Life, family, and travel

June 10th-11th

Friday, June 10th.........Last night I looked at the Yellowstone river and saw that it was pretty close to the top of the banks. I spoke to a SAR fella, he said I didn’t have to worry about all the rain. It’s the snow melt I should be concerned with. I remember years ago when the family was car camping in the Medicine Bow wilderness. We camped along a stream. Every night the water would raise substantially and then go down slowly during the day. When I got up this morning, I noticed that the river had raised and was even overflowing the banks in a few areas. Needless to say, I was glad to be pulling out!

I stopped at a McDonalds and was able to send off an e-mail to Cindy for the log. I had been checking along my drive but had been unable to locate a WiFi area.

I got on I-90 and saw my first snow on top of Mt. Douglas in the Absaroka range. By the depth of the snow, I can see why they were concerned with snow melt. It was pretty until I realized I was going through it.

I turned North at Springdale MT on route 89. First, it cut off about 150 miles from my trip. Second, by the atlas, it is supposed to be pretty scenic. And boy was it ever !!! I drove up this long valley with mountains on both sides. I eventually went through a 7,000 foot pass in the Lewis and Clark national forest. As I drove, I noticed innumerable pull offs that would have been suitable for an overnight boon docking stay. They were right next to a stream that had a beautiful white noise. Unfortunately, it was way too early to stop. My bad luck, but I know for next time.

It was pretty cold up there with all of the snow. Even the deer had not lost their winter coats.

I eventually got into the snow in the Little Belt Mountains. It was very deep in spots and the wind coming off of it was pretty brisk.

I turned off in Great Falls MT. Stopped at the falls where Lewis and Clark had so much trouble getting their big boat around. I tried, but for some reason my photos didn’t turn out. 

I stopped at Lewis & Clark RV Park in Shelby MT about 35 miles from the Canadian border. They have a dump station, showers, laundry, WiFi etc. I’ll get this log out today and cross over into Canada tomorrow.

 

Saturday, June 11th.............

What a dreary, raining, cold, windy place. I’m starting to get tired of rain!

I left about 6:30 as I had a long way to go. Not too much excitement because of the rain. I even forego the “Spock” festival in Vulcan, AB because of the weather. I know Cindy will be horrified when she learns I didn’t go. The wind was head on to my travel and dropped my mileage down to +- 7.5 MPG.

(Cindy:  yes - that's awful.  How many opportunities will you have to go to the Sock festival in Vulcan, AB?????hhmmmmm?????)

 

When I got to the border there were only a couple of RV’s ahead of me. I didn’t have to long to wait. When it was my turn, a pickup truck cut me off to get in first. The joke was on him though as the border guards must have given him the third degree. He finally had to park and go inside with his paperwork. The guard just asked me the usual questions and let me go on.

I was scared to take a photo of the whole thing because of the new regulations.

One thing I did notice, NT and AB looked an awful lot alike

Do you know which is which? (Hint MT is the top one, AB is the bottom one).

I had hoped to make it past al of the civilization today. Because of the wind, I was constantly running between 45 and 50 MPH. It took a lot longer than I had planned (I did put in about 475 miles).

I finally stopped at Lessard Lake Public Campground just outside of Sangado AB. Pretty cheap and I ended up overlooking the lake. It has electricity, showers etc. I didn’t want to pay the extra for the water and sewer. Just like I anticipated, this is still too close to civilization for me to find a boondocking spot. Hopefully this will change within the next day or so. As luck would have it, the sky cleared and the wind stopped about 7:30 when I arrived. Here is a shot out of my window of the lake.

 

 

June 9th

Really ugly day! Rained most of the day and it was cold and windy. I wasn’t in a hurry to leave the campsite. I had wanted to see the battlefield at the little Big Horn. I arrived there about 10:30. As I was preparing to pay the admittance fee, I asked the young girl about the senior citizens nationwide pass. She said the annual fee was $10.00 (less than a single admittance to the battlefield). This allows me to enter all federal monuments etc for free for the whole year. Eat your heart out all you young whipper-snappers !

As I had saved some money, I paid $5.00 to go on a guided tour bus with a host speaker. She was very good and answered all of our questions. I could not understand how Custer walked into this fight as the terrain is fairly open. After she explained everything (several circumstances, mis-communications, not believing the scouts etc) it becomes clearer. It's way more information than I want to go into in this log!

