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| We are right in the center |
It’s Tuesday afternoon, the second of August, and Maggie and I are sitting under a lovely big cottonwood tree next to the RV and enjoying the 80 degrees. It’s supposed to get hot later, so we are enjoying the breeze and being able to be out. Poor Roger has gone in to the town of Big Timber, MT (about 5 miles) looking for a high pressure regulator for the propane line and getting fuel for tomorrow’s journey.
No, the propane saga is not over. We thought it was, but no. We were still getting a leak somewhere. Rog put that new pigtail to the system in when we were in Colorado, had the tank filled, and we’ve been traveling with it off. He checked it yesterday and we still had a leak. Today we traded in the tank at a propane place. Thought we were good. Put the new tank in, hooked it up, and it’s still leaking somewhere. A neighbor said he heard a hiss coming from the pressure regulator, so that’s probably been the problem all along. With both of us not hearing well we never heard the noise. So, as I said, Rog hopes to find a new regulator or we are back to hauling around a tank that’s turned off because we can’t trust it.
As I type, Rog just pulled in - no new regulator, but the propane store manager is coming out to take a look at our problem. Stay tuned.
Sunday night in Sheridan, after I finished the journal entry and as we went to bed, we had a large thunderstorm hit - winds about 60mph, lightning, heavy rain. We had just opened up the windows for the night and had to go shut them in a hurry. It came on fast, lasted about half and hour, and then moved on.
Monday we continued north on I-90 into Montana. We left the Oregon/California/Morman Trails as we passed through Casper on Saturday and the Platte River took a left turn and headed more westerly. Now we are on the Lewis and Clark trail along the Yellowstone River. We are in Big Timber, MT and according to all the signs and plaques around town, the expedition stopped here at the confluence of the Boulder and Yellowstone Rivers. According to the map we will be following our explorers for a while.
We drove through the huge Crow Reservation and it was so depressing seeing the dereliction and poverty. We passed by the Little BigHorn National Monument - we had been there years ago on a Memorial Day and it had put us into a sad state. We didn’t figure we needed more of a downer than driving through the rez.
Windmills - you know, the kind that are on farms and ranches that are used to pump water to the surface for the livestock. Well, we saw one with a solar panel attached. Go figure. Wind? Sun? Got it all!!
Trains - last week all we saw were trains with miles and miles of coal cars attached. On Monday we saw trains with different cargoes. One with airplane fuselages that Rog thought might be coming from Boeing to an assembly/paint plant. The other one had all the cars loaded with wind turbine blades. A bit more interesting than the coal trains.
Billings, MT looks like a nice place although there is an oil refinery and a power plant but as you know the interstate doesn’t go through the nice neighborhoods. The next town on the highway, Laurel, has the west coast’s largest rail switching yards, which were visible from the interstate. It was Yooge!!
We found another very nice Rest Area on Monday just outside of Billings - no Indian jewelry, though. We had a nice lunch and break from riding. We got into Big Timber around 2:30pm.
We are staying in the Spring Creek Campground and Trout Pond RV park. It is a lovely little campground that we stayed in on our first trip through this area. They even put us in the same site that we were in before. The Boulder River flows along beside the campground and there is a natural spring in the middle of it - the campground, not the river. They’ve built a pond and stocked it with trout. There is lots of grass, trees, and very friendly people. We did find that pizza place in town last night and it was as good as we remembered! 
Our neighbors are from Billings, MT. They park their rig here for the summer and come on weekends. This week they are on vacation so are spending it here. Very nice people. They even offered to dog-sit Maggie while we went to town today but she would have nothing to do with that. Before we even left she had slipped out of her harness and run back to the steps of our RV. We ended up just leaving her in the rig while we were gone for the hour or so. They have a little mini-doxie named Gonzo! He’s a cute little guy and the dogs seem to tolerate each other once the initial sniffing of butts was completed.
