Oshkosh or Bust The Blog The Trip Home Day 3 and 4

Oshkosh or Bust The Blog The Trip Home Day 3 and 4

Day three (3) of the trip towards home started off without much of a bang.

The wife and I awoke pretty early and after kinda messing around for a couple of hours, decided to get our stuff together and get on the road for our next stop in Montana.

We put everything away within the camper and picked up our stuff outside, once that was done we completed the dumping of the black water tank and the two grey tanks, then genius in my brain housing group took charge and said “Hey Dummy, flush the tanks” so I did, we flushed all three of the tanks just to be safe with everything and thinking I put some fresh water into the fresh water tank, proceeded to finish off putting everything else away and to get ready to get the camper re-attached to the truck.

My wife has been a really big help the past few days with the camper, she has jumped right in there wanting to know what needs to be done and how it’s done, she has become a champ at backing me in to get the truck and the camper hooked up too. We both have to work on the hand signal thing though. Cause flipping each other off don’t mean nothin’ when you are trying to back up…

After about 20 minutes of work, we were hooked up/ loaded up and on the road for Three Forks River, Montana where we would be staying for two nights.
The drive from Moorcroft, Wyoming was pretty uneventful (I mean come on now it’s 436 miles and about 6 hours and change worth of driving) and there really wasn’t much to see on the road. Interstate 90 took us through all sorts of flat lands and rolling hills and a few towns here and there. We would eventually reach Billings, Montana and continue to push our way westward.

The honest to god, bad part about this whole part of the trip has been all of the smoke in the air that has created such a bad haze in the sky that it makes it nearly impossible to get any descent pictures of anything.

Anyway, at around 1545 (345pm) we finally arrived at our destination, which is the KOA Campground located in Three Forks, Montana. The camp was just recently taken over by new management, and to be honest with you looks pretty nice. Now keep in mind here that this particular camp doesn’t have a lot of the amenities that other places do, but for people like myself and my wife, we wanted a nice quiet place to hang out, take a break from the road and just chill. This KOA is the spot, it doesn’t have a pool, spa or anything special, but like I said before is quiet and not that far from the Interstate.
It took us about an hour to get set-up and with the help of my wife, the time seemed to fly by. We got the water and electric hooked up (please note that the site we are staying at doesn’t have the ability to allow us to dump our tanks. However the KOA does have a dumping facility) then we worked on getting the camper leveled for once on the entire trip. My wife ended up looking up the information on how to properly level your camper (sorry I’m a cheapskate and don’t have auto levelers) and once we got that figured out we proceeded to finish up the leveling process.

The leveling process complete and everything set-up outside and inside of the camper, we took a quick stroll up to the KOA office/ Camp Store to check it out. The store had a few food items, camping items, and touristy type items to offer everyone. We did speak with the Manager of the KOA and asked her if she had any suggestion of things we could go and see/ do, and she provided us with a nice small list of suggestions for things here in the area. The one place that stuck out to us was the Lewis & Clark Cavern Tour. This was something that caught both my wife and my eye when we were looking for places to stay on our way out here. I believe from that moment on we had made up our minds on where we were going to head off too.
Then it was back to the camper for a beer, cigar, chips and salsa, and eventually dinner. Yeah that is the most awesome plan ever. The beer tasted good, the cigar even better and it was nice to put my feet up and just relax, even found time to take a quick nap too.

Eventually my wife and I attempted to make a fire and yeah that didn’t work, cause we didn’t have all of the right materials for the fire to keep going. But that would be a tomorrow trip to the store!.

After working on the previous days blogs, it was finally time to get some sleep. Nighty Night!

Thursday morning once again started early for both me and my wife as usual, we were both wide awake by 530am and started moving around and preparing for the days events.

My wife eventually broke down and made me some eggs and sausage for breakfast, and we continued to discuss what we were going to do for the day.

So while discussing what our plans for the day and ate breakfast, my wife and I looked up information on the Lewis and Clark Caverns and when and where we were going to go about getting there.

We finally got ourselves together about 0830am and headed out of the KOA and got on the road, but first stop was dumping of our trash, then to get some gas for the truck. But then I suggested to my wife that we stop at this Wheat Montana place that was just up the road, that many of my Marine Corps Brothers kept telling me about during the course of the night.

