Dillon, MT

Hello from Dillon, MT. Not Dillion, as described yesterday. Would you believe it is misspelled on the map? We traveled north on US 93 from Wells, NV through southern Idaho on I-84, which was cool because we used to live near the other end of I-84 in Connecticut! Then merged with I-86 through Pocatello, then picked up I-15. For those of you in southern California, the I-15 in Montana is only a four lane highway, and there is no traffic. And not many services. We are 60 miles south of Butte in a KOA campground.



Sadly, the smoke from the fires whitewashed the sky all the way to Idaho Falls. There was a momentary rain shower which, with luck, may clear some of it out. As I said the other day, prayers are needed re the fires. We did hear on the news that they are making progress on the fire in Big Sur. Hopefully that is true.



Dillon is a pretty good sized town for this area. It's about 60 miles south of Butte, and we are 300 miles from our destination at Flathead Lake. We have decided to stay in the state park at Findley Point. The campground we originally had chosen called us last night to say they are now closed. I talked to the woman this morning because we had scheduled for Marguerite and Marcia to forward our mail there, and they will still accept it for us, but the campground has been sold. What a bummer. We were both up half the night worrying about it. Note to self...check the home answering machine in the morning when there is still time to deal with any problems.



The drive was about 435 miles and took us 10 hours. Although we packed a lunch and a thermos of coffee, the truck sucks gas like a greedy little piglet and we lost a lot of time with gas stops. I drove for about 200 miles this afternoon, and toward the end went through one of those seductive little spells where you tell yourself you'll only close your eyes for a minute...so we stopped and took a walk with Doogie to wake up a little.

The drive was very beautiful. The climb to 5000 feet happened in Nevada, so elevation gains were minor, ending up at just under 6000 feet. We traveled through plains, chaparal, and the foothills of the mountain ranges. It was 90 degrees when the sun was out, but now it's a breezy 70.


The decision to stay at a state park meant that we needed to stop at the market and do laundry and some cleaning while we have full hookups, as there will be no sewer hookup, no laundry, and no showers at the state park. The payoff is that it is on the Lake, only has 12 campsites, and looks beautiful on the interned. So we needed to spend the evening getting organized a little. It's now 9:32 our time, and we are ignoring the fact that we crossed into Mountain Time when we left Nevada this morning. After a sleepless night and such a long drive, I am in no mood to set the clock ahead. And we're retired. Who cares what time i is. And it stays light at night forever up here.

So we have had the longest, hardest drivin gday of our trip and are looking forward to Flathead and Glacier.