Day 36 – 10/5 Butte, Montana

We are in Butte, Montana!  Today is get school work done day, do some maintenance on the RV, go for a run, do laundry, etc type of day.  I have to tighten the X-Choks today as the trailer was a little rocky last night, and have to do some work on some of the locks to the outside compartments too, one got stuck and another is spinning the hole cam.

We had a normal early morning routine, Bia woke up and started her school.  I woke Bella up a little later and she got going too.  Big difference today in attitudes, it was an amazing school day for both.  No complaining and no attitudes. 

Both girls did amazing, especially Bella who had quite a bit more work than Bia and rocked it.  Bella just got her stuff done, read her material, did the work. 

They both had as many breaks as they wanted basically.  It is nice that we are right in front of the playground, so when they want a break, they just cross the street and play for a bit.  Bia was done quite early, not sure what happened, but she didn’t have as much work as usual.  I think she was done by 11.  Bella had more work than usual, including her first science assignment.  Even with all her breaks, she was done at 2pm, and she was in a good mood.  The other thing that usually happens is that when one of the girls makes some noise, or does a little dance while the other is working, they complain, and not in a very nice way.  Today, no complaints either.  Wow… 

I got the stuff around the trailer done early morning.  Cleaned up the boxes in the bed of the truck as well, so the fishing stuff is now easy to access, and all the tools are organized.  I fixed all the outside compartment locks.  All the dusk from the campsites and the road mess those up.  I have a feeling our awning needs some WD40 or grease as well, it’s making some weird noise when we extend or retract. 

When I was done, I went for a run.  There’s a trail that goes right by our campground, so I hopped on that.  Right away, there is a sign with the trail system, and it’s quite a nice amount of trails, which makes me happy to know we’ll have all of that available for runs and bike rides.  The trail ended up going through the back of some neighborhoods, the far away views were awesome as that’s all mountains.  The close up areas were ok, not as clean.  The main problem for me was dogs.  I ran by at least 6 people with dogs, and 2 of them not on a leash.  One lady had her dog on the leash, but could hardly hold the dog as it started barking at me.  Then, as I got close, she actually lets go of the dog, and it came right at me, barking.  I hate that!  Fortunately, the dog just barked, and jumped on me twice.  Lady apologized, took the dog and left.  But, WTF!  Keep your dam dogs on a leash people!  Another potentially bad situation was a house that had it’s back facing the trail.  The guy was outside on a call and I heard him so I looked, only to see two Rottweilers around him without a leash or a fence.  If those dogs had decided to run after me, I’d be toast. 

That side of the trail was a little less than I wanted to run, so I also ran away from town, and that was much better.  More nature, and only ran into an old lady walking by herself.  Much better to just enjoy your run, enjoy nature and the views, and not worry about being anybody’s snack. 

After I got back, I continued helping the girls, added more data to our T-Mobile shared plan, did some work, paid bills, wrote and posted on the blog and made reservations for some of our next stops.  As we get closed to the west coast, I am starting to find campgrounds that are full, so it is not as easy to just pick one, we need to look around and find whatever is open.  We are likely going to have to do a little better planning starting soon.  Plus, when we get to Oregon’s coast, we’ll need to decide if and when we start heading down to California as the fires are still going.

Carol worked on laundry and helped the girls while I was running.  It is nice that we are right in front of the laundry room, always makes it much easier.  Carol also did some re-organizing in the trailer, organized the pantry so it’s easier to find stuff, hung some things, etc.  Little by little we are making improvements all around.  One thing we decided is that our couch sucks and we are starting to discuss what to do with it.  It looks nice, has the arm rest with cup holders, but…. It’s not comfortable to sit for much time, it’s not comfortable for your back or your butt.  We are going to start looking for options so we can get more use out of that space.  I think when the girls are doing school work, Carol and I don’t have a comfortable spot to do some computer work, so whatever we do there should accommodate that, but also be a good just sitting spot, taking a nap maybe, and watching TV :). On that note, Carol also took a quick nap after lunch and while I finished school with Bella.

We were all kind of ready around 2pm, so while Carol got a few things ready, I washed the dishes by the laundry room (across from our spot) since we don’t have water hookups here, it was quick.  Girls played a little more by the playground too, they like that one, they were spinning each other in the swing so the chains would tangle, then they’d let go and whoever was sitting would spin super fast as the chain untangled.  I remember doing that, it’s fun! 🙂

Around 3 or so we were ready to go.  Plan was just to go to town, no specific plan besides check it out, get some groceries.  I had looked earlier for a potential place to wash the RV, I wanted one with big bays and steps or ladders to make it easy to reach the roof and such, so I decided I’d drive there first, and get the truck washed. 

The truck and the front of the RV get full of bugs and all kind of splatter, and not to mention all the dust from campgrounds and roads.  We got the the wash place and while the bays are wide, there’s not much there to help wash the roof and such, but I decided to run the truck through their soft wash.  And… it was awesome! 

The automated machine was “aware” of the truck, and washed the front grill extra well, washed the bed cover, washed the wheels and everything.  The only thing that didn’t get washed was the extra long mirrors that you need to fold in otherwise they may break.  It was the best car wash I have ever been to. 

The girls were having a blast with the “rainbow” colors, and the brushes spinning against the glass, we made some funny videos and pics. 

From there we decided to just keep driving towards downtown, and eventually ended up by the pit.  I can’t remember the name of the place, but it is an old mining pit that is now full of water and bacteria, so it’s some crazy colors. 

wondering if the guy in front is “Fred” 🙂

It was close to 5 and they close at 5, so we didn’t go in, but I got out of the car with the girls as they spotted some deer and wanted to get close.  Deer are funny, as we approach them and they hear us their reaction is like… turn heads towards you and raise it, then freeze and it looks like they are thinking “wait, I think I heard something, shhhhhh” hahahahah. 

We took some pics and watched them a bit. 

Carol found a brewery nearby, like a mile away, so we went there next.  Butte Brewing Company was awesome.  Very nice place, newer building, on a higher spot, so you can see the city and the mountains from there, great view. 

Beer was great, and their pizza was awesome!  The pizza was the big surprise, we were not expecting to have such good pizza at a brewery.  We always have a good time a breweries, so we were there for a good 2 hours I think. 

We had a lot of fun, ate good, and tried a few of their beers.  Girls were having fun, telling stories, being goofy.  Loved it all! 

Our next stop was Walmart, while Carol shopped I walked around with the girls.  We were looking for halloween stuff.  Bia found a wig and Bella didn’t find anything she wanted, so she was a bit disappointed.  We are going to have to find her a costume soon :).

We got back to the campground after 8pm, it was still nice and warm.  We got ready for bed, I left the furnace on at 65F, but we didn’t need it until way later in the early hours of tomorrow as the trailer was still warm.  Even though we didn’t do lots of awesome adventures, it was an awesome day enjoying ourselves.

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