Thursday 9-17-26 Movie, Walk, Minnie Project & Relaxing

 

Minnie Project

We had a wonderful day of relaxing. Early in the morning we had a front come through with rain. We woke up to wet streets and the morning temperature of 50 degrees. The high temperature was 71 degrees. There was a cloud covering all day.

I woke up at 7:15 and got dressed. We had a bagel for breakfast with a shake. It was still wet outside and sprinkling on and off. We just hung around the house. Larry started a new book. I played games. 

I played the Daily Challenges of Solitaire and Mahjong. The Daily Event was Event: Two Game Tango of 20 games (10 Klondike and 10 Spider). It took me 2 hours, 3 minutes and 17 seconds to complete, which put me in 16th place in my group.

For lunch we had chili with corn chips. After lunch Larry took me to a movie. We have been wanting to go see Coyote vs ACME. It was playing at the local theater, which is the only theater in Bozeman. We loaded on the motorcycle and drove to the theater, which was about three miles from the fairgrounds. It's an old theater and didn't have the updated seats, they were stadium seats. When you walk in the Regal Gallatin Valley Movie Theater there is a snack bar and a self-service movie station, which is a Kiosk. You select your movie, time and seats. Then you pay and the receipt spits out with your individual seat number and receipt. We were the only ones in the theater. Coyote vs ACME was a cute movie and very enjoyable. After the movie we went back to the Minnie and relaxed.

Gallatin Valley Cinema

For dinner I made seasoned pork patties. Then we went for a walk. We walked about 45 minutes. We walked a few blocks, around the neighborhood and to the BMX Bike Park. When we started our walk two girls were selling pet rocks. They painted the rocks themselves. Larry likes to support the local kids so we bought a rock. They had different sizes of rocks they painted. There was a panda, egg, Cookie Monster, brown, yellow and white (moon and stars), eyes on a gray rock and a few more. We bought the Cookie Monster. They said it was $1.00 Larry gave them $2.00. They were excited it was their first sale. Then we continued our walk. It was a nice walk around the neighborhood. We stopped at the BMX Bike Park. There were getting ready for a race. It was registration time and practice. They had people of all ages riding the course. It was fun to watch. On the jump course they had put tarps down on some of the jumps because we're suppose to get rain this weekend. After watching a bit we went back to the Minnie.

Pet rocks for sale

Starting line for the race

A couple of kids practicing

More practice

My pet rock (Cookie Monster)

The glass shop covered the hole for our front window by taping a piece of plexiglass to the front of the Minnie. Larry was worried that the paper on the plexiglass might come off during the rain and we may get a leak. He covered the plexiglass with plastic bags and Gorilla tape. He hopes this will help prevent any leaks. It took him an hour.

By the end of the day I did 5,000 steps. After the walk and the project I continued reading This Time Tomorrow by Emma Straub.

  

    

Wednesday 9-16-26 Two Museums, Ice Cream, Lunch, Bike Park & Motorcycle Ride

 

Visiting Montana State University in Bozeman

We had a wonderful day of visiting Bozeman. We visited two museums, the Museum of the Rockies and American Computer & Robotics Museum. We ate lunch at Ollie's Deli & Dawgs and had dessert at Genuine Ice Cream. 

We woke up to a brisk 38 degrees and the high temperature was 71 degrees. The weather was perfect to sleep in. 

I crawled out of bed at 7:00 and got dressed. Then we had a bagel for breakfast with a shake. Then we hung around the Minnie until it warmed up. We wanted to take the motorcycle to do a little sightseeing in Bozeman. While we waited I did a little housecleaning. I shook out the rugs because they had little pieces of glass in them. They weren't sharp when you stepped on them, they just felt like little pebbles. After shaking out the rug I swept out the Minnie. The rugs had a lot of dust in them. Now we can walk around without worrying about the glass. 

About 9:00 Larry moved the Minnie forward to get the motorcycle off it's carrier. Larry took the cover off the motorcycle and put the ramp together. Then we unstrapped the motorcycle and Larry rolled it off the carrier. Then he backed the Minnie back to where it belongs and plugged it back in. We got our helmets and turned on the intercom. We were ready to go. Montana State University was only a couple of miles away from the Gallatin County Fairgrounds.