So we went to this Wheat Montana place and my wife was able to get herself a cup of coffee and a Bear Claw and I got myself an Apple Turnover. The prices were actually pretty reasonable and they had a huge selection of sandwiches and pastries to purchase as well as some choice hot and cold drinks too. My wife really thought that we should try and come back to this place at the end of the day, to get soup and a sandwich for dinner. But that would be decided later in the day.

We then hit the road for the Lewis and Clark State Park and the Cavern Tour. The trip was really quick and took us down some back roads and after about 14 miles of traveling we finally turned into the State Park.

Now if and when you choose to go to this park, please note that there is a Visitor Center at the entrance of the park and then about ¼ mile in on your left you will see the Camp Ground that you can stay at. But about three miles down the road and up into the mountains you will eventually come to a parking lot area that has the giftshop/ snack shop on one side and then the Visitor Center/ Ticket Purchasing on the other.

After parking the truck, we walked up to the Ticket Purchasing booth and purchased our tickets. Now something you should be aware of, tickets for Adults to go on the Cavern Tour is about $15.00 and then you have to pay $8.00 per vehicle for your entrance to the park. Then you have to choose between two different tours (yeah I know I have to make a decision on vacation!!! ARGH!!!) the Classic Tour and the Paradise Tour. Each tour goes into the Cavern, but at different locations and they are a little more intense than the other. We chose to go on the Paradise Tour, as it was an easier one and would work better for my wife whom has a hard time getting around on occasion, but was still wanting to do this. She’s a great lady, who sure as hell put her foot forward and did a great job walking through this. I’m very proud of her.

The tour lasted about an hour and a-half, and took us down a ½ mile path to the cave entrance, and once we went through a steel door we had to walk about 500 yards into the cavern. The cavern we walked into was huge and just really beautiful once it was lit up a little bit. The guide that took us through the cavern, gave us a great history lesson about the caverns and how it was tied to Lewis and Clark and how they became a State Park.

We of course took lots of pictures inside the cavern and outside of the general area. We eventually left the cavern and walked back out towards the parking area and then we made a quick look of the gift shop where everything was of course very over priced. Especially the three stuffed bears they had that would have cost about $1K if you bought all three (yeah you do the math).

Once done with the quick look at the gift shop, we got back in the truck and headed out to see what other trouble we could get ourselves into. Once we were back at the entrance of the park, I told my wife to pick a direction. She at this point, tried to talk to Siri on her phone to figure out how close we were to Butte, Montana and Bozeman, Montana. I told here that Butte was only about 50 miles from where we were and should head that way, there was of course another motive to her wanting to find the closest Starbucks and get State Cup.

So off to Butte we went, in search of a cup and to check out the area. Back to Interstate 90 West we were able to actually drive the speed limit and ended up driving through the mountains and across the Continental Divide and eventually made into Butte.

We ended at the Starbucks and procured the cup and a drink for my wife, then as we were waiting she was looking up places to go and see since we were in the Butte area. The first place she suggested was the Berkeley Pit and then the other place she suggested was the Our Lady of the Rockies monument. I looked up the directions to both places and noticed that the Our Lady of the Rockies was the furthers from where we were located and that we should go their first, according to the GPS on my Iphone it would take us about 45 minutes to get to the top of this mountain and that there were a lot back roads.

We headed for this location and while we headed up the road, you could see the Our Lady of the Rockies at the top of the mountain and we proceeded down the road to our exit, but my wife whom was doing some additional research found out that to get to the top of this mountain you were supposed to go to some location in Butte, watch a movie about the monument, and then “THEY” (the people that own the monument) would transport you up to “Our Lady of The Rockies” via a two hour tour. So plan B it is.

SO instead we headed over to the Berkeley Pit and checked that out, and found it interesting as it is a huge lake that is a run off for the former copper mine that was once used as far back as 1982. It has a really interesting history and back story. As you look out from the pit and around the town of Butte, you can see the different locations where the mine shafter were once located. Many of the shaft’s machinery is still located at these sites, and at the entrance of each site is a sign stating how long the shaft was open for and how deep it went and then how many people had died while it was open.

Eventually after driving through what is known as the historic district and such, we ran to the store to pick-up a few items for dinner and then head back to hang out at the camper and get ready to continue our trip home.

We decided that we would push ourselves tomorrow and make a run for the KOA in Vegas where we will stay for the night before heading home. It will take us about 12 hours (probably longer) to get to Vegas and we will drive about 840 miles give or take.

Time to call it a night.
More tomorrow.
Semper Fi,
Frank Sellin
1/9 Everywhere