GA Gypsies – Fulltiming

Made a quick dash back to the quilt store in Deer Lodge, then headed back to hook up the camper and leave. Got off about 11:30, made it to Missoula, then off the interstate and onto beautiful Hwy 93. We went up the east side of the lake – a part we had never been before. There were cherry orchards, full of cherries everywhere. At least we didn’t miss the flathead cherries! It looked like Christmas – the green trees full of red cherries. We made it to our “spot” for the next couple of months and met our hosts – Dave & Kathy. We are on such a beautiful spot – I will hate leaving. Got to get my hammock out!

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Got off about 10:00 – headed today for some quilt shopping! Mama’s feeling better! Stopped in Livingston and Bozeman, then we headed down the road and made it to Deer Lodge, Montana. And guess what – there was a quilt store there, so went there too! Then we ate at a steak house, went to an ice cream shop and got some mountain berry ice cream – yum. Back to the camp site in Deer Lodge. Washed some clothes and headed for our destination tomorrow – Big Fork!!!! Finally, I can finish getting nested in my new house and stay put for awhile. We have come through some very interesting places that we want to go back to and spend more than an overnight there. So much history out here.

Broke camp at 10:00, going interstate. Big trucks and campers, ranches, cows and horses, hills, mountains in the background, ravines, gullies, pronghorn. First glimpse of snow covered mountains in distance. Trying to make time so we could get there by Monday. We left Cheyenne and made it to Montana. It just does something to my soul – there’s a look, a feeling, a way of life like no where else, except Wyoming is pretty close. It feels like home. The temperatures are still hot during the day but cool off nicely in the evening. We went through a thunderstorm with lightning going vertical across the sky. The people we’ve met have talked about the past years drought and are thankful for the rain. One lady told me this was the greenest she had ever seen southern Montana in many years. Made it on to Billings. We are at the KOA in Big Timber. This is the area where parts of The Horse Whisperer was filmed. Not much in the town. We went to the Prairie Dog Town State Park on the other side of the interstate. All there was was a short little drive through the prairie dog town; no camping. Oh well, I got to play at calling the prairie dogs out of their holes. We’ll go through Bozeman, Butte, Anaconda, and hopefully Missoula tomorrow. Off to closer to Bigfork in the morning.

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Left about 10:00 – took the interstate to make up some time. But I want to stop and look at everything! Went through Casper and Kaycee, Wyoming – home of Chris LeDoux (he’s a famous bullrider). Some pictures of what we saw from the road. That speed limit sign says 80, not 60. And the Lusk sign is for you, Donna – only about 30 miles to our east. Tommy – we found a great little camper for you and Stephanie and it runs on horsepower – real horses’ power! We could probably get a good deal on it. Had reservations for tonight in Buffalo at the Indian Campground and RV Park. We arrived earlier, around 2:30 and just unhooked the camper and turned on air and headed to a shop I wanted to go to. When we got there, it was closed for a show, so we went back to camper. When Tony went to open the steps, they were right in the middle of a tree, so he had to hook back up to the camper to move forward. I was in the truck where it was cool, and he was bent under the camper and heard someone screaming “Help!” He got up and headed to the camper next to us and I saw the couple across from us running to it. When I got out of truck, the lady yelled call 911, but my phone was dead. So they called from the office – Tony and the other man were inside with the couple – the man was having a grand mal seizure. The lady was on the phone, crying. The police, first responders, then ambulance arrived – I was the designated waver downer of everyone. They worked with him for a long time and wanted to take him to the hospital, but he refused. Tony checked on him and the other couple has several times this afternoon. Just another example of God’s perfect timing – if the shop had been open, we wouldn’t have been back and if the camper had already been set up, Tony wouldn’t have been outside and heard anything. He heard the man fall, but thought it was kids stomping in there until the woman started screaming, then he immediately went over there. And the other couple across the road were sitting outside under their awning when they heard the lady yelling for help. We actually went out to eat tonight, across the street from the campground. I actually have not been as tired today as usual. We are hoping for an early start tomorrow and to make it 1/2 way to Bigfork, but we’re probably only going to make it 1/3 – we’ll see how many miles we make. I’m ready to be stationary for awhile and finish nesting my house. We were trying to get away from Portal so I finally started stuffing boxes in the washer/dryer closet. That can be put away when we are in Bigfork. Montana tomorrow, just don’t know how far. Please send up prayers for the couple next to us. And pray that those nice, shady cottonwood trees don’t blow down on top of our camper or truck tonight. I am missing my Sunday School class and church and my little fur babies.

