September 16 - 19, 2021 Starting the Journey South

 Thursday (16th) arrived and we got up and had breakfast, got dressed and took our walk. We didn't do any chores. Today we are leaving our summer spot to head south. Leaving is always bittersweet. We finished locking everything up outside. Then we cleared the inside for travel. Steve cleaned the windows. It was a lovely day for a drive. We stopped at Seeley Lake Museum and took a short tour.  We had a very chatty museum guide who gave us a lot of information. I want to stay here overnight sometime, but it seems to be too close to our destination whether we are coming or going. We arrived at Deer Lodge Montana about 4:30 and got gas before we parked at Indian Creek Campground. Supper was leftover pizza.

Echo Lake, MT

 

Echo Lake MT

Ready to Go

The beautiful Swan River (looking South) at Ferndale, MT

Antique wagon

Crosscut of very old tree, labeled with significant dates

Seeley Lake Museum

Friday (17th) we did all our usual things and then loaded up the pick. Today was an adventure day. We drove to Garnet Ghost town. It was quite a drive. I drove so Steve could have a nice sightseeing time. Anyway, we evidently did not take the easiest route and maybe Deer Lodge was a little too far away to tour the ghost town. It might have been more easily accessed from Missoula. So we kind of doubled back to get to it. It was a nice drive until we got pretty close, then we had about 5- 6 miles of hairy forest type roads. This place is operated by the Garnet Preservation Society in partnership with BLM and if you go a different way you can bring an RV up here. I was surprised to see how many were in the parking lot. I figured there would be very few people here. I was wrong. We toured the many buildings and the dogs had a blast snooping around. This is a well preserved ghost town. We arrived home about 4:30 or 5:00. Next time I would pack a lunch because they have picnic tables! Although today it was pretty windy!

Saw these on the road to the ghost town

It's a pretty good hike downhill to get to the ghost town and remember, you have to come back up when you finish. Thankfully there are some benches where you can rest.

Sorry about the shadows in the pictures! The sun was directly overhead. We really enjoyed this place and I think Steve could have stayed longer. So more ghost town tours on our next adventures!

Who do you want to share your potty time with?
A Three Hole Outhouse!

I had to include these pictures since we do clean an outhouse during the summer! We took the easier route back to the interstate and found a stage stop and an old cemetary. There is a lot of neat things to explore in this area. We need to return!

There is an RV Park nearby called Bearmouth Chalet and RV Park at 1611 Drummond Frontage Road Clinton, MT. It looked pretty nice!

Saturday (18th) We decided to stay another night because we were a little tired from our excursion and we wanted to watch football!  So I went to the office and renewed our site for one more night. Then I did a load of laundry. First we watched OU and in the evening we watched OK State (OSU) beat Boise State by one point. A pretty exciting game. I wanted us to head down to Henry's Lake in Idaho and then through Yellowstone and the Tetons. But it looked like the weather was going to drop down to 20 degrees at night and we didn't want to deal with that. So we changed our plans and decide to route through Billings, MT.

Sunday (19th) we left Deer Lodge about 9:30. That is pretty good for us considering we had to eat, dress, walk the dogs and hook the pickup back up to the RV. 

We headed east on I-90 to Billings. We arrived at KOA in pretty good time. The first site we were in didn't accommodate our satellite dish, so we called the office and they let us change to a different site. We were glad because we wanted to watch Sunday Night football. We ordered pizza from Domino's (I think) and it took about 50 minutes for it to arrive. 

September 14 - 17, 2019 Winding down our summer at Echo Lake

Saturday - 14 th
I walked the dogs separately and did the chores while Steve kept ice on his back. Mostly we took it easy. We watched OSU football and napped. After that game, we watched OU until it got boring. By evening he was walking better and we did some stuff around the RV.

View as we reach the top of the hill from our site

Sunday - 15 th
Steve was feeling some better today and was able to go for a walk this morning- Yea! I did the chores and gave away a fishing tackle box that someone had left behind and never claimed. Then we went to town and did laundry. Also we cleaned the Bigfork access and hauled the trash. When we returned tot the RV I fixed tacos for lunch. There was a little rest also. We put away our blackstone griddle - which was tricky getting it to fit back in the box. Then we started to move the picnic table next to the tree to chain it up. Some nice folks from Houston Texas helped us - as they saw us struggling. They were nice and I visited with them about our workcamp job here. We also chained up the fire pit and trash container. We decided to haul the weather strip from our wrecked awning to the dump - no way to haul it home that we could figure out. After these preparations, we were tired, so we had supper and watched some football.

Area north of parking lot

Weather strip we hauled away

Monday - 16th
It was a gorgeous day here at Echo Lake - makes us not want to leave!. We did the routine  things then headed to the chiropractor. After that , we did some more prep to leave. Steve was able to do our regular walk this morning and we did the chores. Our boss, Tony, came by after lunch. He said everything   looked good. He had received the inventory I emailed him. I also gave him the volunteer notebook and our potted flower plant for his wife. He said it would be great if we could return next year. We said we would love to if everything is good. After a short rest , we took our dogs to the Notch Trail and creek and walked. Then back to put away the hose and reel, patio mat, chairs.  For supper we went to town for pizza and a few snacks for the journey.

Steve & I in our Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks T shirts

Fall Colors at Echo Lake Cafe

Mary Montana FWP Shirt

Zoey - at the creek

Buster on the trail

Tuesday - 17th
After getting up and around we took the dogs on a short walk. It was raining and overcast. We started getting stuff ready to leave - jacks, slides, utilities. I moved the pickup forward and Steve started to drive forward, but I waved at him to stop because the satellite dish wasn't stowed. Then he turned off the RV and it wouldn't start- neither would the generator. So he fiddled with the connections and got thing to go. We stowed the satellite dish and then moved the RV to the parking lot and hooked up the pickup.  Luckily the lights checked out  ok. We went to Bigfork junction and filled the RV with gas. We finally got on the road about 12:15 PM. Then we started traveling east and south on 83 through the Swan Valley. it was a beautiful drive - mostly cloudy and cool. We pulled into Deer Lodge, MT about 5:00 PM. We decided to stop for gas before we parked the RV. Then we walked the dogs and set up everything. We walked to the 4B's cafe and ate breakfast for supper then had ice cream. We returned to the RV and relaxed. The first day of travel was complete.

Hooked up and ready to leave

Summit Lake

Blackfoot River with a Raft

                                                              Seeley Lake

Hay Stack - Garrison MT

Antique Farm Equipment- Garrison MT

Old Building - Garrison, MT

Old Building - Garrison, MT