Welcome to Montana

This mornings free breakfast was just as good as yesterday's.  I only ordered one of their delicious pancakes. We pulled out of Mountain View RV Park around 9 am.  This is one park we'll return to in the future.

The RV manager/waitress suggested we go a different route that wasn't as curvy but we opted for the scenic version.  Our travels had us following the Salmon River.  There were many river access places and lots of curves.  The scenery was beautiful.

This canyon was called Grand View Canyon.  It was easy to see how it got it's name.




We passed over the 45th parallel--halfway between the north pole and the equator.   Sacajawea's birthplace was in Salmon.  Lewis and Clark followed along this route.  

The Ram pulled up Lost Trail Pass at over 7000 feet with no problems.  We stopped at the welcome center to find snow.  See the snow behind the truck.  

It was a much longer day driving due to the mountain roads and curves but we still managed to arrive in Darby, MT by 2 pm.  Unfortunately, we didn't get parked until later.  We drove up to Lake Como to stay and found out that they were full.  It's no surprise as it is much nicer than when we were by here before and the senior rate was $8.  We came back to Darby and pulled into the Traveler's Rest.  The host said they were full but the owner came over and said he'd move his motorhome if we could just use 30 amp electric by the shed.  It works for us!

Bill called Michael Gouse, an engraver, who previously engraved a Colt Single Action Army back in 2005 when Bill retired.  He had a Colt Gold Cup that he wanted engraved and Michael lives about 18 miles from where we are staying.  Eddie Gannon drove in about this time and wanted to take us up to their home.  We told Michael we'd stop by after visiting with our friends.

Eddie and Christina and Jim and Sandie Dixon were the first RVers we met when we starting RVing back in 2008.  We were all newbies at a Good Sam Rally in Casa Grande.  We never felt so unwelcome at any event.  We were wearing special newbie tags and when we went to sit down for dinner everyone was saving a place for somebody else.  The six of us ended up sitting together at the end of the tables.  We're been friends ever since and we always seem to meet up again somewhere.  

When we met up with Eddie and Christina two years ago in Hamilton, they were trying to buy a beautiful mountain home here.  There were many glitches and they were on pins and needles worrying if they would get it.  As it turned out, they got a much better deal than they expected.  Two years ago they drove us past the place in our truck so the owners wouldn't know they were still looking at it.  Today we got an inside view.  Unfortunately, I left the camera in the 5er.  I'll include some photos before we leave here.  I'll describe this mansion later when I have photos.  

Christina had a wonderful dinner for us.  It was an enjoyable evening and way to short but we needed to go to Michael's.  Tomorrow's another day and the Gannon's will pick us up at 8 am for more fun.    

Turtle Safely.........