One Week Down

 We've completed our first week here in Ennis, MT, and are loving it.  We have been able to slow down and take care of a few items and not feel we need to get cracking to see what we want and do what we want.  We took care of a few repairs, replaced our Fantastic Fan lift motor and replaced the under cabinet vents, no more smell:-)  We even took the time to wash the motorhome and truck.  Mostly been relaxing and enjoying being here.

Jan says, "Cheers" from our awesome site with the incredible views

We've gone fishing a couple of days, no luck unfortunately, but we aren't alone with slow fishing. The neighbors we've talked to haven't been having much luck either.  Seems we are in the dog days of summer and the fish are a bit warm, should pick up in a week or so.  But fishing out here is reward in itself, the scenery is fantastic, it is peaceful, not crowded, and we've had some nice picnics all by ourselves on the side of the river.

The Madison near Three Dollar Bridge

These 2 pics are "Between the Lakes" on the Madison
Between Quake Lake and Hebgen Lake

We have been enjoying exploring the area and loving the stellar weather.

Looking down on the town of Ennis

A cool shot of our campground with our flag flying proudly!

Which brings me to a sad moment.  We had a line of significant weather come through last night, thunder, lightning, rain, and wind, but it didn't seem all that bad, but this morning I heard a hello at the door, and a lady asked if I knew about my flag?  The pole has broken and it's fallen down! Sure enough the pole snapped right at the top bracket, I couldn't believe it, seemed like we hadn't had it that long.  We looked it up and it turns out we have had that flag pole since 2011, and since we fly it almost every day, I can't complain.  I ordered a new one immediately and it should be here soon so I can get the flag flying proudly once more.

Then in an email with Jan's cousin-in-law, Sandy who lives in Idaho asked if we were getting any smoke?  I said no and showed him a picture similar to what I have posted here.  Clear as a bell. Well thanks Sandy, today we can't see anything, the smoke is thick!  Every region of the country has natural events that impact your life, may they be hurricanes, blizzards, tornados, thunderstorms, floods, but out here it is fire.  7 million acres burn in the states each year.  We have been very lucky this year with no real signs of fire, but this late in the year with the dryness, now is the peak of the fire season and there are many burning.  I'll show you 2 pictures of the exact same view, the first is a few days ago and the second is today, right now.

Amazing, isn't it?  It's thick enough you can smell it and you
can feel it while breathing

Hopefully the wind will shift and we'll be clear again soon.  We are planning much more fishing next week, and will probably make a trek to Bozeman for some real groceries:-)  It's really not that far, 40 miles.  There is a store here that's okay, but it is a little bleak with a town population of less than 1000.  Jan is looking forward to a real nice grocery store.  With the lack of eating out all the time, it's become more important.