Back to Montana (happy place for us!)

 

I got up early and walked around the campground in Broadus to get a little exercise.  We had breakfast in the camper (pandemic!).  We arrived in Billings at noon so we made a stop at a Starbucks on King Street.  I went inside Starbucks to get our food.  Phillip was walking around the camper checking everything and an Indian woman came by and asked if that was his rig – he said, "Yep."  Then she said are you married? And he said, "Yep and my wife is walking up now."   She said, "OK. have a good day" and walked away!  So funny - I'm going to have to keep an eye on Phillip.  

We headed to Gardiner via Hwy 89.  We stopped at a rest area and saw a herd of elk heading up the mountain – so cool.  We are checking out a few campgrounds along the way – all full.  We had already tried to get a reservation but since not all campgrounds were listed on my app, we thought we might be able to get in a campground.  We ended up going to the Eagles Nest campground on NFS land which was our plan if we could not find anything else. The campground was full so we continued up the mountain another 1.5 miles to the boondocking area.  We found a spot on the side of the road (they were all like that).  This was a one-lane, gravel road, but somehow Phillip got the RV turned around so that we were facing down. This camping spot is so scary for me!  However, Phillip had chocks and wood blocks on 4 wheels and had the emergency break on.  

We had chili dogs for dinner and sat outside.  Phillip went in and got ready for bed.  I went outside after dark and SAW THE MILKY WAY!  IT WAS AWESOME and on my vacation "to do" list (no picture).  No hookups, but we did fine.  Although it got down to 30 degrees during the night, we both stayed toasty.  I planned for boondocking and brought instant coffee and a pot for the stove top.  After blueberry pancakes we headed down to Gardnier.  We still couldn't find a campground for Saturday Friday night, so we made a reservation at the Absoraka Lodge.  They agreed to let us drop the trailer in their parking lot while we explored the park.  This big guy was checking us out when we pulled into the lot: