Plugged in once again......

8:20 am - Tuesday - June 16th - Livingston, MT - 52° F, 66% humidity, wind 7 mph out of the west by northwest......heavy cloud cover with light rain today with a forecast high of 60° F, and a 77% chance that the rain will continue all day, and into Wednesday, which is why we are at the Park County Fairgrounds in Livingston plugged into a 50 amp outlet for two days......the view this morning......↴

......the weather we have had lately reminds me more of April in this north country than June.....when is summer coming?

 We awoke to 32° F temps Monday morning, but NO wind for a change.  The skies were mostly clear with some high, wispy clouds, but it appeared warmer weather was in the offing.  Our Jello plan was to roll our wheels by 9 am.....we were on our way by 8:47 am....I love it when a plan comes together!

As we rolled north on US-87 toward Ennis the road was smooth, and there was somewhat of a shoulder.....

.....which became a little wider as the miles passed into our rear view mirrors.....

......and the terrain was mostly flat, and downhill, but there were a few brief ups and downs along the way....

......we took a brief break in Ennis after an hour of driving, and then continued our drive northward to I-90.  As we neared the Interstate the road became narrower, and the shoulder disappeared for the last 10 miles......

.....eventually we made it to I-90, and began the last 27 miles into Bozeman, MT where we left the Interstate at exit 305 to park in the Rest Area, which just so happened to be 1.5 blocks from COSTCO where my next blood pressure prescription awaited me.  As we exited the Newell we were greeted with temps in the mid 70's....quite a pleasant change from the last three days.  Within 15 minutes we had changed into our 'Sunday go to meeting' clothes, and had extracted the VW from the trailer......

......COSTCO's national policy is that everyone who works there, and all customers must wear face masks, so we gladly complied for the 15 minutes, or so we were in the store.  For those who may have forgotten, Gallatin County, where Bozeman is located, has had 188 confirmed cases of the Wuhan Flu in four months with one single death.....the entire state of Montana has had 573 confirmed cases with just 18 deaths, and yet COSTCO treats Montana as if it were New York.  Outside COSTCO you barely saw anyone wearing a mask, except for employees of national stores like COSTCO, Starbucks, Walmart, etc.  

After our brief mask wearing foray into COSTCO I drove TLE over to a local Urgent care facility so she could have a spider bite she received a couple of weeks ago checked, and treated.....it just wasn't healing.  While she was there I drove over to a local Jeweler to have the batteries in my Seiko dress watch, and Casio Quartz divers watch changed......

.....I've had the Casio divers watch since 1991, and the Seiko since 2000.....I don't wear the Seiko often, but when I need a dress watch I'm glad I have it.  On the other hand, I wore the Casio pretty much every day for the 9 months we spent working at Ramona Oaks RV 'Resort', so I'm glad to have them keeping time once again.

On my way back to the Urgent care I called TLE to see if she was ready for pickup, but she was not so I stopped in at the local Starbucks to get a......you know what's coming.....Mocha Frappuccino.  At this Starbucks the employees all had face masks on....most of the time....and they had also opened up their alfresco dining area.....the inside seating was still off limits, but being able to sit outside for 20 minutes at a Starbucks was just one more sign that things are becoming somewhat more normal here in Montana in the middle of June.  Just as I was finishing the last sip TLE called to say she was done, and ready to be retrieved.  I was less than 30 seconds away, so was there quickly, and we were back at the Newell within 15 minutes.  By 2 pm we were back on I-90 after a 2.5 hour layover.

We arrived in Livingston, MT around 2:30 pm, and the Park County Fairgrounds shortly thereafter.  Before we parked for our two day stay we used the dump station to discharge 6 days of effluent, and then the fresh water station to take on 60 gallons of water.  Once that was done we moved our rig over to RV-8, our 50 amp electrical only site......

 Our site at Park County Fairgrounds....right next to the rodeo arena......

.....and just across the fence from the local golf course.....

 .....and in very close proximity to the fresh water station, and dump station

.....Claude and Gail left Bill Frome County Park shortly after we did, but took a slightly different route to Livingston.  They opted for full hookups at Osen's RV Park closer to the Interstate where they had a readily available laundry.  Around 3 pm Claude called to make a dinner date for 5:30 pm at Fiesta en Jalisco, which also happens to be our favorite Mexican restaurant in Livingston.....they get four stars from Yelp, and TripAdvisor.....I always say you can judge how good the food going to be at a Mexican restaurant by the quality of their salsa and chips.....