I’m writing this in a word processing document and hope to pull it into the journal tomorrow night - along with some photos - assuming we have wifi or a phone signal (we’ve been told that AT&T is pretty much worthless in Montana) so I can use the hotspot. We do have wifi here - not strong enough, though to upload the journal/blog. The computer says I’ve got four bars when when I go to do anything it drops to one. I’ve better luck with the iPad and can at least play Words for a few minutes before I get kicked off.
We couldn’t get the Dish TV to work - too many trees. So, no TV, no news of the Trumpster’s latest stupidness from the phones or iPads. It’s really kind of nice to not know what the latest silliness is in the world. Besides we have plenty going on ourselves.
While we were in town this morning we found a small grocery store and got some needed items. We also stopped at Gusts’ Mercantile in downtown. I had seen a t-shirt with a very nice graphic done by a local artist at the visitor’s center when we got lost on our way into town and had to ask for directions. The lovely lady there gave us directions to the campground and also told me that I could get the shirt at Gusts’ in town. When I went today they had no shirt in my size in the color I wanted, but I did find a western style shirt on a sale rack that will remind me of Montana, so the trip to Gusts’ wasn’t wasted.
Actually, I’m glad we went in that store. There was a very old dude wandering around the store and he started a conversation with Roger when he saw Roger looking at an old Navy uniform up on a shelf. It was the old dude’s from WWII. He was a torpedoman on a destroyer in the Pacific. He had a display case with a model of his ship, pictures of men from the ship, history of the ship, etc., etc. Rog spent some time talking to the old guy about his service and the man was very glad to have someone who had been in the Navy ask about the old days. Then I spotted a newspaper article in the display case about Mr. Gusts and his store and I asked if he was that person. He smiled and beamed with pride. I’m glad we took the time to speak with him and make his day. We figure he had to be at least 91 and he was there working in his store. No, the trip into that store was not wasted at all!
Everywhere we have been today we’ve encountered the nicest people. Everyone trying to help us out. As it turns out the propane guy drove out to the campground because he couldn’t believe what Rog was telling him about the set up of the propane system. Then when our neighbor came over and told him that his system was set up just like it he realized that the regulators are there for a reason. He tried to get us a new one by tomorrow morning, but no one he called even heard of the high pressure regulator for RVs. Amazing. So, we are back to just shutting off the tank on the one side and moving on. We were told that there are three big RV places in Bozeman and we should find it there.
In the meantime, we noticed that a running light in the front had a broken lens. On Monday a bird flew into the RV and we think that it must have hit that light. So, as I write, Roger is off to an auto parts store that our neighbor thinks will have the lens, otherwise we have an exposed electrical hazard. Let’s hope he finds one. When he left Roger told me to try and find more stuff for him to fix while I was gone. Think he was serious????
When Rog got back (with no lens cover) and after a long session on the couch thinking about “stuff” he took the panel off the wall in the hallway that has all the switches on it. Remember I told you about the scare lights coming on and not going off? Well, that particular switch, even in the off position, was burning a red light. It was getting quite warm being on all the time. In telling our neighbor the story he mentioned fire possibility from a messed up wiring problem. So, as I said, Roger removed the panel and pulled the wires to that switch out and taped them up so they wouldn’t be touching anything. This is a problem he can’t fix - it’s going to take an RV electrician. Looks as if we will have to take the RV in for service when we get home and be very careful not to look at the new ones on the lot while we are there.
We had a good for you dinner after last night’s pizza, but then while we were sitting outside enjoying the evening breezes, Rog went down to the little store and got ice cream. We are having a hard time staying on our low sugar diet, but Oh, Well - we are on vacation!
It’s bedtime again. I’ve been adding stuff to this narrative all day as I think about things. I’ll probably still tweak it a little tomorrow when I upload it.
Tomorrow we are off to Townsend, MT where we will stay two nights. The temperature forecast is for high 60s tomorrow an low 70s for Thursday. Hopefully Roger will get a day of rest like today was supposed to be.
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