33

Summer seems to be over....I see RV's by the hundreds heading south....the overnight lows are getting lower and lower.......what are we doing?  We are heading north and east.....what is wrong with this picture?

The low Thursday night/Friday morning was 33......I actually turned on the water bay heater before I went to bed.....the water bay heater keeps the fresh and waste water from freezing.....I probably could have gotten by without doing that, but I tend to err on the side of caution when it comes to freezing water....especially black water.....nothing good ever comes from that.

We only had 200 mile to travel Friday, so we delayed our departure from Fairmont Hot Springs until 11 am, giving us more time to spend with Tom, Darlene, and our favorite McCloud....Missy, the schihtzoodle.....the happiest little dog I have ever known.  While the girls played cards, Tom and I sat and talked.  Finally we could delay no longer, and we said our "until next times".  We will see Tom and Darlene after the first of the year when we begin our belated trek further south.

We left Fairmont at about 5,500' elevation and it wasn't too long until we had topped out at 6,393' crossing the Continental Divide once again going west to east.

As we trekked eastward the views got enormous........and we saw the distant mountains with a fresh dusting of snow from the storm a few days ago.....another reason we "should" be heading south and not northeast.  The Interstate took us up and down in elevation several times, and we found ourselves in 2nd gear several times as we finished 6-7% climbs.

Of course, as I have written numerous times previously, we are heading northeast on purpose as our destination is Sidney, MT and the sugar beet harvest, which starts next Monday.  We'll spend a few weeks working the harvest and then we will head south and west.

There were no Rest Areas along this stretch of I-90 so we chose to exit the Interstate at about the 70 mile mark to take a break at a Pilot truck stop.  It was nearing 12:30 so TLE made me a yogurt and fruit snack....okay, I admit it was actually quite good....I'm beginning to develop a taste for yogurt.  We were back on the Interstate within 25 minutes, and continuing our eastward trek......we had about 133 miles to go, and little did I know at the time, but that was the only time we would stop Friday.....the Rest Stop we had counted on using down the road was closed for remodeling.  How cruel is that?  By that time there were less than 40 miles left, so we just continued on arriving in Columbus, MT around 3:10 pm at Mountain Range RV Park....we stayed here almost exactly 3 months ago as we headed to Alberta with our Newell friends.  It is a nice overnight place.......just a short distance off I-90, and the pull through sites are perfect for us.

The Yellowstone River on the left, and snow covered mountains ahead

Eventually we came to the Yellowstone River, which we will, more or less, follow the rest of the way to Sidney.  Originally our Jello plan called for us to split up the remaining 300 miles into two 150 mile days, arriving in Sidney Sunday afternoon, but since we start working on Monday we have changed it up and will plow the 300 miles on Saturday.....a longer than normal day, but we'll break it up with Rest Area stops along the way.  Hoping to get into Sidney by mid afternoon Saturday.

Thanks for stopping by!