Photo courtesy TripAdvisor

.....and they were both excellent, so you know the food was definitely 4 star quality.  By 7 pm we were bidding each other adieu and heading for our respective domiciles for the evening.  

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Wind, but no rain......

7:06 am - Monday - June 15th - Island Park, ID - 33° F, 97% humidity,↴ wind - CALM....clear, very cold skies today with a forecast high of 64° F......first time in two weeks there has been NO wind.  On this day in 2017 we drove our rig from West Yellowstone, through Yellowstone National Park to Mammoth Hot Springs where we began our summer job working at the General Store......↴

 Madison River....just inside the west gate

 Mammoth Hot Springs General Store

Heading down the Gardiner River Gorge to Gardiner, MT where we parked the Newell for the summer

Sunday we continued hunkering down as high winds buffeted Henry's Lake all day long, and into early evening.  I spent most of the day watching all 18 holes of the final round of the Charles Schwab PGA golf tournament held in Ft. Worth, TX.  That I can write that is amazing....Saturday and Sunday is the first golf I have been able to watch since everything shut down in March.  And that really sums up our Sunday.....we didn't go anywhere, drive anywhere, or do anything except stay inside out of the wind.

Sometime after 8 pm the wind stopped blowing and I was able to go outside and capture this shot of Henry's Lake.  The skies were beginning to clear which foretold of a very cold evening, and indeed it was.  The overnight low got into the low 30's, and for the first time in a month the inside temperature got down under 50° F......47° F to be exact.  Why does it get that cold inside when we have gas heaters?  Well, we don't like to run them at night as they are too noisy, and keep us awake, so we put an extra blanket over the spread, and stay quite comfortable.

Picture taken after 8 pm.....stays light until 10 pm

We will be rolling our wheels our of Bill Frome County Park in less than two hours heading for Bozeman, MT and a visit to the local COSTCO Pharmacy where I will refill my blood pressure medication prescription for the first time in 3 months.  We'll either spend the night in Bozeman, or continue another 27 miles to Livingston to spend the night there.  It looks like we'll have rain Tuesday and Wednesday (90% chance according to the weather guessers, but they also predicted 80% chance of rain here in Island Park for Sunday.....hardly got a sprinkle).

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Housebound.....

7:46 am - Sunday - June 14th - Island Park, ID - 44° F, 79% humidity, wind 13 mph out of the south by southwest.....feels more like 5 mph here at Bill Frome County Park where it is heavily overcast, and has been raining since 4 am.  Today's forecast has more rain until early afternoon with a forecast high of 55° F......the view this morning......↴

 Our neighbor between us and the boat launch ramp is leaving this morning....

.....and he is gone...we now have a partial view of Henry's Lake through the trees

Saturday began nicely enough, but by mid morning the wind had risen, and just before noon it was obvious we would have to stow our awnings, so we did.  Since rain was coming early Sunday morning I began to put away everything (chairs, anti gravity chairs, fireplace.....you know....all the stuff that makes me happy) in preparation for our departure from Bill Frome County Park Monday morning.....yup, it's time to change our view once again.

I've been wanting to switch out the OEM threadless stem that came with my Haibike as it is only 2.5" long and I always feel like the handlebars are too close to me when I am riding, or just standing over the top tube.  I've had an extra 3" stem for some time that I wanted to replace the short one with, but have been lazy about doing it.  Since the wind was keeping us housebound anyway I decided to fire up my Honda 2000 generator to power the trailer and make that switch......

 The OEM 2.5" stem.....

......the new 3" stem installed

......I know .5" longer does not seem like much, but it feels worlds different.  The rule of thumb when making any adjustments to your bike is to make them in small increments, as a small change can make a big difference. I think I will try to find a 4" stem in the near future, but for now the 3" one will do.  While I was swapping out one stem for another I plugged in the Haibike battery to bring it back up to 100%, and by the time I was done with the stem the battery had been recharged, and is ready for another foray.

