AND YES THERE WERE FISH

Not many, but a few keepers.

OH JOY, OH JOY

Well, it is pouring rain and only in the 50’s. So our furnace decides to quit working. Out here in the middle of nowhere. Jim is out in the rain and mud trying to figure out what’s wrong. I’m keeping my fingers crossed. I do have the little electric heater running.

Also, no fish yet. He’s had two days of being able to fish but nobody is catching, at least not walleye. They’ve caught some Northern and perch but the guys didn’t keep them. We much prefer walleye. Even the fishing guides are getting discouraged. The water is too cold and this rain sure doesn’t help any.

Several rigs pulled out this morning.I’m sure they’re worried about being trapped here with the water running over the road in several places. However, tomorrow is supposed to be a pretty good day – only isolated showers. So hopefully that will dry things up a little bit.

We had to relevel the rig because the passenger side of the coach had sunk so far into the mud that water was getting into the furnace area. We’ll see how that works. We let it dry out over night and this morning it seems to be working again. Yippee!

Now if Jim and Bill could just catch some fish.

HELL CREEK CAMPGROUND

The ground is so saturated that trying to level our rig was almost a joke. The boards and levelers kept sinking down into the ground.

 

 

 

Our friends, Bill and Carol, are parked next to us and Bill was trying to help us but there’s not a lot anybody could do. We finally got it as level as it’s going to be and left it at that. In a day or two I’m sure we’ll really be off because we just keep sinking. Fridge seems to be working well and that’s all that matters.

Last year when we were here, there were many, many campers parked without hookups. Those spots are now all under water. You can see some of the tops of the shelters that were being used last year. If you don’t have a reservation for an electric site this year, forget about coming out here.

I would give anything to be able to send some of our rain and water down to Arizona right now to help them with their fires. I did read that because of all of the snow melt and rain up this way, that Lake Mead is starting to fill and they figure there is enough water to take care of Arizona and Nevada for the next three years. But that doesn’t help the horrible fires burning up the forests in Arizona right now.

One of God’s beautiful masterpieces – the double rainbow. The colors were just brilliant and, of course, my pictures don’t do it justice.

We also had a gorgeous sunset.

And look at that moon rising.

Fishing tomorrow.

JOURNEY TO HELL

Creek State Park, that is.

Hell Creek is a state park on Fort Peck Reservoir in northeast Montana. It’s a beautiful camping area with electric hookups, a dump station, and clean pay showers. But, it is a fishing camp.

The road just seems to go on and on.

The road to Hell Creek from Jordan, MT is 25 miles of dirt and gravel. It took us almost an hour to drive that 25 miles. This state park is not a place to just drive to for camping and to find peace and quiet. It is quiet during the day because everybody is out fishing. But when the fisher people start returning in the afternoons, it can get pretty noisy.

The road cuts through the Missouri Breaks.

 

 

 

 

 

Here you can see the dark clouds gathering over us. We drove through some rain but not much which is a good thing because this road would turn to mud very easily.

 

 

The road is graded but with all the rain, it is in pretty rough shape. In fact it is so rough that it shook all the bolts out of one of the fenders on the boat trailer and I lost the fender. And I also lost one of Jim’s bumper guard thingies that helps him get the boat on the trailer.

There are such nice people in this world of ours. Some guys coming back from Jordan to Hell Creek, found the fender and then tracked us down in the campground to return it to us. Now that is really going above and beyond. No luck with the bumper thingy but we’ll look for it on the way back out of here. While we’re here Jim is going to secure everything on the trailer very tightly.

This is the roller bumper thingie that I lost. The metal L-shaped thing is also gone. Sure hoping we find it on our way out of here.

BIG SKY COUNTRY

I want to share with you some pictures of the area north and east of Billings headed towards Jordan, MT.

The Lund is the boat we left in MT over the winter. When we had our fifth wheel, we would double tow with the boat trailing along behind the fiver. With the motorhome we can’t do that, so I drive the Avalanche and tow the boat.

These are a couple of the pictures I took as the girls and I were following our home down the road.

Definitely Big Sky Country!

 

 

 

 

 

As you can see, there are very few trees in this part of Montana. The land is the rolling prairie. Lots of ups and downs over small hills. Notice how green everything is.

 

 

Montana had a record amount of snowfall this past winter and this also turned out to be one of the wettest springs with all the rain. These following pictures are of the Musselshell  River which flooded the town of Roundup and closed the highway. Last week we couldn’t have driven through Roundup because of the water on the road. This week, the river has receded but the water is still along the sides of the road. It’s going to take a long time for Roundup to recover from this flood.

 

 

 

 

 

 

After you cross the Musselshell (once again) near Mosby, MT there is one of the nicest rest areas in the country. And probably one of the least used. It is out in the middle of no where on Route 200. Route 200 takes you right through the middle of MT and most people either use Highway 2 in the northern part of the state – what we call the Highline, or they use I-94 which runs through the southern part of the state. If you want to see lots of sky and rolling plains, take Route 200.

We stopped at the rest area for lunch and to walk the girls.

 

 

 

 

LOVE THAT WIFI

I am so excited. I have access to Mary Beth's WIFI here at Hell Creek and I am on line. Quite slow but certainly better than nothing.

Tomorrow I'll post some pictures and give you the run down on our journey to Hell. Jim will be fishing.

VANISHING CREAM

We're going to be using vanishing cream for the next week. We're headed up to Hell Creek on Fort Peck Reservoir and there is no internet or cell reception. But there's some really good walleye fishing.

Hope everybody stays safe and please have a wonderful week.