The West is calling

Well, our stay at home didn’t last long. We were back in Rochester for a whole 11 days. During that time, we had two dentist appointments, three doctor appointments and a visit with the physical therapist. We are healthy and my new knee checked out OK. Yay! So let’s load up the RV and head out again. Actually, we never really unloaded the RV from the last trip!

Janelle is having an epic adventure out in the western United States, so we have decided to head out and join her. If you aren’t following Janelle’s adventures on Facebook, you can see them on her Twitter account. You don’t need your own Twitter account to see her tweets. https://twitter.com/TrophicTopics

We have a lot of miles to cover to reach the Janelle. We set out on July 1st with our first destination to be Jim’s brother and sister-in-law’s place in Wisconsin. We had to cut our visit with them short last Fall due to my knee crying “Uncle!” It was time to rectify that.

We broke up the 14 hour drive by stopping in Ohio overnight. Did you know that the Ohio Turnpike has RV spots at their rest areas? Normally we would happily stay at a Harvest Host or a similar free place. But it has been so HOT, we decided we wanted power to run the air conditioners (which is starting to be a recurring theme on this trip). So an RV parking spot on the Turnpike it was!

This is the sign that greeted us as we approached the RV spots on the Ohio Turnpike. Our RV alone is 40 feet, AND we are towing a car. But we didn’t let this sign scare us.
By grabbing an end spot and disconnecting the Jeep, we fit just fine. For $20, this was a perfectly adequate place to spend the night. We were tucked in at the back of the rest area, so the road noise was minimal. A good night’s sleep was had by all. By the time we left in the morning, most of the 10 parking spots were taken.

Onward to Wisconsin. We got an early start to get around Chicago after rush hour but before the holiday travelers hit the road. The trip was uneventful except for stuck in Milwaukee traffic when the police shut down the highway to look for bullet casings from a highway shooting. Yikes. We had an hour delay and but we still made it to Jim’s hometown by mid-afternoon.

How’s this for a free camping spot? Because Tom & Cheryl also RV, they have a 50 amp power plug we could use. Nothing like camping with a view! Thanks Tom & Cheryl!

We visited with Tom & Cheryl and their family. Also, a trip to Wisconsin wouldn’t be complete with a visit with Jim’s childhood friend Allen and his wife Bonnie. It was a low key weekend full of family and fun.

Tom and Cheryl’s Boston Terriers were a constant source of amusement. When we opened the door to the RV, they would run right in! I think they were ready to hit the road with us when we left.

Upon leaving Wisconsin after the holiday weekend, the plan was to put in a lot of miles and boondock at BLM land outside Badlands National Park. Alas, weather got in our way. A nasty storm was brewing by late afternoon and again it was stinking hot. A quick search found a campground in eastern South Dakota that would give us power for the A/Cs and get us off the highway during the storm.

We are very glad we stopped. We avoided having to drive in a thunderstorm with its high winds. The storm dumped 3/4″ of rain on where we wanted to boondock. Rain plus dirt equals MUD. No, no, no. We are not going to get this huge RV stuck again. We made the right call to pull off and stop. We’ll get back to the Badlands again some day. But it killed us to drive right by the next morning.

We pressed on westward. We had crossed the Mississippi River when we left Wisconsin. Now we were crossing the Missouri River. This is Lewis and Clark country!

It was still raining when we crossed the Missouri in western South Dakota.

For a summer that is supposed to experiencing full campgrounds everywhere, we have so far been lucky. We ended up yesterday in this well run, clean campgorund in Garryowen, Montana. It’s set up on a hill and every campsite has a wonderful view. The sunsets are to die for! Again, it’s hot so we are thankful to have 50 amp power for the air conditioners.

This is the 7th Ranch RV Park, set in the middle of a working farm. We saw cattle on our walk this morning.
There we are at sunset, nestled beside a tree with the A/Cs running….again.
We had a couple of thunderstorms roll through on either side of us. They totally missed us, instead they provided us with these spectacular cloud formations at sunset.
Someone had a great time making all these birdhouses that are on the fence posts. No two are alike.

So we are here, just south of Billings, Montana till tomorrow. Today is laundry, repairs, bill paying, catching up, etc. Tomorrow we press on towards the west coast and Janelle. Where are we staying tomorrow night? No clue! We’ll figure it out tomorrow.

2 thoughts on “The West is calling

  1. dominiquefeather

    Nice clouds. Hope you get back to the Badlands. Really weird place.— or at least it was in the late 70’s/early 80’s. Glad that your trip seems to be going well.

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