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Left earlier this morning – 9:45, from Brush, Colorado, through Greeley and on into Wyoming through Cheyenne. We were trying to make it to Casper, but ended up staying in the A-OK Campground just north of Wheatland. We’re next to the interstate and the campground is kind of on a ranch. Open range here – going to the campground, a calf was trying to cross a cattle crossing and I had to shoo him back from the gap to get the truck and camper through. Horses are in the pasture next to us. Saw my first real jackrabbit yesterday, with ears as big as mules. Also started seeing pronghorns in the fields. Riding the interstate today, because there’s not nearly as much traffic and you still see the surrounding areas. Our first glimpse of the Rockies to the west of us. All the “new” homes/ranches can be seen for miles because that’s where all the trees are – planted around the houses as windbreaks. The deserted homesteads look so sad to me – they are just slowly dying. Another odd thing we saw were old timey telephone poles with the glass insulators on them – miles of them. God sure knew what He was doing when He made this world. I was looking at the land, how it was used, the cities, how everything was made to work together. Yesterday as we came into Colorado, there were feedlots everywhere and then there were also grain silos to feed out the cows. There were ranches with farmers mowing hay and wheat for the cows and then we started seeing dairy operations and milk trucks. And trains, tracks and tracks of trains, and semis hauling products. Then all the agriculture equipment, thus stores to sell it and people to repair it. And oil pumps in the fields and the equipment for it. Trains hauling in coal from back east. Cowboys rounding up cows to take to the feed lots. Trucks, horse trailers, hay balers. People working on the roads and lots of orange cones. Restaurants and hotels for the tourists and the locals. It’s a real good commerce lesson that the jug of milk and pack of steak don’t just magically appear in the grocery stores. God created all of us to be born in a specific place, at a specific time, with a specific purpose. And we were meant to work. We, the people, the church, not the government were supposed to provide for the orphans and widows and poor. But our government has created 3-4 generations of entitled people who don’t believe they should work. If we’d all follow God’s plan, this whole world would work like it is supposed to. There are so many jobs that aren’t filled – if you want to work, you can find a job. It might not be as the president of a company. I looked at the cowboys and their ranches and that’s their calling – their purpose and that supports food for those in cities. And the farmers grow the crops. The landscape is just stunning – even in this high desert, over 6,000 feet, along with the sagebrush – the animals that are adapted and made for this terrain. The pronghorns and jackrabbits. It is totally amazing and very humbling looking at the vastness of the prairie with the mountains in the distance, you get a perspective of how really small we are in the scheme of God’s plans, yet we are each needed for our purpose. And God supplied us with a beautiful good-night sunset about 10:00.

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A pretty normal day. Headed west, then north. Temps only in 80’s. Rode out another storm last night. We made it to Brush, Colorado, just outside of Fort Morgan. We are staying in the Brush Munincipal Park for free. Not great sights, but we have water and power. Tony was able to fix our fresh water holding tank – it was just a loose fitting, so now we can boondock – we can stop in a Walmart or Cracker Barrel or anywhere that allows overnite parking. Our fresh water tank has not worked since the third day we left when we tried it out. Headed to Wyoming tomorrow.

Left a little earlier – 10:15. Headed west to Colorado. Time change. Headed to a Colorado State Park – John Martin Reservoir. State Parks are different from state to state. There wasn’t water at every site – we rode around looking for one that had water and shade, but couldn’t find one, so we left and headed to the next nearest campground in La Junta. Terrible storm and rain during night. Temperature hit 100. Way too hot. Headed closer into La Junta, we began seeing lots of trains and we came to a HUGE beef processing plant as we got into town. We got a real view of farm to table. Such a confluence of trains, grain bins, the fields growing corn, the cows in the fields, the cowboys working on the fences, oil wells pumping, etc. And hot, really hot. Oh, something I haven’t seen in a really long time – old telephone poles with the glass insulators on them.

