Home Is Where You Park It: Day 8 of Our RV Journey to Canada & Alaska - 5/20/14 (Traveling Day to RV Park in Montana)

We had no WiFi yesterday so I'm late blogging.

Yesterday, Wednesday, May 21, 2014, we left Sheridan Wyoming to travel to our next destination in Montana. We left a little earlier than planned due to everyone being ready. While traveling, we were driving in the town of Billings,Montana, when we heard a noise like we ran over something and immediately our tire pressure monitoring system started alerting us that we were losing tire pressure. So, I notice that there is a large empty parking lot on the left that we could both turn in to and park. Luckily, the lot was there, cause the front left tire on the truck was completely flat by the time we got off the highway and parked.

With joint efforts, Jesse and Bob got the tire off and spare put on in record time. You would have thought those guys previously worked at a tire shop...team effort

Jesse said that he saw that Bob ran over a clip on RV mirror that must of been laying in the street. Bob couldn't avoid it because there was vehicles traveling on both sides of our truck.

Anyway, knowing that there probably wouldn't be much opportunity to find a tire shop that could repair the tire after Billings, Bob was on the lookout for a place to get it fixed. We found a shop a few blocks down the highway and it looked like we would both be able to pull in and get turned back around when time to leave. We checked in with the shop and they said it would be 1 1/2 hrs. before they could get to it. So, lo & behold, it was about 11:30 and there was a God Father's Pizza next door so we walked over there and ate buffet lunch.

We could see from the Pizza place's window that they had moved the tire that Bob set up against the truck so we knew they were working on it. Bad news... the tire couldn't be fixed...too long of a gash....so we had to purchase a new tire. Of course, they didn't carry the same tire & brand that we had on it, but you do what you have to do. We were glad that if we were gonna have tire problems that it happened where it did. One positive was that Montana has no sales tax.

So, after they got us on the road again, we lost our cell phone signals. There is not a lot to look at along the highways after Billings.

Fairly close to the campground we were going to be staying overnight, we had a fairly long highway construction stop, so we were going to be even later getting parked than we hoped.

We arrived at James Kip Campground & Recreational Park just off the highway and alongside the Missouri River. The park had no frills....(no electric, no water, no sewer) ..... but that gave the guys a chance to see how their generators fired up. Lucky for us, it did not rain overnight cause it would have been a muddy mess getting our rigs out of the park. Camping was $12.00 csh (no hookups).

We set up camp, gathered over Ginger's & Jesse's outside on their picnic table, and had a cold drink and visited for awhile.

It was my turn to fix dinner, so I leave them and go to our rig to cook. While I was cooking, they walked to the river to check it out. There was a group of guys that Bob had talked to earlier that were there to fish for spoon bill.

We ate dinner outside on our picnic table and enjoyed the nice cool breeze. After dinner, they went back to their camper and we watched a movie on DVD and called it a night "early" (well, early for me).