Bad to Worse

Wow! How fast a fun day can turn into a bad day.  We met a guy who used to live in Red Lodge, MT. He asked if we have ever been there.  We hadn't.  He said we needed to drive the Bear Tooth Pass into  Yellowstone.  The scenery is fantastic.

We were headed back East but decided to detour to Red Lodge.  We saw a state park on the map and decided to camp there for the night and drive the pass in the morning.  We turned onto a paved county road headed towards the park.  After about 3 miles the pavement turned to washboard dirt and dust.  There was no place to turn around for 15 miles.  The road took a toll on everything.  The camper was a disaster inside.  Cupboards had come open and dumped their contents and it looked like a dust bomb had gone off inside.  Fortunately there was no real damage to the trailer.  However,  the jarring did break a major component of my hitch.  We didn't discover it until we pulled into a campground in Red Lodge.  It is a wonder we made it here.

At the summit.  Mountains in the background are in Yellowstone NP.

53 feet shy of 11,000 feet.

Both of us at the summit.

I called the manufacturer a to see if I could get the part overnighted to me.  They said they could do that.  So hopefully it will arrive here Friday morning so we can get out of here.  This campground is reserved to capacity over the weekend so we have to move one way or the other.  So that makes it a little tense.

Messing in the snow.

Me and Buster messing in the snow.

Lots of snow.

With the part ordered, we decided to take the drive over the Bear Tooth.  I'm so glad we did.  It lifted our spirits.  The mountains were absolutely beautiful.  This is the only entrance to Yellowstone we had not taken.  It is not recommended to drive a motor home over this pass.  With the truck it was a piece of cake.  

Very friendly mountain goats.

Darlie was snapping pictures the whole way.  A photo just can't capture the scene though.  You have to witness it.  On our way back, the skies over the mountains turned black and it began to rain and hail.  The weather changes very rapidly here.  

Hmmmmm.  Mountain wisdom.

The kids are missing home.  You can see it in their eyes.  They are tired of riding and living in these cramped quarters.  Mom and Dad are getting tired too so I guess when we get things fixed we will head home.  It has been fun.  We saw and experienced things we had missed on past trips.  We have left a few unexplored places just in case we are crazy enough to do this again next year.

One last view of the mountains.