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Leaving late again. Headed due north from Oklahoma into Kansas. (Mrs. Dorothy, we ARE in Kansas!) Once we got to Wellington, we started west. We went through Sharon, Kansas – hometown of Martina McBride. My driver was going too fast to stop and get a picture and he passed it from the other side too. We’d drive west, then north a bit, then west some more until finally we drove northwest into Dodge City. I wonder where Matt and Kitty are? Quigley said, “This ain’t Dodge City,” but Susan says, “This is Dodge City.” Garth sang, “I went to work for her one summer, wheat fields as far as I could see” – well that was the drive – wheat fields blowing in the wind everywhere, and some rocks and plateaus, oil wells everywhere, wind turbines, and black cows. The land became grassier, with rolling hills as we got closer to Dodge City. What a hub of industry – grain silos, beef processing plants, trains and more trains and more trains. There’s tracks across the road from us, so I’m sure we’ll hear them all night. The highways and byways are so much better than the interstates (for seeing small town America; not necessarily for driving on. Boy, have we drove on some rough roads!) Temperature this afternoon in Kansas hit 105. I’m not far enough north yet.

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Wow – what a nice state park. Wish we had time to explore. There weren’t many people at it. Got a later start and we were headed west to Pawhuska. Not long after leaving, we knew we were in the real west when we saw a commotion ahead of us – a “real” cowboy jumped out of his truck stopped in the highway, waving his hands at two of his cows that were in the middle of the road. Once we got passed there, we met his ranch hand coming down the dirt road from the ranch, pulling a trailer with two horses already tacked up ready to work. Life on a ranch in Oklahoma. We had planned to stop at the Pioneer Woman’s Mercantile – but it didn’t happen this trip – the line from the door to get in was all the way down the block and turned going down the next one. I read that she serves about 6,000 people a day in the Mercantile – there’s a restaurant, a bakery, and a coffee shop. And the population of Pawhuska is around 3,000. So, on down the road to Wellington, Oklahoma for the night. We stayed at a campground called the Woodlands RV Park. There was not a single tree in the park. Oh – leaving Pawhuska we passed the Drummond Ranch – two big entrances with the ironwork signs on the big posts. Saw someone driving in the field. I think it was Ladd.

Left around 11:30 and drove highways to Tulsa, then headed north and ate a late lunch at Montana Mike’s. We had been thinking of all the country musicians from Oklahoma and looking up hometowns to see if we were near any. Headed to the State Park we were camping at, near Bartlesville, I wondered where the Pioneer Woman lived – looked it up and she lives in Pawhuska – it was only about 15 miles from where we were. And it’s about 15 miles from the campground, so in the morning, guess where we are headed? To explore Pawhuska. We may never get to Montana. Plans are to make it into Kansas (we are only about 7 miles from the state line) and then head west, maybe northwest. But all the roads run pretty much north, south, east, or west. Hard to cross country in a straight line. Maybe we’ll make it to Colorado, but we probably won’t leave until check out time at 2:00 and we won’t have much driving time. The land around here is beginning to look “western” “cowboyish” – hills, rocks, ravines – lot’s of horses and cows. Really pretty. Forgot to tell you about the catastrophe yesterday – when we arrived and I was so tired, the refrigerator had tipped over, one of the straps to keep it closed was broken, and food was scattered all over the floor and onto the carpet area. Nothing liquid spilled, but the only thing that came open was the almost full container of feta cheese. It was quite an aroma. Really bad. Tony cleaned it all up and has devised an extra strap to make sure the refrigerator doesn’t tip forward again. We will be visiting a KZ dealer when we get to Big Fork – there is one in Kalispell. They actually replaced our awning when we were there last time. I don’t know if I can ever eat feta again.