 

 

 

 

I will add a couple of tidbits. This is only 1 of 3 battlefields in the world where the headstones are erected on the actual locations where the men fell. Many of the stones are side beside one another.

This is because when they ran out of ammunition, they fought hand to hand, back to back. Out of the 100 or so Indians killed here, the location of only about 20 is documented.

 

 

After I left the battlefield, I ended up in Columbus Montana at one of my boondocking places I had researched. As it turns out, it’s really a nice place called the Columbus City Park. I set up about 15 feet from the Yellowstone river. Unfortunately, I did have to move down a little bit later as they were having “Search and Rescue” training and that site was their main training location. Still, the next site was just as wonderful.

 

June 8th

Left the Black Hills at about 7:30. Found French Creek where Custer’s men found the gold that started the famous gold rush.

Close by was a re-production of a fort that was similar to the one erected by the gold miners who came after Custer’s men found the gold.

 I continued on a little highway though Wyoming just taking my time. I did get pretty excited when I first saw the mountains of the Big Horn wilderness near Buffalo Wy. Cindy, Mark and I car camped in there a long time ago.

I went looking for a boondocking location to camp overnight. Found a couple of spots but they were already filled. So far, all of the locations I had laid out for this trip were either filled or not good enough to stop. I’ve had to stay in state parks every night so far. I finally ended up in a state recreation area in Montana.

 

Cindy:  Boondocking is a term for Free Camping... out in the boondocks!  Anyone can legally camp for free in our National Forests - EXCEPT in the developed campgrounds.  Just go a distance from the developed camps to a flat spot in the woods and set up a camp!  The problem for Chuck in finding suitable boondocking locations is that he has a specific route that he wants to follow to get to his destinations, and when you're in places like  northern Montana, or Canada, the ROADS going into the wilds are few and far between, and when there is one, it could easily take you days out of your way.  There are definite advantages to driving a truck and trailer/camper - the main one being that he can get to AK and back in one season.  The advantage of going on foot, ie backpacking, is that you can get to places inaccessible to vehicle traffic.  Our backpacking days are behind us at this point, so, while Chuck dearly wants to get to the truly inaccessible when at all possible, it just isn't that practical.

 

June 7

At Black Hills in South Dakota.  I tried panning for gold for a few hours but no luck so went sightseeing instead. Swung by the Crazy Horse monument to see how much they have accomplished. Just as I was going in, they set off an explosive charge. Pretty cool. I know they’ve removed thousands of tons of rock, but as it’s so massive, it didn’t look too much different that when I was here 4 years ago.

 

While I was close by, I stopped in Keystone to look around. Found a museum in an old school house. Had a lot of items from the gold rush days as well as a lot of old photographs. Had a great time.

Wild life I’ve seen so far. First a Yellow Bellied Marmot and then a buffalo. I saw quite a few mule deer but as they are so plentiful, I didn’t take any photos.

 

After dinner, I went to Mount Rushmore for the lighting ceremony. It sure wasn’t what I expected. Not bad, just didn’t live up to the hype.

 

June 4-6

Chuck:   Finally, the day has arrived. I finished loading up and started out about 9:30. Stopped at the local Wal-Mart for a few final food items. Visited family in Illinois and Iowa, and arrived in the Black Hills of South Dakota at the end of the third day.

As I had driven over this route many times in the past for work, I did not take any photos or do much site seeing. I guess the work ethic is still pretty strong in me. Every time I passed a chimney I would think of what plant it was or if my old contact was still there. I also realized that I had conditioned myself that my objective was to get from point A to point B. rather than to enjoy the trip.  I will work VERY hard to change this way of thinking.

Cindy:  the family that Chuck visited were his Uncle Robert Bettinger and his wife Pauline.  They are dear friends as well as family, and visiting them is always a highlight of any trip north and west.  Chuck was so glad to get past the delays and get on the road!  He told me on the phone that if he had to delay any longer, he might actually have to make a trip to the grocery store, as the pantry was getting very sparse!  

I trust that Chuck will be able to recondition himself - though when we talked on the phone, and I suggested that he might even come to the point where he could consider taking off his watch, he did a huge verbal backup and suggested that I was getting carried away!  The delay in posting Chuck's updates are due to his figuring out how to use free wifi on the road with my old pc laptop - Windows was never an easy operating system to understand.