RV-Travels 2022

 Yesterday was a rest day, so much so, that I forgot to do the blog.  Because this camp is a city camp, I went off on my own to do some retail therapy. Quite enjoyed it.     After our long walk the day before, we decided to treat ourselves to a steak for lunch, this meant another long walk down the main street of Missoulla to the local Aussie Steakhouse, called the Outback, as Dirk keeps on making a mistake, calling it "The Outhouse".  We had a delicious lunch and instead of taking an Uber back to camp, we walked.  A few stiff muscles today. This morning we set off for Blackwell RV Park,  Coeur d' Alene, Idaho.  We are still traveling through very mountainous scenery, beautiful but not very easy when the weather is not being kind to us. We had fine rain for most of the way and because the winter is so harsh, the roads are not great.   We are settled into one our favourite parks for the next 3 days, as we so all the paper work to cro...

  Today we did a relatively short trip of 135 miles from Butte, Montana to Missoula, Montana.  Good trip with lots of beautiful scenery and very little "Road Work" but only one Rest Stop. Although we stopped at the local Walmart before checking in the resort, we found that they didn't sell Whiskey or Gin.  We were already on the way to the resort before seeing a Liquor store but were not able to stop, as there was no parking for a 32 foot RV.  So after a bite of lunch and a little nap, we decided to walk to the Liquor Store.  Ruck sack on my back, off we went to do our shopping.  Naturally we were the only people walking down the main street of Missoula, getting some strange looks.  Well we completed our mission in a very icy wind in just under an hour.  Let's see who has sore muscles tomorrow.

 Today we left Billings, KOA in brilliant sunshine, we were heading to Butte, Montana, a trip of 225 miles, which is a long drive for us, but it seemed to go by very quickly.  The scenery is spectacular in this part of the world but what goes up, must come down.  So it was a lot of climbing and our trusty workhorse vehicle just gobbles up the road, with no effort at all.  It's the down hills that makes my stomach turn.  It's like being on a roller coaster and I'm not very good on those either. As we were coming into the town of Butte it started spitting, then increased to a shower, then a little later a bit of snow and now, as I type this blog, the sun is shining again.  This is a one night stop, in a strange KOA but it will do for the night and a few other travelers obviously think the same.

  As most of you know we had to stay in camp at Buffalo for an unplanned 3 night stay, because of the weather.  The main road we had to take, the I-90 was closed from Buffalo,Wyoming to Montana border because of the blizzard.  Well, today dawned a most beautiful day, sunshine, blue sky and no wind.    So we set off for Billings in Montana.  The scenery is absolutely beautiful and the snow capped mountains just add to the beauty.  Dirk had great difficulty choosing a few pictures to put in this blog and pictures don't do the scenery justice.  We say it every day that we are very blessed to be able to travel in our trusty old RV and see such scenes.   The camp we are in is the Billings KOA which is the oldest KOA in the  world, such a beautiful camp. KOA stands Kampgrounds of America and any camp that belongs to this organisation has to keep their camp up to a certain standard, so we try and stay at a KOA if is at all possible.  

So you know the blizzard I told you about yesterday, well it arrived in all it's glory in the middle of the night.  In true US weather forecasting exactly as predicted.  It has stopped snowing now, but the wind is howling and rocking the RV.  It is expected to snow again tonight.  Well, once again we have had to change our plans for the next couple of days.  We will only be able to leave here on Monday as the highway 90 has been closed and when it opens tomorrow the wind will be blowing too hard to travel.  Watch this space for further developments in our travels, hopefully we'll see the son again soon.  

After a two day rest at the lovely Spearfish KOA we got on the road early this morning.  We had a weather warning yesterday about a blizzard that would start in the early hours of tomorrow morning until Sunday morning.  After discussing our situation with the very helpful staff, it was decided we should hit the road early early today and stay here until Sunday morning.  So we are at Buffalo KOA and expecting between 6 inches and a foot of snow tomorrow.  We won't move on until we get the go ahead from the park owner. This part of the trip is where the beautiful scenery starts.  Miles and miles of unoccupied land, up hill and down dale.  The snow capped mountains in the distance and to think we still have to cross them to get to Canada.  

   We waited out the bad weather at Oasis RV park South Dakota.  Today broke as a beautiful clear day with very little, if any, wind.  We were very grateful for this and set off for Spearfish/Black Hills KOA. 255 Miles away.  This route is far more interesting than the last weeks travel. Beautiful scenery, hills and dales.  Only the last part of the journey did the wind raise it's ugly head, a bit, Dirk may disagree with me, but it was way better that we have had.   We stayed at this park in 2015, well our  memory of this park was far from what it really is.  Still a great park and we are going to stay another day, do a bit of walking along the river and relaxing.