July 11, 2024
Headed to Helena.
We pulled out of the campground about 10:20 and went just up the road to the gas station so we could fuel before hitting the road. Joe is still working on his learning curve. It rained overnight a little bit and he stood on the step as he retracted the awning and got drenched again. The funny thing was he had a little trickle and said I’m gonna get wet again, then he pushed the button to bring the awning all the way in and it just dumped on him , just like last time. He thought the little trickle was all he was going to get. I noticed he had his new T-shirt on inside out. He was going to get a dry shirt but just decided to leave that one on, but he did turn it outside-in and apparently pulled out hearing aid. When he finished dumping the tanks, he came in and told me to start looking for a hearing aid. He checked the bathroom and I checked the bedroom, with no luck. So he went down the steps to look where he had pulled off the shirt, and sure enough, luckily, there it was. Crisis averted again.
The truck driver inside the gas station said it did get up to 101 yesterday. Its 80 degrees at 10 o’clock, but a little overcast right now.
Interstate 90 through this part of Montana is very pretty -- mountains on both sides and in front. I’m guessing the mountain range on the left is the Lolo Mountains and the ones on the right are the Sapphire Mountains.
We followed the Clark Fork River for miles and miles. I finally spotted a deer taking a drink out of it. This is one of the rivers that flows through downtown Missoula. “Three rivers converge in the Missoula Valley: the Blackfoot, Bitterroot, and Clark Fork Rivers all come together here. All three offer different levels of recreation and fishing opportunities."
This was a really nice drive today. Good road, light traffic, beautiful scenery -- mountains, rivers, occasionally a train on the railroad beside us. At the Garrison Junction, we left I- 90 and took U.S. Highway 12 to Helena. About 44 miles.
We stopped for a potty break just past that junction and Joe did a maintenance check. Fortunately for us he did find a potential problem. A pin was missing from the hitch that connects to the jeep. After ramsacking the Jeep and every compartment in the rv, he came up with a pin that fit so we’re on the road again. Another crisis averted. He said we weren't moving until he got that fixed.
We came up Macdonald Pass just outside of Helena and reached an elevation at the summit of 6325. Then we had an 8% grade going down about 6 miles
There’s a forest fire burning about 30 miles northeast of Helena. We just heard about it on our way today. I was texting with our new friend, Mary Badass, and when I told her we were headed to Helena, she told us about the fire. It started Tuesday, is about 2000 acres, and is 0% contained with hot and windy conditions in the forecast.
We found our campsite at the fairgrounds and we could see the big plume of smoke from our campsite. I talked to a guy who was just leaving and he said they had been evacuated from a campground over by the reservoir, where the fire is, they got to the fairgrounds and set up camp and then learned that somebody else had reserved that spot so they were moving to some other spot at the fairgrounds.
It is very hot, and as you can see, we have no shade. After we got set up, we tried to rest a little in the camper, but it was just too hot. Our single A/C is not keeping up today. I finally told Joe we had to go buy a fan. So we went to Costco and bought two small Woozoo fans. Obviously, there's the problems of where to sit them, and where to store them. We hope they do the job for us. Then we stopped at an RV parts store for a vent cover that broke, but no luck there. We were right at the end of the airport (didn't know that) and a plane flew right over us. I'm sure we ducked. We think it might be one of those planes fighting the fire.
We had hoped to stay in the rest of the day, but I couldn't see how I could fix anything for dinner with all the heat. I had a plan to microwave something, but we only have 30 amp here and would have to turn off the a/c to do that, so I didn't think that was a good idea. I told Joe we needed to go some where we could hang out for a while, so obviously we had to go to a casino. I had read about one that was the oldest one in town, so we found it and had dinner, and I played for a while. It was just a small casino, 15-20 multi-game machines. Not very exciting. It paid out with a ticket, but wouldn't take a ticket, so if I changed machines, I had to put more $$ in, then cash in the tickets at the end. The waitress said all the casinos in town (there are a lot) would have about the same number of machines. Only the Indian reservations can have more.
We went back to the fairgrounds, and there were 4 deer right on the parking lot. We watched them for a few minutes, then called it a night -- a hot night. But the fans helped. We don't have much internet so we couldn't find much on TV, but we were able to sleep with the new fans.
We are here until Monday. The forecast for the next few days is about the same, so we are in for some hot weather. We will try to stay comfortable.
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