Thursday June 15th 2017

I woke this morning to a cloudy and cool day. It was a travel day so I had hoped for better weather. As I moved west and north the weather deteriorated.

I had a long way to go today. It turned out that the route I followed was around 270 miles from Butte MT to West Glacier MT. It wasn’t the most direct route, but followed bigger roads and hopefully better roads. I left Butte at ten this morning and arrived in West Glacier at three thirty. In between was a lot of driving.

Cloud engulfed mountain in front of my RV in West Glacier MT.

As I traveled west the clouds got thicker. The tops of the mountains beside my route became covered in clouds. Just before I turned north in Missoula MT it started to rain. It never got hard enough to require the wipers to be on full, but a sweep of the blades every 20 or 30 seconds was needed. The road went up and down many hills. None of the hills were bad climbs or descents, but they made it undesirable to run the cruise control. The cruise control isn’t smart enough to anticipate the next rise soon enough to add gas when it does the most good. Instead it waits until the speed drops, then causes a downshift usually by two gears before it stabilizes. Controlling the throttle myself takes more concentration but keeps the rig going a more constant rate.

US 93 north from Missoula was a wide road with plenty of slow vehicle lanes so I didn’t have traffic backed up behind me. I keep my speed between 60 and 65 whenever possible, but the speed limit is often 70. The problem with the road was sections of frost heaves that get the back end of the rig bouncing. This has two impacts. First things really get bounced around in the RV and second the motion often causes the auxiliary brake in the towed car to briefly activate.

I had to deal with the consequences of both of those events when I arrived at the West Glacier KOA. The battery in the towed car wouldn’t start the car. I had to use my jumper pack to start the car. All of the brake applications drained the battery. The bouncing also caused some of the entertainment system electronics to act up. My satellite receiver currently can’t talk to my TVs. It is probably a loose connection, but so far I haven’t found the source.

Site 204 at the West Glacier KOA.

I am parked at the West Glacier KOA for the next week. Tomorrow and Saturday are not forecast to be very good days, but then it clears up and warms up. I’m looking forward to seeing Glacier National Park. The Going to the Sun road across the park is not open yet. Last year it opened on the 16th but the snow is deeper this year. I hope it opens before I leave on the 22nd.