We packed everything up on Thursday morning the 14th, and we were off in well under two hours this time. We learned that packing up the scooters the day before departure is WAY better than doing it at 4:00 in the morning! We got away before 8 AM, and hit the road for further eastbound. Perfectly uneventful drive all the way toward Butte, Montana, where we had reservations at the Butte, KOA RV park. En route, and upon arrival, I was confident it was the place we stayed at 23 years ago as we left town on a similar path back then. Between breaks for humans and canines, and one time zone change, we arrived at Butte around 5 PM Thursday afternoon, the 14th. The KOA had our reservation ready, and the $36 membership that I paid just a couple days earlier was graced with around a $32 discount on our four day planned stay. That should well pay for itself in way less than the one year membership. Our stay in Butte will last until departure on Monday morning, the 18th, when we are off to further eastbound reservations in Glendive, Montana.

9/16/23: Spent much of the day tooling around Butte on my scooter, found a local Walmart here, which is a Supercenter, and it's really an incredible store. I'm sure that many who are reading this have seen a Walmart superstore, but it had been a long time for me. The place was way larger than any Costco I've ever been in, and had everything from soup to nuts. And Automotive. And Electronics. And deli. And stationary. And lockboxes for our guns. (We're not enthusiasts, but we have a couple, and traveling with them will require keeping their condition legal), and prescription transfers, and a lock chain for the scooters -- You see where this is going. From the barely distant Walmart, I cruised on up the mountain through downtown Butte, up to where the copper mines used to operate. It's an incredible view from the hill back toward the city, and please see the pictures along the way -- Especially, including the copper mines Fire Memorial after driving through Walkerville, a “town" that's barely even recognized on the maps. The memorial and its dedication to the 2,500 minors who perished in the copper mines over many decades was a very, very moving place to witness. Please see a few pictures I took up there.

We went out singing on Saturday night, September 16, and as usual, met six or eight folks who I wish we could visit with again before we leave. We spent the evening at a bar called Party Palace, and the karaoke, DJ, and three or four other couples we interacted with were an absolute delight. Rotation was pretty small when we started at 9 PM, so we must've got in at least six songs each before we left at 1 o'clock in the morning. Thank you Uber, $10-before-tip trip each way!

September 20, 2023. We left Butte Montana on Monday morning, September 18, and had a pleasant and uneventful drive across Montana. Mostly farmland, and not very interesting surroundings, but occasionally some hills and rocks revealed themselves. A couple of stops for ourselves, and the puppies. More accomplished at nicely spaced rest stops across the state. We made it to our anticipated reservations at Riverview RV Park in Glendive, Montana, about 90% across the state now.

The day's travels were nearly all on interstate 90 and interstate 94. Interstate 94 goes through Glendive, and will take us eventually across North Dakota into northern Minnesota. That's a trip for another day! The RV park is nothing to speak of, but adequate for our purposes. We were greeted by Dani, a very friendly lady, who probably is a park owner as she was obviously taking personal interest in making sure our greeting was cordial. I was a little concerned that a tree right in our spot might block the Starlink satellite Internet, but after moving it a couple of times, we have great Internet signal here.

September 19, 2023. Had breakfast at a local place that we didn't make it to until early afternoon, but CC's Cafe was delicious and hearty! We are surrounded by really interesting hills and not towering mountains, and I wanted to take a scooter ride up into them. After scouting around town for a half hour or so, finally found a road to Makoshika state park. Absolutely incredible views throughout the mile and a half or 2 mile ride up in the mountains! Please see a couple pictures I took, and I'm gonna try video this time. I bought the GoPro Hero 11 a few weeks back, and it was clearly time to capture something I would intend to put up here. It's about a five minute video, and the video format off of the camera was almost 4 Gigabytes. But I ran it through a video editor that I paid for and download a couple of weeks ago, after that software processes it, it's just over 124 Megabytes. So my hope is that most folks who connect and view it will be able to download it in their browser pretty OK. When I view it, the video quality of the original is barely degraded when the file size so tremendously shrinks. Yay!