Tripometer – 5131 mi
Gas Gauge – 413.876 gal
Location – Whitefish Lake State Park, Whitefish, MT
Lodging – $33 (Or maybe 66?)
Cans of OFF – 4
A Train Runs Through It
While Kelly worked, Paul cleaned the trailer. As said yesterday, having a full hookup is a real treat. It’s wonderful to know that there are no consequences to using the water and sewer system at will. You can turn on the hot water heater and just bask in its pitiful 6 gallon capacity wonderfulness. Doing the dishes becomes a tolerable job. Wiping up counters and bathrooms with a wet cloth becomes less stressful because you know that you don’t have to stop by the dump station before you leave the campground. Consequently, by flushing the toilet for a few seconds (vs. ASAP) you know that the waste is completely gone, forever… We appreciate flush toilets so much these days… That camper shined by the time we pulled onto the road in the afternoon!
The smoke today was really bad. The worst we’ve seen. The drive would have been incredibly beautiful as we drove the shore of Flathead Lake for over 50 miles. Sadly we didn’t have one picture taking opportunity.
We pulled into Whitefish Lake State Park to disaster. Our campsite had no cell signal and our campsite was about 30 feet from a rail line as the crow hops (not even a crow would fly that far). There is a movie above that Kelly captured as the train went by our site. This isn’t going to work… at… all… but it’s late enough at night with paid reservations that this will have to do for tonight. Sad too. The second picture above is the beach and lake that is about 50’ from our trailer this evening.
We dumped the trailer in the site and went to McDonalds for free wifi to figure out where to go from here. We had two nights booked in this campground. Not sure if we’ll ever see the $33 fee for night number two refunded. After some quick ‘recalculating’ we decided to head back south to Flathead Lake and the little town of Bigfork. The Wayfarer’s State Park Campground looks like a winner but we would need to score a First Come – First Served site.
During the night, passing trains actually shook us back and forth in our beds. Long, long freight trains went by, on average, every 58 minutes. Yes, Kelly was awake enough to do the math.