August 1, 2024, Day 25 of trip
After spending a few days near Glacier National Park, we headed toward Bozeman, Montana, which is about 315 miles. At the rate we travel, 315 miles is at least 6 hours on the road, so we decided to break up the driving over two days.
On our first travel day, we headed toward Helmville, Montana to spend a night at the Geary Brothers Ranch. On our drive, we passed through a thunderstorm with brief spells of rain that were so intense it made it hard to see out of the windshield. It is intimidating to drive this truck and trailer in bad weather!
The Geary Brothers Ranch is a working cattle ranch which also hosts an annual rodeo. We parked near the rodeo grounds in a nice grassy cow pasture. There was evidence of cattle (lots of dried cow pies), but we didn’t spot a single cow. They must be up in the hills in the free range at the moment. The absence of cows did not mean an absence of biting flies. Annalise and I got to experience the fly bites on our evening walk with Ranger.
On our second travel day, we headed generally south and east and enjoyed the sights of Montana. We saw a coyote cross the road, a couple of eagles’ nests, a fighter jet, a dual rotor helicopter, and lots of grassland and mountains. There is a high pass (over 6,000 feet) when crossing into Helena and Red Rover handled it with ease. I really enjoyed the engine exhaust brake all the way down the descent.
Dexter and I finished listening to the audiobook of “My Side of the Mountain” which we both enjoyed. We started listening to “Little House in the Big Woods” by Laura Ingalls Wilder today, and Dexter was not enthusiastic. He thinks the narrator sounds like she is bored. So far, Laura’s Pa has killed and smoked a deer, a hog, some fish, and shot at a bear. We also learned how much Laura enjoyed eating a pig’s tail. To me this doesn’t seem boring at all, but this is a “girl” story which makes it unappealing in the mind of a 12-year-old boy.
We found a car wash/truck wash/rv wash/dog wash on our way into Bozeman and stopped to wash our vehicles and Ranger for the first time on this trip. My truck in particular looked quite gross after all of the driving on various gravel roads and pastures.
After settling in to our RV park, we went to Makenzie River Pizza for supper. The kids both had the mac ‘n cheese pizza while Heidi and I shared a huckleberry salad and a pesto pizza. We like to visit regional chain restaurants. Makenzie River Pizza has 29 total locations, spread over nine states, with the original restaurant located here in Bozeman so this fits our desire nicely. The food was good, and Annalise and Dexter were glad to order off the kids menu where they got pizza, a drink, and a side for only $6 each.
Today was the day that Annalise and Dexter left us for the next 9 nights to join the Sunnyside Pathfinders for their trip to Yellowstone and then Gillette, Wyoming. Annalise didn’t sleep well last night as she was a bit nervous about going on the Pathfinder trip.
After haircuts at Great Clips, we went to a Taco Time nearby for lunch. This particular Taco Time had a sign that said it was closing at the end of August after 40 years in business because the owner (Steve) was going to retire. Steve took our order and delivered it to us promptly. We wished Steve a happy retirement.
When we got back to the rig, I unearthed the kids’ sleeping bags, duffel bags and other camping necessities so they could pack while I attended online meetings for work. It took 2 hours for the kids to get all packed up, but when I finished my meetings they were done packing so I loaded their gear up in the Highlander.
About 5:30 we headed to the Bozeman airport to meet up with the Sunnyside Pathfinders. We parked just outside the rental car area and went to the rental counter. After a few minutes, we recognized a Sunnyside pathfinder leader and then waited for the rest of the crew to arrive.
It took almost an hour for them to get their rental vans and for us to extract ourselves, but we said our goodbyes and headed out just before 7:00.
After leaving the kids at the airport, we made a quick stop at REI and then went on a dinner date. Heidi really loves Thai food, so we chose a restaurant called Thai Basil.
At Thai Basil, we ordered our food (pad see ew noodles and sweet and sour tofu with rice) and were informed that the salad bar up front was included in the price of dinner. I’ve never been to a Thai place that had a buffet salad bar. I got some salad, and it was all traditional American salad fixings with the exception of deep fried sweet potatoes and deep fried bananas. I’ve definitely never seen Blue Cheese dressing at a Thai restaurant.
The food was pretty good and we were hungry, so we devoured all of it.
We noticed a dessert menu that had 7 different types of cakes including something called “German Chocolate Cake (GF).” We asked the server about it. He said that their manager has celiac disease so they decided that they wanted to serve a wide variety of Gluten Free cakes at their Thai restaurant. This is definitely the only place around where you can have a salad with blue cheese dressing, pad see ew noodles, and gluten free German Chocolate Cake all at the same meal. It was delightful.
After tonight, we are boondocking for the next 5 nights. Tomorrow we are trying our first Harvest Host (an alpaca farm), and then we’re at a HipCamp on a huge ranch for 3 nights, then were at a state park for a night before we have hookups again. Our current location is nice in some ways (electricity, water, sewer, showers, laundry, air conditioning) but it also is extremely crowded, next to an Interstate, and next to train tracks with traffic blowing their horns all night long.
SAOTD: Annalise, who didn’t sleep well in anticipation of the big Pathfinder Trip.