Nearly there -

We are in Billings, Montana at the Yellowstone River RV Park and Campground. We went through Butte around lunch time, because we never got around to leaving Missoula until 10 o'clock. We discovered the shopping district and decided to shop for dinner and check out Target for Cold FX. I gave up and bought some Cold Eeze. I certainly hope it works, because it tastes vile.

I talked to my sister last night and told her we would be arriving around lunch time tomorrow (Sunday). We plan to get a really early start so that we get to Casper before the heat of the day.

Today we had at least four vapour lock stalls. We've talked about it, wondered if the fact that we fuel up early in the day has some bearing on the matter. The trouble seems to start about 2:30 in the afternoon, by which time we've used quite a bit of gas. What's left would be hot, right? And there would be room in the tank for vapours to build up? Maybe we'll make a stop for fresh, cold fuel around noon each day on the return trip, if it's still this hot out. At 5:30 this afternoon, we chugged into a gas station and filled the tank again, and also added some magic stuff to try to counteract the vapour lock. At that point, it was 36C/96.8F outside. We were about 40 miles from Billings. Once we had refueled and added potions, the engine behaved very nicely, all the way to Billings. I imagine that the fact that we've been up over 6,000 feet at times, and haven't been below 3,000 feet for a long time, is not helping matters. I ask you, why can't they put these mountains at sea level?

I took the photo above while we were sitting at the side of the road - around 4:00 p.m., I think. When the engine died, I said "Oh, well. I'll just regard this as a photo opportunity."



I spent about ten minutes outside the rv, taking pictures, before I decided to retreat to my knitting chair with a book and a large glass of water.



This last photo was taken as we were driving along. I had to erase a bug splatter from the middle of the sky (windshield). I hope I did a good job, but just in case - no, the Big Sky of Montana doesn't look like a kindergarten fingerpaint project.