We can’t escape the heat!!!! UGH

8/14/2020  424 Miles driven – Elevation 2489

We took the 2 lane today, we had super smooth pavement until the Montana border. A few miles in Mary exicdely jumped behind the wheel…… Just a couple of miles further on and ROAD CONSTRUCTION.

After that it was just rough 2 lane road and a really strong crosswind.

AND THEN!!!! Bad word bad word, we hit more construction. now this was not your typical slow down or wait for a pilot car. No, this was much worse some non-genus here in Montana decided to tear up several miles of asphalt and replace it with I don’t know what but it was so washboarded that anything over, well you couldn’t go slow enough to keep from getting bounced around something awful. It was terrible. I expected the cabinets to start, literally, falling off the walls. Over the course of the construction we drove on some kinda washboarded gravel, grooved asphalt, smooth pavement, only 1 stretch of the grooved pavement, the rest was back and fourth, but mostly super rough washboarded something. Did I mention it was really rough and terrible to drive on. Montana needs to take some lessons from ND on how to build roads.

On a brighter note we can see the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. Speaking of Mountains I knew we might need to call 4-5 places to get a spot in the mountains but little did I know. About noon today we started calling around. Because of the Covid-19 thing a lot of the national parks campgrounds are closed, the RV parks on the reservations are closed and at least 1 private park is closed. Calling around we finally found a place that we can get in for a week, the kicker is we can’t get in until Thursday, today is Friday so we need to find something to do and stay for a week. Note I haven’t mentioned where we’re headed:)

We’re staying in a Wally World tonight, we need to pick up a few things forgotten and need more food. We’re either in or near a reservation, everyone we witnessed going in or out had a mask on. Out of necessity, the Native Americans are taking the Covid-19 situation very seriously.

8/15/2020

Hot dog, went in Wally World this morning and scored a large thing of hand sanitizer and 2 big things of Lysol Wipes, both have been more scares than hens teething sale at the farmers market lately.

After we did our shopping, we pulled out of Walmart around 8:15. Today’s drive was only around 100 miles. Along the way we’re still passing the humongous fields of the Great Planes where Farm equipment and semi’s setting in the fields look like Matchbox toys setting in the middle of a large floor and seen from down the hall, they are dwarfed by the size of the fields.

Along the drive today we could see the sweet grass hills which we’re off to our right, a good sign that we’re nearing the Rockies

Even though they have an idiot as a road construction engineer, I gotta give Montana credit for their historical markers. A. They all have nice large pull offs and B. They have an indicator telling you which side of the road the marker is on, with a sign 1/2 mile out and another one near the marker.

It’s been 7 days and we still can’t escape the hades heat, for more than a day at a time. Mary is beginning to think I lied to her when I told her she would need her sweatshirts in this trip I’m beginning to think we may never find cooler weather………… UGH. 

On an unrelated note, we’re glad we weren’t in Corydon IN, where we’ve been staying when in Indiana, the other day. The campground we stay at was flooded. If we were there but not home, from what I could tell we would have flooded up past the floor of RUBY.

The End