The Millers Go RVing - Day 19

So now we are back in the RV but we don't have any lodging booked and it's a holiday weekend [July 4th]. And we are heading for Yellowstone, notorious for being booked up all summer long. This is a problem.

Before the breakdown, we had planned to spend a whole day in Missoula MT -of "A River Runs Through It" fame- so JS could go trout fishing. The rest of us were going to check out the Smoke Jumpers museum meanwhile, and just relax "down by the creek bank, by the old holler log". But now JS voted to eliminate the extra miles to backtrack the whole way to Missoula in favor of going home ahead of schedule. (While the majority of this Miller crew was sure the separation was a good test that love could withstand and make the heart grow fonder and all that, certain people were not agreeable and cooperative. Apparently R & I were deluding ourselves that we were offering a great gift to our children by taking them on this trip -that we had planned & saved for 20 years- when really it was cruel & unusual punishment.) So, scratch Montana. Head straight to Yellowstone.
 
We were intending to drive across Utah and part of Idaho on Day 19, but there was not a single RV site to be had in all of ID. At least not along our route. We finally found a single available site at a park in West Yellowstone MT 8.5 hours away. For Saturday evening only, no vacancy Sunday or Monday. Farther than we wanted to drive, but we'll take it! Taking it one day at a time.

LLLOOOOONNNNNNGGGGGGG Day of driving. Is it just me or is this scenery starting to look awful familiar? Are we lost & going in circles? I'm positive I saw that same scenery yesterday.

But we gotta say- Utah has some beautiful farm land. Somehow I always pictured UT as more desert-ish.

We stopped at a Walmart to buy yet another case of bottled water, and restock groceries (to replace all the stuff we had to throw away when we broke down). Oh, and I forgot to mention we found a few other items we left behind in the RV that we shouldn't have. Did you know that the big bottle of gummie vitamins will melt into one huge worthless glob at 110* during the course of 8 days? A box of cereal will go stale, too. But I digress. What I started to say was that Walmart in Utah was the most fantastic Walmart ever. It was neat & clean, organized in a familiar layout so I could find things quickly, AND ...wait for it... they even had people up front directing you to a checkout without a line. Because most of their checkouts were open. This is a rare phenomenon indeed. Round of applause for UT Walmarts! 

  

 Personally we're not into essential oils, but we went right by Young Living's lavender fields & warehouse and what not.

 Seriously? Now I know I'm not making this up- we did just go through here yesterday.

  Finally some new scenery! Yup, this is what I expected Montana to look like.

 But Big Bertha still doesn't like climbing mountain passes. At the top of Targhee Pass, she said "huff, puff, bubble, boil, give me a minute to rest & cool down". Or maybe it was "hot flash alert! Is it just me or is it hot up here?" I don't remember which it was this time.
And at the bottom, "You can stand on my brakes all you want but there's nothing there. Brake fluid, I need more brake fluid. Like right now. ...Whew, that was close, you almost didn't make that turn."

We rolled into the RV park at 7:45pm. The man was very helpful and gave us a list of phone numbers to call to try find an RV site for the weekend, but there simply wasn't any vacancies. Well ok, a KOA had one 50amp site available... but we didn't have a converter. We were running on faith that the Lord would provide something. Letting tomorrow worry about tomorrow, and all that.  

I did one load of laundry because it was $2/load here. If I would've known what was coming, I would've done it all. This was a really nice campground and we were sorry we couldn't stay here all weekend. And we were happy to be back out of the blistering southwestern heat and in comfortable temperatures again.    

to be continued...