Day 35 – 10/4 West Glacier to Butte, MT

Today is moving day, we stay in Butte, MT until Wednesday as our hop to Idaho Falls and from there our next stop is Bend and then Coos Bay, Oregon. 

We’ll be getting ready as everyone wakes up, but I’ll really start pushing at 9 so we can be out by 11.  We ended up leaving closer to noon.  Usual setup process, I worked on the outside and Carol worked on the inside.  She has been cleaning up inside when we leave on Sunday’s, so full on vacuuming, dusting, etc. 

It was the last day the campground was open, so as we left closer to noon, there was only one other camper left and the place was empty. 

We had a 5 hour drive to Butte, and it was a beautiful drive.  We drove around a lake for part of the drive and the views were amazing.  The smoke was covering some of the mountains a bit further from us, and as we got further south, we could see more smoke coverage, so less to see for us unfortunately. 

We only made two stops, and they were quick.  Bathroom break and diesel top off.  I really don’t mind these drives at all, all new scenery, lakes and mountains, smaller towns with interesting things to see, it’s cool. 

Awesome views… and this sign… what an opportunity! 🙂

We made it to Butte just before 5pm.  It looks like this may be somewhat industrial like Billings was, like there’s a lot of mining stuff around, and plenty of train tracks. 

As I checked in, the kid who checked me in let me know they had shut down the water in the park to winterize, and we would not have water, so if we wanted, we should fill up the fresh water tank from the hose they had there.  Not really much of a choice, so we filled up our fresh water tank, which should be 46 gallons.  Let’s see how long we can go, taking precautions to make it last, to use the 46 gallons using the water pump.  I’m sure early mornings and late night uses of water will be interesting as any use will trigger the pump to run, which we will be able to hear during those hours.  Looking at it from the positive side, it’s a prep for some potential boon docking, or at least a one night at a Harvest Hosts. 

We then drove to our site, and the site is nice.  Flat and level gravel, with a concrete pad next to it, a nice table and two rocking chairs.  We are right in front of the playground and laundry room, and the laundry room does have a bathroom too.  We are near a tree, so our slide out looks into part of a tree and where the sun sets, which is nice.  There is a trail right by the campground, so easy to hope on for a run or bike ride, which we will definitely do tomorrow. 

Setup was a bit quicker than usual since there was no water to setup, and since they already had nice chairs and table, I only took out one of our Zero Gravity chairs from the truck.  The girls went to the playground and were there for a while.  Carol was making dinner and talking to her family. 

When I finished the setup, I tried to figure out how to get their 1 device internet shared via our hotspot, but it doesn’t work too well, so I’ll have to share my cell connection tomorrow, and we’ll figure it out from there. 

The sunset here is nice too, we have a nice view from where we are, and there are mountains all around us.  The girls wanted to talk to Vi, so I called them and they were on for a while.  I talked a bit with Ricardo too, good catching up a bit. 

Then we had dinner, girls were in a good mood, so we had a few good laughs.  We got ready for bed, they watched some TV and that was it, low key travel day.

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