Monday 27th March – Into Montana

We are so incredibly lucky with the weather.  Having had glorious sunshine at Mount Rushmore and good weather for Badlands, Sunday was a washout.  Which, on a day when we have nothing planned, is absolutely fine!  Sunday went as expected – Si awoke early to see the F1, we spoke to lots of friends and family over the internet and I went for a walk up a nearby hill when the rain eventually stopped late in the afternoon (right).

On Monday morning we left the site a little late, about 1130am, and headed to a Camping World nearby to see if we could get our two broken switches fixed.  I had been itching to go to one of these stores for the last 5 months.  They look like giant camping superstores from the outside and I’m constantly getting emails about deals and savings they want to give me.  I was a bit disappointed.  The store was nothing special and they didn’t appear to want our business – apparently everyone in servicing was finishing up their morning’s work before their lunch break, so if we wanted anyone to look at the RV it would be after 1pm. Plus, they didn’t have exactly the right replacement part so they would probably have to order one in. No suggestion was made about trying something else or even trying to fix the connection.  Erm…. No thanks, we’ve got our 36^th State to get to!  We shall have to get the lights fixed elsewhere. Could do better Camping World!

Within an hour of heading North-West we were back into Wyoming for about 15 miles before we reached the Montana state border:

We had lunch nearby and I took over driving towards a BLM site that Simon had found for the night that would place us conveniently near Little Bighorn Battlefield for tomorrow.  We reached Red Shale camp ground in the Custer National Forest about 330pm.  But the gates were double padlocked.  We walked in a short distance to the noticeboard for the site which had free maps showing different trails in the Forest.  It also showed the location for the nearest ranger station only 6 miles away.  As we were in plenty of time we headed there.  Simon’s ‘Allstays’ App (one of our favourites for this trip) clearly stated that the site was open between March and November.  However, the ranger man in the over-sized cowboy hat disagreed, stating it was closed until April.  Plan B then – any other sites available?  He mentioned two that were open and reluctantly showed us on a map when we explained we were new to the area!

Almost the 6 miles back to the closed camp ground, we took a left along a dirt road (yes, I think we had said we wouldn’t do that again!) for 12 miles towards Holiday Springs.  The road wasn’t actually that bad and there was some good scenery, made more dramatic by some threatening clouds and a rainbow:

...plus the odd Kamikaze cow:

By 5pm we had found the camp ground.  Wow.  We are in the middle of absolutely nowhere, amongst fir trees, wild deer, turkeys and probably the odd bear.  And there is not another human being for miles as we have the campsite (consisting of three spaces!) completely to ourselves.  Despite the dark clouds looking to arrive with us imminently, we took the opportunity to go for a walk and…. The clouds completely disappeared leaving a lovely bright blue sky until sunset. 

As a mystery lumberjack had left a huge pile of different sized pieces of wood at our site there was nothing for it but to make the biggest and best campfire of the trip so far.  This, in combination with dinner of awesome chilli, in jacket sweet potatoes with cheese and sour cream, topped off a totally unexpected bonus free evening!  Nowhere near a town or city, so there was minimal light pollution, the sky was inundated with endless bright stars.  No phone signal or WiFi to worry about. A perfect evening in the wilderness.

I am also aware that today is six months exactly since my last day at work.  Time is going unbelievably fast now. With our imminent move into Canada we are increasingly aware of enjoying every moment, stopping and savouring what we are doing.  Especially unexpected nights like tonight.