The rest of the day was spent inside out of the wind....I could never live for long in a perpetually windy place as the constant wind just wears me down mentally.  I know many people live where wind is the norm, but I could not do it.  I've begun to read some new westerns written by two new authors, Elmer Kelter and William W. Johnstone, and spent part of the afternoon reading, and napping.  Around 5 pm TLE and I began to watch a Netflix series (streaming) entitled 'Shooter'.  This series is produced by Mark Wahlberg, who starred in the original 'Shooter' movie.  There are three seasons available, and 10 episodes in the first season.....we managed to binge watch all 10 episodes of the first season before we headed off to dreamland around midnight.

We'll ride out the forecast rain for Sunday, and be ready to roll our wheels Monday morning for Bozeman, MT.....stay tuned.

Thanks for stopping by!

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Day 4.....

8:30 am - Saturday - June 13th - Island Park, ID - 62° F, 48% humidity, wind 6 mph out of the south by southwest.....mostly cloudy today with a forecast high of 68° F.  On this day in 2014 we were in South Lake Tahoe at the Getaway Cafe having breakfast.......

.....we rode our bicycles 5 miles out and 5 miles back....I miss South Lake Tahoe!

It's one of those rare days when I took absolutely no pictures, and neither did TLE.  We had plans to go hiking, but the wind came up unexpectedly, and TLE's allergies made an appearance scuttling the hike idea.

I worked on a couple of minor repairs which involved a minor amount of soldering, and set up the Sea-B-Que in preparation for the grilling of filet mignons that evening.  I considered, briefly, taking another bike ride, but the thought of riding into the very stiff wind in either direction held no appeal for me whatsoever.....even with the aid of an eBike.

As we edge toward the weekend the Bill Frome County Park also edges towards maximum capacity.  This is a very popular local access point for those who engage in the art of removing fish one at a time from the waters of Henry's Lake for personal consumption.....my brother-in-law, Claude, managed to extract a trout from the lake's edge this morning (Saturday) and provided this picture to memorialize his triump......

.....that is definitely a 'keeper' Claude!

Eventually the wind died around 6 pm, and I was able to grill the aforementioned filets to wonderful perfection.  TLE provided sides of mushrooms and barley along with grilled asparagus, and a wonderful Malbec which paired beautifully with the steaks and sides....we are really a good team.

Thus ended day 4 at Bill Frome County Park....thanks for stopping by!

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Cowboy Woks, and dropping pins......

8:24 am - Friday - June 12th - Island Park, ID - 52° F, 81% humidity, wind 1 mph out of the north.....cloudy right now, but mostly sunny later on with a forecast high for today of 79° F.  On this day in 2013 we were in LaCrosse, WI visiting a local micro brewery.....

I haven't taken a Haibike ride for a while and Thursday seemed to be the perfect day for it with temps in the low 70's, light breezes, and lots of sun.  I set out riding south on Henry's Lake Road (County 055) around 11 am....just past our campground the pavement turns to dirt, and goes back and forth between well graded, smooth dirt/gravel roadbed to pavement for 6 miles before turning back to pavement permanently.  At the 6 mile mark I noticed some RV's down by the lake......

....and decided to investigate this public access area for possible future boondocking opportunities......

......you can just see Bill Frome County Park in that grove of aspens about 4 miles as the crow flies to the north......

.....after descending down to lake level I found several great boondocking sites, including this vacant one (picture above), which would easily fit 2-3 Class A RV's.....right across the street from the lake.  Below you can see a large 5th wheel, and a 40' Class A.....

.....if we weren't already set up, and completely happy with our current dry camping spot I would have suggested to Claude that we head directly there.  This great spot is a 'Public Access' point to the lake, and includes two pit toilets, as well as a boat launch ramp.....

.....in all I covered 7 miles out before I turned around to head back.  I came to a fork in the road advising Red Rock Pass was only 22 miles distant.....I don't think I'm into a 44 mile round trip ride today......

.....a 'sign of the times' perhaps?  There were a number of beautiful cabins along County 055, including this one which looked like it was designed to look like an old mining stamp mill.....

.....very intriguing.  In all I covered exactly 14 miles on my one hour and 20 minute round trip ride.....I needed that.  In covering that 14 miles I only used 11% of my battery capacity as I rode mostly in the first assist level for the entire ride, burning 880 caloric units, and averaged 10.9 mph for the entire ride.

