Life's Journey is not to arrive at the grave safely in a well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, totally worn out, shouting "Wow...What a Ride!"

Thursday, July 7, 2016

Hanging Out In Big Timber MT

June 26th-July 6th 2016

 We arrived at Spring Creek Campground and Trout Ranch on Sunday, we had made reservations way back in Feb which really paid off as we have the best full hookup site. While the site is not on the river we have a large yard with no one on our door side, we have a fire pit, FHu's, great satellite signal and a great Verizon signal.
We were here for 10 days and we couldn't have picked a nicer place to spend the holiday weekend.There are some nice sites along the river, 30amp w/e only and then there are some gravel parking lot 50am w/e sites along the water, they do have a honey wagon but I don't know if they charge, there is a dump station on site too. Since there is such a diversity of sites we feel fortunate to have gotten this beautiful site, planning ahead does pay off.



The camp hosts told us about a local place called Natural Bridge Falls about 24 miles south of the campground. A beautiful area where during high water the falls appear, during our visit though the water was underground at the falls area. Years ago there was a natural bridge here but it fell down in the late 80's. While the country side is beautiful I couldn't imagine living here in the winter.



While in the area we wanted to drive Beartooth Pass, something we'd never take our rv over and since it will be awhile before we're in the area again I thought this would be a good time to go. The day we chose to do the scenic drive was overcast, we ended up in a hail storm at 10K feet and had to pull off the road for awhile to wait it out. Hail storm aside it was a beautiful drive.



















We saw these guys hanging out in a field on our drive home from Beartooth Pass.










Other than that we've been hanging around home, spending days in our yard reading and people watching. One afternoon our neighbor asked if she could come join us in the shade since her site didn't have much of a yard. Over the course of a few afternoons sitting in the shade we got to know Vicki and her story. She is a solo rv'er in a small class A. She's been on the road for over a year and enjoys it, she was here over the holiday weekend so we all went to the park sponsored bbq Saturday evening then took a walk around the park checking out the site decorations. Vicki pulled out Sunday morning after a bit of an issue with her hydraulic jacks, thankfully Dave was able to help her out. We look forward to our trails crossing again.


Our last few stops we've noticed one living rooms slides not retracting all the way, while here Dave took a look and found a broken weld, something that needed to be handled before we start our caravan trip. We spent a few days looking for a welder, finally found one and he came out on our last morning here and got us all fixed up for what we thought was a reasonable price of $100.


We had made plans to meet our friends Steve and MonaLiza of  The Lowe's RV adventures in Laurel MT for dinner. On the way to Laurel we stopped at Prairie Dog Town State Park, this might be the smallest state we've ever seen but the residents were home. When we got there the alarm went up but after a bit there was lots of activity but there were always a few prairie dogs on alert and keeping an eye on us.





We met Steve and MonaLiza at Redneck Pizza, food was great and the company was better. In honor of our upcoming Alaska adventures they both wore Alaska t-shirts. Two hours of talking and making promises of freezing salmon and fish heads for our meetup in Sept and it was time to head home. Thanks Steve and MonaLiza for fun few hours filled with lots of laughter, and thanks for the jerky, Dave is enjoying it. See you in September at Lake Louise.


We enjoyed our 10 day stay in Big Timber MT, there's a small IGA in town for the necessities and a few restaurants that we never tried. The weather has been warm with a few storms passing through, we walked almost every day, got to know the owners and some of the hosts. We really enjoyed our time here and might someday consider it for workamping at, we're now well rested for the craziness that will come on our caravan trip which starts in one week.

Until next time...

17 comments:

  1. Beautiful country - love the wildflowers which disappeared quickly in the Arco area. Time for me to find some mountain meadows. Wishing you safe and fun travels north.

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    1. Thanks Ingrid, sorry things didn't work out in Arco. Can't wait to see what mountains call your name.

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  2. Your pictures make us really miss the West. We'll get back out there again. The East is just too congested for us.

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    1. We're loving it out here, won't be back east until 2019.

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  3. I book ahead many times but have no idea which campsite I’ve chosen since there aren’t any pictures. How did you see this great site ahead of time? Or are you guys just lucky?? Beautiful pictures of the water and the flowers with the mountains in the background. I’ve always wanted to do the Beartooth Mountains Really seriously gorgeous pictures. I’d love to know what kind of rig Vicki had. A small class A is what a friend of mine is looking for but other than suggesting the Winnebago View I didn’t have any advice. How terrific that you got to meet up with Mona Liza and Steve. Great picture of the 4 of you. I am in SERIOUS envy of your upcoming caravan and can’t wait to read all about it.

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    1. We use Google Earth to get a view of the campground, the only time it doesn't work is when there's too many trees. Vicki had a Storm by Fleetwood, gas engine, I took a look inside and it was nice, just a few things I'd change.

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  4. I'm sold. Have to go to Montana. Love the photos. Lucky Dave knew what to look for with the slide. Nothing going to keep you from getting to Alaska. Be safe.

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    1. MT is beautiful, think we'll work somewhere in the state one of these summers. Handy to have a handy guy on board. Sure hope nothing keeps us from Alaska, we're as prepared as we can be. Next time we go you'll have to come along.

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  5. Egards, glad you caught the weld booboo !! You've always been so good at planning down the road...nice 10 day hangout. Got my popcorn for next week's take off :)

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    1. Take off is Wednesday, finally time to get this adventure going.

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  6. Egards, glad you caught the weld booboo !! You've always been so good at planning down the road...nice 10 day hangout. Got my popcorn for next week's take off :)

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  7. Nice "backyard" you had at this campground ... always a delight and a reason to stay home and enjoy. The Beartooth Pass has the kind of scenery we miss here in Port A ;-)

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    1. And we are missing the beaches of Port A, love this lifestyle where we can go "live" where we choose.

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  8. Looks like the wildflowers were showing themselves. Looks like a peaceful area. Every time I plan ahead, we change our minds. Good job.

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    1. Since we knew we had to head up to Great Falls it was easy enough to plan just had to figure out the holidays.

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  9. The parks you have been camping in Montana are all so scenic and lots of wildlife. Those wildflowers at the Beartooth Mountains are pretty spectacular especially the ones in the tundra.
    Looking forward to our Sept meet up and hear all your adventures.
    We were glad to catch up with you again even for just a couple hours.

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    1. We've been lucky in the parks we found, planning early helped in site selection at some of them. Was an interesting day on top of Beartooth and the pay off was the wildflower display we found. Salmon and fish heads for you..hopefully.

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