01-04SEP14 - Various, MT (st regis, bozeman, glendive)

Labor Day was spent in a mad dash to secure all the buildings on the property & get everything back in the RV for tomorrow’s departure.  Early Tuesday morning, 02SEP, was one more hour of securing the house & then finally firing the RV up & heading east on US2.  During the drive our old Acer notebook computer died.  You might think no big deal since we were driving & Dan has a brand new Toshiba laptop?  But this small notebook is what we have been running an aftermarket diesel engine monitoring software system on for over five years!  This software is so accurate & fast, that we don’t like driving without it; even for short hops.  Dan’s solution was to have Corrie drive while he tried to get our older Dell laptop to run the software; thirty minutes later problem solved using the Dell.  Only problem is the Dell takes up too much room on the dash, & its screen is hard to see in daylight.  It appears the power supply to the Acer is fried, we’ll have to buy a new one down the road.

First stop of the day was at the $50,000 Silver Dollars tourist trap in Haugan, MT.  As we have said this is a Ryan family tradition when driving on I-90 at the Idaho/Montana border.  Unfortunately there were no free RV spots left, but we still had a good meal.  Dan is a real fan of their coleslaw made with horseradish sauce.  After our dinner we drove thirty miles down the road to a RV park for the night.  Apparently someone on the park’s staff was a chainsaw carver?  Because there many carvings for sell at the park store & more adorned each RV spot.

http://www.50000silverdollar.com/

Wednesday we drove to Bozeman, MT, to visit a Coast Guard Academy friend Dan hasn’t seen since 1973, Brian & wife Susan Troth, on their ranch outside of Bozeman.  Brian decided after one year at the Academy, that the Coast Guard wasn’t for him.  So he resigned & finished college back home in Montana.  Corrie has always had a little difficulty accepting the fact that Dan will reconnect with someone from the Coast Guard who he hasn’t communicated with in years and/or decades, & then ask if it is ok if we drop by for a visit?

Even though it has been four decades since the guys last saw each other, & only briefly knew each other at the Academy, there was no hesitation about coming on by & in fact - stay on the property.  After setting up the RV next to the barn we spent the rest of the day & night reminiscing/reconnecting.  And had a great family meal with them, their daughter Kiira, husband Will, & their daughter (aka only grandchild).

Thursday morning was somewhat of a “late” start after breakfast & more reminiscing.  The drive for the day was to Glendive, MT.  As we have noted in our BLOG the oil “boom” in & around Williston, ND, has effected everything with a hundred miles of Williston.  For example, there are very few RV parks in NE Montana or NW North Dakota to begin with, & there are no vacancies at them because the oil field workers fill them up year round.  This park wasn’t bad, but it wouldn’t be one we would choose if we had other options.  Tomorrow we will finish the 400 mile to Brandon, MB, Canada, to visit with the Canadian side of the family.