at Shopko.   After our playtime tonight, she is snoring in Her box!!  Being Ferny Kat has claimed my storage box, I guess I will be going back tomorrow morning to buy me another one.

More pics here:

8-21-17 ( An 85% Eclipse of the Sun)

We have thoroughly enjoyed our stay at Fort Peck Lake.  Yesterday, we pondered, should we stay or should we go?  We really enjoyed the Interpretive Center, got a lot of great info there, found out they were having an eclipse viewing, which by the way, we weren't interested in when we left home.

Sue, the specialist/manager has been very informative.  Any question we asked, she answered. If she didn't know, she researched.  It was a good place to be to view the eclipse. There were chairs and a canopy set up.  The center provided glasses.  When the eclipse was near it's peak, it got darker, cooler, and the Pelicans flew over to roost. It was a great crowd of people to watch the 85% totality.  As much as we loved this area, it was time to travel on.

We stopped at a busy Walmart in Havre, Montana.  The Walmart's in Montana are few and far between, compared to the South.  We were tired and were going to spend the night in the parking lot, but it was busy and noisy. We decided to move a little further and find a quieter place.

We are tired after only 204 miles of travel, boondocking at Fresno Reservoir, which is located a few miles out of Havre, Montana.   It is a quiet, pretty area.  There is one other camper here, but we haven't seen anybody there. We have another cool spot with a great view of the lake, for another whopping fee, (free)!!  You can't beat this.

Da Pics are here:

8-20-16 - (Day 20 - Another day of almost nothing)

                                                              Good Morning

I, believe it or not, woke up, wandered around the campground, kinda cold in my flip flops and shorts, got some pictures of the sunrise and went back in.   I got a good talking to by Ferny Kat cause I didn't feed her first.  Ferny got fed, Lauren was still in the bed.  Next thing you know, we all woke up about 8 am.

After our long hot shower, we were still wondering, should we stay or should we go. We watched 5 bucks across the way go in the brush. Unbelievable.

We  took a tour on Amber to check out boondocking sites.  The one we wanted was occupied.  We again pondered, should we stay or should we go.??????  It was a stay.  We traveled 9 miles to Flat Lake.  It is another great waterfront campsite at Fort Peck Lake with a covered picnic table, great views, and it's totally free!!

We watched geese, ospreys, golden eagles, and beavers.  As we were watching another beautiful sunset a momma deer and her triplets came out.  It is so peaceful here.


Pictures, click right here:

8-19-17 - (Day 19 - A do nothing kind of day)

We  decided today would  be a rest day.  We woke up to howling wind.  Stayed inside for the morning, then ventured out this afternoon.  It was a goood do nothing kind of day.

The deer were  about as sorry as we were, they were huddled in the valleys hiding from the wind, as we huddled behind the camper hiding from the wind.

We have to pay tomorrow, (AKA gonna pay for another night or not). Should we stay, or should we go?  Will let you know tomorrow!

a few pictures are here:

8-18-17 - (Day 18 - Glasgow, Montana and More Explorations)

Our original plan was to stay at West End Campground for a couple of nights.  We decided being we have such a nice campsite, and still have things to check out, we would stay a few more nights.

We rode to Glasgow to fuel up the truck and stock up on supplies.  Glasgow is a small town.  It took about as long to drive there as it did for us to purchase our goods.

After lunch we went back to the Interpretive Center, to walk the Downstream Nature Trail.  The 2.3 mile trail weaved around several ponds, went along the beautiful Missouri River, through grassy land, and a beautiful grove of cottonwood trees. We saw 5 deer on our walk that weren't very worried about humans in their neighborhood.  We saw a couple of very excited kids catch bream from a fishing pier at the Downstream Campground.

We went by the fishless, fish hatchery.  This is the first fish hatchery that we have ever been to  that the fish tanks were dry.  They were doing some sort of construction work.   We walked around a little bit and viewed the fish mounts in the glass cases.

We stopped at the beach area where several people were enjoying this hot, low humidity, day.

We found the buffalo on Big Horn Road.  Big Horn Road turned into gravel, so we sat on the road taking pictures from afar.

We headed to Duck Creek Recreation.  The asphalt queen turned around again when the road unexpectedly changed from paved to gravel.

We bought a fried chicken dinner at Albertsons today, which covered us for lunch and dinner.  At the dinner table, aka picnic table tonight, I insisted Lauren sit beside me so we would both have a view of the lake.  And what a view, 2 deer were wading in the water as the geese were flying by, then
7 deer were grazing right across the road from us at their dinner table.

Do you remember a couple of days ago, we mentioned the Camp Host yelling to his buddy it was happy hour? Wellllll, today must have been an exceptional happy hour, away from the cg this time. The camp host's car returned, it took the aforementioned buddy and another happy hour buddy, (one under each shoulder) to haul the camp host to his motorhome.

A sunset stroll around the campground, revealed more deer, including a buck.  We must be straight dab in the middle of deer country.

Click for more pics:

8-17-17 (Day 17 - Fort Peck Day)

We planned to get up early and take a picture of the sunrise.  Didn't happen.  Mid morning, we watched several deer across the way,  as we ate breakfast.

We only went a few miles today, but were gone for five hours.  We checked out the marina, several campgrounds, rode across the spillway a few times, and stopped at a lot of overlooks.  A very scenic day.
                            

We stopped at the Interpretive Center & Museum and were pleasantly surprised.  It had all kinds of fossils, wildlife mounts, real life turtles, snakes, toad frogs, salamanders,  fish, honeybees, etc.  It had very detailed information regarding the species living on the land and in the lake.  It also had a lot of history about the construction of Fort Peck Lake.  We viewed numerous Pelecanus, (aka Pelicans), and Comorant's, (aka Water Divers), in the River from the Interpretive Center back door.

We had a picnic lunch with a gorgeous view at the Louis and Clark Overlook, then returned to the Interpretive Center to take a tour of the Power House.  We followed Katy, our guide, from the Interpretive Center to the Power House.  It was a very informative tour.  Afterwards, I realized the energy to flip the light switch on is a lot more complicated than I ever thought about.

Our 3rd stop at the Interpretive Center today was to view the Star Lab.  We crawled our way into a dark, pretty dome lit up with the constellations .  Our guide was very knowledgeable about the Greek Gods and their contributions to the constellation.  We were mind boggled by the information we received, as we crawled back out to the light.

We took a ride a few miles past the lake to the Bad Lands, rode by the Montana Veterans Memorial, and made it back to camp.

It has been a warm, windy day.  We are glad we have electric hookups in this 90 degree weather, Thanks to all that those in the 1930's that worked hard and made sacrifices to provide us with electricity to cool us off on this gorgeous lake.

                                                         
                                                                      Just woke up!!!
Pictures: