Bozeman!!!!! (Day 17)
I don’t know about Shenee, but I slept like a baby last night. It was cool outside and there was hardly any noise coming from the parking lot. I went into Walmart to get a few things for breakfast, and when I came back out, someone had parked perpendicular to the tiny house. Imagine a double row of parking spaces. We typically park in one row of these spots and take up about ten of them between the truck, tiny house, Subaru, and motorcycle trailer. We are always parked as far away from the store as possible so we aren’t taking spaces that people might need to use. This morning however, I came out of the store and someone had parked with the front end of their car right up to the side of the tiny house. HELLO THERE! Keep in mind, there are literally HUNDREDS of open spots, and this person chose to park facing the tiny house. I know, it’s basically public parking and people have the right to park where ever they want, but really?????
Anyways, once Shenee woke up we got going, with plans to continue taking the back roads to Red Lodge, MT (Montana, YAY!), then on to I-90 to Bozeman! It was a fairly uneventful drive until we made the turn off for Red Lodge. The road started as a gradual uphill, and then quickly got very steep. So steep that I ended up having to chug along in second gear. Even though we were on a very lightly traveled road, we were only going about 15 mph and quickly accumulated a few cars behind us. We stopped to let them pass at the first chance we got, and it turned out to be a beautiful view. Even though the surrounding mountains were shrouded in clouds, the cloudscape was amazing. We stayed there for a few minutes enjoying the view and then continued to Red Lodge.
Going through downtown Red Lodge, everyone was pointing and taking pictures. We stopped at the end of town so we could walk around a bit, and Shenee spotted a few deer that were meandering through people’s yards eating leaves and doing whatever it is that deer do in a semi-urban environment. From Red Lodge, it was another 40 miles so to I-90. Once on the interstate, we were treated to sweeping views of the surrounding plains and the bottoms of the nearby mountains. We got to Livingston, and then started climbing up over Bozeman pass, slowing down to 30mph at times. We climbed up into the clouds, reached the summit, and started back down. Once on the Bozeman side, things cleared up a bit and before we knew it, we were at our destination! Bozeman!
We made our way to the local Walmart, as we still don’t have a place set up to put the tiny house. The Bozeman Walmart had the largest collection of RV’s that we have seen yet, with probably 20 or so of them scattered throughout the parking lot. Once we found a suitable spot, we unhooked the motorcycle trailer and went for a little drive around town to get our bearings. Probably about five minutes away from downtown, we saw another tiny house!! There is hope for us after all!
This weekend we will probably take a trip down to Yellowstone National Park and Grand Teton National Park. And then starting next week, we will start looking in earnest for a place to park!
Daily Stats:
Mileage: 212 miles
Fuel Cost: $68.00
Toll Cost: $0
Truck MPG: 7.7mpg
