Joe & Wilma's Excellent Adventures

 Sunday, July 14, 2024

Townsend

This morning it was 78 degrees, and cloudy.  I could see a layer of smoke below the mountaintops behind the camper, and I still see the fire-fighter airplanes flying over.  It grew to 11,600 acres yesterday and still 0% contained.  No structures have been lost, but a fire-fighting pilot lost her life when her single-engine air tanker crashed into Hauser Lake.  We heard that one of the ballasts failed to fill and when she took off, she crashed right into the mountain in front of her. 

We did our drive to Canyon Ferry Lake today.  We thought we were going to Townsend, then turning across the bottom of the lake and coming back up the east side, but the turn-off to the lake was 22 miles before Townsend.  This lake is where the helicopters are filling their buckets and snorkels to fight the fire.  We crossed the dam and stopped at a pull-off to watch the helicopters and planes for a few minutes.

We could see the burnout on this side of the mountain.

We drove on past the dam to the road that comes up the back side of the lake, but we were soon stopped by road closure due to the fire.  We turned around at the Sheriff's Command Vehicle.

This is the Missouri River flowing into the dam.

Right across the road from the dam we spotted an osprey in its nest.  We couldn't see if there were babies in there.

Since we had missed Townsend and our drive got cut short because of the fire, when we turned around, we drove back down to Townsend just to see what the town looked like. We drove beside Canyon Ferry Lake for a few miles.  The sky is cloudy and smoky and that is reflected in the color of the lake water.  Not our usual sparkling blue.  

We stopped for lunch at the Commercial Bar and grill/casino, which took forever to get our order in, but the food was pretty quick.  Nothing outstanding, but it was ok.  But I spotted our very first heart-shaped pothole in their parking lot (use your imagination).

We stopped at the edge of Townsend so Joe could buy some cherries.  $7.50/lb. so he only bought one pound.  They also had Ranier cherries but they were really expensive so he settled for the plain ones, whatever they are called.  She told him they had orchards on their property.

Then we headed back to Helena.  We had spotted a school bus made into a haywagon. I guess those school buses are so versatile that they can just be made for use for whatever crop is local.

It had clouded up more, and we have a chance of rain. We could see the smoke from the actual hotspots on the side of the mountain in the Horse Gulch fire off to the east.  It rained a few drops on us, and I'm sure everyone is hoping for a big rain to help get that fire put out.

Travel day tomorrow, although only 68 miles, to Butte.  We have 6 nights there, then finally we move on to Bozeman where we have an appointment to get the A/C fixed or replaced.  Can't wait.

Our internet is awful here.  There is nothing in the park, so we have to depend on our own, and it is so weak we can only get the YouTube channel.  We are supposed to have WiFi in Butte, so better days ahead.