A catch up on our doings

We left you in Wapiti/Cody area and we headed north into Montana, specifically to Moose Creek Flat Campground right on the Gallatin River, we had discovered it last year.  It is about 30 miles south of Bozeman.  Our drive was beautiful and uneventful until we made our turn south from Bozeman.  It looked like we were driving into a wall of weather, lightning crisscrossed the sky and the sounds of thunder were booming even in the motorhome as we drove.  Pretty soon we were in pouring rain, hoping we wouldn't see any hail, luckily we didn't. 

The Gallatin River flows north and for awhile the river looked good, nice and clear and excellent for fishing, but as we proceeded south, the effects of the storm became apparent, the river was noticeable higher and higher and cloudier and cloudier.  Oh no, we came to fish!  The rain continued for several hours.

Our boondock site

The next day dawned bright and clear but the river would take several days to recover.  

Luckily we had a whole day of errands to run in Bozeman, we figured maybe the river would clear in that time.  Off to get the first oil change on the truck, an excellent lunch at Starkey's, grocery shopping, cat stuff, Starbucks, and back.  Then about 2 miles from the campground, a huge, screaming dump truck goes by and WHAM, a big rock hits our windshield!  Man, are we jinxed with windshields or what?  It was big, but a star, so I put tape over it, hoping we could get it repaired in a few weeks in Helena or Missoula.  Well, by the next morning with the temperature changes, the star was now several cracks running out a foot or so.  No repair in our future, looks like a new windshield in Missoula.

Then just to make sure we felt snakebit, we opened the oven and.......

The handle broke off!

Oh well, something to keep us busy:-)

A lot of the allure of this campground that we felt last year wore off this time.  It for some reason was like being surrounded with bubbas, lots of noise, people coming and going right through the sites, there is getting to be less and less campground etiquette anymore, the traffic on the nearby road just never stopped, and no phone or internet at all.  Are we just getting older and less tolerant?  I don't know.  But the river did clear up and many, many rafts floated through, and we were able to fish a couple days.

The river is gorgeous!

We drove 15 miles down to Big Sky to get internet and marveled once again at the stunning Big Sky Chapel.

Wow, just wow!

So then we moved over to Henry's Lake State Park, one of our favorites, only 70 miles away, stopped and fished along the way, and arrived at our beautiful site.

The view from our site

Not bad, huh?

So off we went to go fishing on the Madison River, had a couple rise and had a good one on, but couldn't bring it in.  A typical fish story, but true, but with the views and wonderful weather who could complain?

The Madison

The other direction

Today we went and fished another section of the river, did get one in this time and we both had many lookers, certainly made us feel better.  We are going to try to get out tomorrow morning for a few hours before we move again north to Ennis.