wordsfromanneli

Thoughts, ideas, photos, and stories.

Monthly Archives: October 2019


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A Cool Trip – Part 4

The snow kept coming sideways and we talked about cutting our day’s drive short. We had planned to go as far as Fort Benton where a friendly RV park always awaited us, but Fort Benton was down a big hill along the banks of the Missouri, and we had seen pictures of how the town had fared in the September snowfall a week earlier. Did we want to be trapped in this valley town with snow covering the steep roads in and out of town? For that matter, could we even make it that far if we wanted to?

We had to get off the road or end up in a lonely prairie ditch. But where to go in Great Falls?

I remembered a Wal-Mart across from the town’s famous smelter and refinery, and that’s where we pulled in.

Wal-Mart Customer Service told us we were welcome to stay for three days. They had all the groceries we might need, a water supply, and a relatively safe place for us to stay. Three other rigs were already parked there and would remain there until after we left.

Wal-Mart even had Wi-Fi but it didn’t reach out to the parking lot.

Generally I prefer to be in an RV park or a place like Exit 16’s park, since public parking lots can be a bit risky if you’re camping overnight alone, but we had no choice by this time and were thankful for the relatively safe haven as the snow began to cover us up.

It would have been foolish to continue traveling, as the many accidents that day proved.

However, we were quite frozen in this place with -17degrees Celcius, feels like -23 (1 degree Fahrenheit, feels like -9F). In the morning, the windows had about a quarter of an inch of frost on them (on the INSIDE!), and the holding tank was frozen at the outlet, as we found out when we tried the next sani-dump we came to. We also tried to add water to our potable water tank – to no avail. The pipes leading to the tank were frozen.

We had a furnace, but running it all night might run our battery down and as luck would have it, the trailer battery was very low in the morning. The Captain ran the Honda generator and brought it back up. Everything was a struggle, and we were getting worn down.

The second night, some drug-crazed kids did a kick boxing display near our rig on the parking lot (yes, in that very cold temperature)! The driver even kicked the lid of his own car’s trunk. (The Captain said, IF it’s even their own car.) Then they tore out of the parking lot at 90 miles an hour.

After two nights there, if we continued north and then east as we had planned, we would be driving into more blizzard and heavy fog in extremely cold temperatures. We were only one long day’s drive from our destination, but there didn’t seem to be any point in going on, even if we could have done that safely. But could we safely go back?

 


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A Cool Trip – Part 3

From Exit 16, it’s not far to Missoula, one of our usual stops, but we pushed on this time and took a lunch break at Drummond, a bit farther east. Drummond is a tiny, tiny, tiny town, but it has a lovely community park, just past the sheep in this field.

While I made our lunch, the Captain let the dogs stretch their legs. They’d been very good about riding in their straw-filled crates in the back of the truck, but they were ready for a romp. Emma’s flying ears tell the story.

Then on we went, on our way. We took the shortcut to Helena by crossing on Highway 12 at Garrison. This meant going over MacDonald Pass at 6312 ft. It is on the Continental Divide, and that makes it seem special to me.

Going through Helena was uneventful, now that we have discovered the easiest route through it, turning onto Highway 15 North.

We tootled on happily until I said, “Oh, look at that fog up ahead.”

“Sure is thick, and we’re driving right into it.”

And then there were those dreaded orange and white barrels, forcing traffic into one lane for construction work that wasn’t even happening.

“That’s not just fog.” The Captain stated the obvious. We were heading into a blizzard.

See all the white stuff?

At one point, the orange and white barrels seemed to indicate that we should go into the right lane, and moments later we realized that we had exited I-15 and were on a little by-road with no place to turn back to re-enter the highway.

Being a little lower down, the visibility was better, but the winding road was narrow, and traffic was two-way. Not so much fun for a truck pulling a trailer. (You can see the highway above us to the left. So close and yet so far away.)

We came to a sign that said we had 8 miles to go to Wolf Creek, where we could rejoin the highway.

Oh joy! We were back on the main drag at last. With every mile, the air got whiter, and so did the fields, and the trees, and the road.

At this point we were feeling a bit of anxiety creeping in.


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A Cool Trip – Part 2

After leaving Washington and crossing the approximately 70 miles of Idaho panhandle on I-90, we arrived at the Montana border at Exit 0. From this point, high up  (4,710 ft.) in Lookout Pass which is in the Rockies in the Coeur d’Alene Mountains of the Bitterroot Range, we began our descent into Montana. At Exit 16, the Silver Dollar Casino is a main attraction.

We don’t gamble, but we patronize the restaurant in this establishment, and we always fill our gas tanks there, both coming and going. Behind the casino, free RV parking with electricity is available. It makes our one-night stay there very comfortable.

Last year at this place, we saw wild turkeys just behind our rig. They were very daring (or stupid) because it was close to our Canadian Thanksgiving. But to give them credit, they were American turkeys so they wouldn’t have known that – American Thanksgiving being much later.

This night at Exit 16 was to be our last pleasant night for a while to come.

 


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A Cool Trip – Part 1

We left Vancouver Island on our way to eastern Montana. Having waited out the unexpected September 30th blizzard, we hoped to find that the worst was over after a few days of traveling.

In the southern interior of British Columbia is the Similkameen Valley, probably best known for being a wine growing region of the South Okanagan.

For us, it was a good place to stop for a quick coffee and sandwich while the dogs stretched their legs.

Then we continued on with our truck and trailer to the U.S. border into Washington and Coulee City.

The Coulee City Community Park provides RV parking and a lovely setting on the south end of Banks Lake, a reservoir created in 1942 after the completion of the Grand Coulee Dam on the Columbia River.

Our stay at Coulee City was perfect, but the worst was yet to come. Stay tuned.


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A Little Break

Taking a short blogging break, but I’ll be back here very soon. Don’t go away!

Comments are closed, but I’ll make up for the lack of chatter when I resume.

Okay, I have to amend that statement. I thought I had closed the comments on this post (never did it before), but it isn’t working for me. Anyway, I may not respond to comments until later, but will be happy to chat then.