Divergent.....

7:05 am - Saturday - July 18th - Harlowton, MT - 52° F, 86% humidity, wind 5 mph out of the southwest.....clear, blue skies this morning with a forecast high of 78° F.  We roll our wheels in two hours!

I neglected to write about a couple of 'fixes' I took care of on Thursday.  A few weeks ago when we were removing the VW from the trailer on uneven ground at Yellowstone Hot Springs the weight of the VW cracked the ramp which folds down at the end of the larger trailer ramp.  I have been thinking about how to fix that short of replacing the entire hinged board.  While we were at the Napa Automotive/Hardware store on Thursday I found they had a 4' long piece of flat steel, which when cut into four 12" strips could be used to reinforce that crack, so I bought it.    Upon our return to the Newell I set about first cutting it into four equal strips, then drilling 7 holes in each piece....that took a long time even though I clamped the four pieces together in my vice so I was able to drill one hole, but through all four pieces at the same time.  Once that was done I laid out the four drilled pieces and began to fasten them to the board with 28 self tapping screws......

.....once all the screws were in the crack was no longer unstable.....we'll see how it reacts when we reinsert the VW on Saturday.  Another fix was to reattach one of the two rubber bumpers on the tailgate to keep the metal off the ground when the ramp is down for removal, or insertion......

.....I noticed the other day that the right one was quite loose, and ready to fall to the ground.  The screws which attach these rubber bumpers are also self tapping, so I just reattached it in a different spot using a nut driver in my Porter Cable impact drill.  Okay, that catches us up on Thursday, so on to Friday!

When you travel with someone there come times when you each decide on divergent travel plans on a given day.  Sometimes one leaves way before the other with the agreement to meet at a destination certain at the end of the day.  Sometimes you both decide to take divergent routes to the same place, but arrive there on different days, and that was the case Friday.  Claude and Gail wanted to travel northwest to a Montana town called Choteau where Claude, as a young child, visited back in the late 50's....they wanted to leave Friday, but we wanted to stay one more day before heading to Lake Frances, MT, where we will once again join forces.

Around 10 am TLE and I decided to walk into town to a coffee shop (Sun Dog Café) we had walked by on Thursday when we did our 3.21 mile loop walk for breakfast while Claude and Gail were putting their stuff away for a planned 11:30 am departure......

....it's about a mile to the coffee shop walking our loop in a clockwise fashion, and we arrived there within 20 minutes after a brisk walk.....

.....we both had coffee while TLE had a scone, and I a bagel.  I've had better bagels, but he coffee was very good......

.....we continued our clockwise walk through 'old town' back to the Napa Automotive/Hardware store to buy some fluorescent tubes for the trailer lights.  It's been a few years since I replaced them, and two of the three fixtures were starting to flicker like they do when they are about to burn out.  I needed two 28" tubes, and two 36" tubes (thought), which they had.  As it turned out the tubes in the longest fluorescent fixture are really 48" in length, which I found out upon return home....doh!

Shortly after we arrived home Claude and Gail were read to roll their wheels......

....we'll see them again Saturday afternoon.....safe travels Claude and Gail!

The high temp for Friday was to be 88° F, and by 1 pm we had to turn on the A/C....thank goodness for reliable 50 amp power!  The one thing which wasn't reliable Friday was the local cell phone service....we lost all broadband around mid afternoon, and it just returned sometime during the early morning hours.  One tends to forget how reliant we are upon good, uninterrupted cell phone service until it disappears....you suddenly feel cut off from the world, and wonder if you are missing anything important.  Well, the chances are you are not, and we did not.  The world was still turning on its axis this morning when I got up to find service had been restored.

It began to rain about 3 pm, and rained on and off the rest of the afternoon, evening, and early morning, but we will have clear, cool skies as we continue our way northwest through Great Falls to Lake Frances....thanks for stopping by!

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'Rusty Gold.......'

7:30 am - Friday - July 17th - Harlowton, MT - 55° F, 83% humidity, wind 5 mph out of the southeast......partly cloudy today with a forecast high of 88° F.  On this day in 2012 we were in Raymond, WA on the Olympic Peninsula walking around the town looking at 'rusty gold'.......↴

I'm still getting used to my new Holy Stone HS120D drone, and since we have dropped anchor for a few days I thought it time to fly her again, this time from a much higher altitude....about 30.3 meters (90.5 feet) above our campsite......

 Over 90' in the air!

 You can see me (the pilot) at the bottom center of the frame

 Antelope Creek in the foreground, and the town of Harlowton in the background

A drone video of the surrounding area

.....and I did all that before breakfast!  TLE used our Cowboy Disc Wok to prepare a sumptuous breakfast for the two of us....why does food cooked outside, and eaten outside always taste better?  That's the kind of breakfast that sticks to ones ribs.....for sure......

....after breakfast we all decided to take a walk into town......

 Crossing over Antelope Creek 

.....our first destination was the local train museum which tells the story of the Milwaukee Road Historic District....

.....regrettably, as is often the case in small towns, the museum building is only open Friday through Monday, but we could still view the railroad pieces outside......

 That's a very big snow plow!

 A Fairmont Speeder

.......below is an example of hand cut railroad ties.....back in the day a single man could hand cut 80 ties per day, and be paid 8¢ per tie for a whopping daily average of  $6.40......

 Hand cut railroad tie

....from the museum we moseyed up Central Ave. past some quaint homes with lot of yard art.....

.....soon we arrived in the 'old town' area....the ever majestic Graves Hotel was built in 1905.....

....is still is open for business with an operating Cafe......cool......

.....the entire 'old town' area was full of very cool vintage neon signs.......

....surprisingly, there were a number of thriving businesses still in operation, but the majority of storefronts showed no current activity.  After checking out the local Napa Automotive/Hardware store we sifted through some old treasures in a local thrift store (Claude found a couple of things without which he could not live) continuing our long loop walk back home.....

.....in all we covered some 3.21 miles, gained an amazing 95' in elevation, and consumed 576 caloric units in the process.

I spent the rest of the day in air conditioned comfort watching the Memorial Golf Tournament being played at Jack Nicklaus' Muirfield Village, as it is every year.  This is the first tournament Tiger has played in since the Wuhan Flu farce shut everything down.  Tiger finished the day at one under par......5 strokes behind the leader.

By the by, we are currently in Wheatland County, MT (Harlowton is the County Seat) where there have been just 2 diagnosed COVID cases, and zero deaths......no one in town is wearing a mask, and why should they, right?  All of us continue to be asymptomatic, and why would it be otherwise?  Unless you live in the highly populated areas of California, New York, New Jersey, Illinois, Michigan, Florida, Texas, or Massachusetts (or any other high density population area) the odds of you catching, or dying from the Corona Virus are almost zero, and we are free from the the fascistic, overbearing, dictatorial whims of politicians on both sides of the aisle.  Fortunately for us most of the U.S. land mass is rural, allowing us to live our lives free of and far from the mask police.

And with that I bid you all adieu until tomorrow, and thank you once again for stopping by!

When you shop Amazon, please use our link (below) to access their website.......we will appreciate every purchase you make using our Amazon Affiliate link, and  remember, using our link will not add one penny to your purchase, plus we will receive a small commission which over the course of a year adds up to enough to by a tank of diesel for which we thank you very much!