As a reward for my physical exertion I pulled out one of our anti gravity chairs, and a good book to while away the afternoon......

 It dasn't get much better than this

....Claude and Gail took their dogs for a hike while I was gone, and shortly after I returned from my ride I got a text from Claude asking if we would join them for a BBQ'd chicken dinner prepared by their hands.....of course I accepted.

Around 5:30 pm Claude began to BBQ the two whole chickens while Elaine and Gail prepared some sides on Claude's amazing Cowboy Disc Wok which he had made for $75......

....I've watched Claude use this wok to prepare several meals now, and I am considering buying one....you can actually buy these online for about $140......

TLE sauteing some mushrooms for dinner on the 

Cowboy Disc Wok...you can see the hash browns Gail has 

already cooked ringing the outer edge of the wok

......by 6:30 we were eating, and raving about the BBQ'd chicken, and sides.....everything was delicious....thank you Claude, Gail and TLE.  We ended the evening with another fire before retiring inside around 9 pm for the evening.

Since all the camping here is dry you can hear the buzz of generators until about 10 pm when they all are dutifully shut down (quiet hours are from 10 pm to 6 am here).  It gets so quiet after 10 pm you can actually hear a pin drop.....that's my story, and I'm stickin' to it.

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Two 'lido decks'......

7:53 am - Thursday - June 11th - Island Park, ID - 45° F, 91% humidity, wind 1 mph out of the north.....clear, blue, cool skies today with a forecast high of 72° F.....YAY!!!  The view this beautiful morning.......↴

Henry's Lake in all it's blue sky glory!

It has been cold, and dreary since last Saturday, but Wednesday we finally had a mixture of clouds and sun......more sun than we've seen in days.  I actually spent some time in shorts, a t-shirt and flip flops in the afternoon.  It's amazing how such small pleasures make life seem glorious.  We are so loving Bill Frome County Park.  It's the first time we've found a new 'IT factor' place on our own in some time.  Most of the dry camping/boondocking places we have found have been suggested by fellow nomads, and for their help we will be eternally grateful, but it's nice once in a while to stumble upon one all on your own.

TLE hadn't been anywhere by ourselves in a few days so we drove into West Yellowstone to do some grocery shopping.  We haven't run into anyone wearing a mask in days, and were quite surprised to find both workers, and patrons at the supermarket wearing masks.....not everyone, mind you, but about 50% of the customers, and about 25% of the employees were not wearing masks.  West Yellowstone is in Gallatin County (Montana) and has had one death, and 165 diagnosed cases in 4+ months.....nothing to set your hair on fire about, right?

We found everything we were looking for including some coveted Wilcoxin's 'Stuck In A Rut' ice cream.  Wilcoxsin's is a family owned and operated creamery centered in Livingston, MT for over 100 years.  They supply ice cream exclusively to all of the General Stores in Yellowstone......I personally scooped hundreds, and hundreds of scoops of this ice cream when I worked in the fountain at the Mammoth Hot Springs General Store back in the summer of 2017.  'Stuck In A Rut' is triple caramel....TLE actually served me some for lunch Wednesday......once again.....proof of love....lol!

We were home early afternoon, and spent time helping Claude deploy his Wanderlodge patio awnings (yes plural), which have been stowed for 7 years.  One of them required some friendly persuasion from a hammer, and some penetrating oil to free up one of the support arms, but we finally got them deployed, and working as they should.........

Claude's Wanderlodge has two patio awnings 

stretching some 30' along the passenger side

.....I have to say I am somewhat jealous of all the shade he has on his 'lido deck'.  

We are both getting plenty of sunlight upon our solar panels, and both got back to 100% by noon time, even with as many clouds as there were in the sky Wednesday.  We spent the rest of the afternoon sitting in the sun, talking, and enjoying the local ambiance.  As would be expected there were a couple of naps thrown in for good measure.

Around 7 pm we lit the fire in my portable fireplace, and were joined shortly thereafter by Glenn and Laureen who drove over from their full hookup spot at Henry's Lake State Park.  They will be leaving Thursday to begin their 3 week trip back to Austin after visiting a few more National Parks along the way.  We talked, and laughed until almost 9:30 pm before it was time to say our 'until next times'.  They will both be missed.

Thanks for stopping by!

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