First stop was the Museum of the Rockies. The museum is affiliated with the Montana State University in Bozeman and with the Smithsonian Institute. It's known for it's Paleontological collections, which is the study of the life of the past, mainly by fossils but not completely. It has the largest of North American Dinosaurs. The exhibits were very interesting. The exhibit fossils had two different colors, the darker color was the actual bones and the lighter color were bones they reproduced to complete the skeleton of the dinosaurs. The museum told the history of Montana and the Northern Rockies. There were exhibits about Yellowstone National Park. There are exhibits about the inhabitants of the Northern Rockies, which were Native Americans, fur trades, gold seekers, and settlers from frontier days through World Warr II. There is a Living History Farm, where costumed interpreters demonstrate life in the turn-of-the-century home and the Taylor Planetarium (Memorial Day to Labor Day). The Tinsley home is at the living history farm. There were a few exhibits getting changed out so we got a discount and we're seniors so it cost $15 a piece. It was busy. We had fun walking around the museum.

   

Museum of the Rookies 

Terminonaris Roblista (Marine Crocodile) 

Montana's T. Rex

Tyrannosaurus Rex (real bones with reconstructed material) discovered by Louis Trembley

DF Juvie Trike III (real bones with reconstructed material)

Montana and Yellowstone Morning Glory

 

Beaded Gauntlets (leather with glass beads) gift of Eleanor and Trevor Povah

Water wagon

Pietenpol Air Camper (mail order plane)

Carving by John L. "Cutapuis" Clarke (at age three scarlet fever took his hearing and speech away)

   

The Tinsley House (1880's and 1890's)

Alpacas on the farm at the museum

 

A sculpture of a horse in front of the museum

Our next stop was Ollie's Deli & Dawgs for lunch. It's located a few blocks away across the street from the football stadium. When we were driving by the stadium we thought there was something going on at the stadium because there were a lot of cars. Then we figured the students needed a place to park so they opened the stadium parking lot to them with a permit. The campus was busy with construction and a lot of the roads were torn up. We didn't have any trouble finding a place to park. We parked right in front of the restaurant. It was a very nice deli and the menu was bright and easy to read. We shared a cold sandwich, which was The Grinder ( Salami, Capicola, Soppressate, Pepperoncini, Provolone, Cabbage, Banana Peppers, Italian Dressing on an Italian Roll) and a bag of barbecue chips. It was a foot long sandwich so we brought half of it home with us for dinner. The service was excellent and friendly. When our order was ready they delivered it to us at the table. The sandwich was delicious and they put a lot of banana peppers on the sandwich. It's family owned.

Ollie's Deli & Dawgs

The Grinder

The third stop was American Computer & Robotics Museum. It was a few blocks away. It was on the first floor in a doctor office building. We were greeted by a friendly lady. Once we paid our $15 for the both of us she did a quick overview of the museum. Then she let us walk around and look at the displays. It was a small museum but very informative. It had a lot of displays on the history of computers and what they are used for. We had fun walking through it and brought back memories.

Robby the Robot "Quiet please, I'm analyzing"

Robots displays

Friends and Foes display (Terminator, the Borg and C-3PO)

Robots waiting for the bus

Display on early video games and Ralph Baer father of the video games

Apollo 11 computer guide for the mission

 

The office in 1922

Display about Apollo 15 and Commander David Scott Omega Speedmaster watch worn on the moon

Comparing the ENIAC and the chip used today

The first printing press by German goldsmith in 1436 Johannes Gutenburg

Entrance to the American Computers & Robotics Museum

Our final stop was Genuine Ice Cream. It a cute ice cream shop with seven classical flavors, which were Vanilla, Dark Chocolate, Strawberry, Milk & Cookies (grounded Oreos), Honey Lavender (real Lavender Flowers mixed with Honey), Salted Caramel and Huckleberry and they have dairy free ice cream. We shared a sundae, two scoops of ice cream (Honey Lavender and Salted Caramel), caramel sauce, whipped cream, cherry and a topping (Oreo). The salted caramel was very tasty but the honey lavender didn't have a lot of flavoring, but it was different. All the ice cream was homemade. The service was very good and the employees were friendly. Genuine Ice Cream was located across the street from a mural about Bozeman. It was different you enter from the street and exit at the back of the store into the parking lot. It a very nice building.

Genuine Ice Cream

 

Our sundae

The mural 

When we got back to the Minnie we relaxed. Larry finished another book before going to bed. 

I played games. I played the Daily Challenges of Solitaire and Mahjong. I got all caught up with Mahjong. I played the Daily Event, which was Event: Easy Street Mini of 5 games. It took me 11 minutes and 4 seconds to complete, which put me in 12th place in my group.

For dinner we finished the grinder. Then we walked around the fairgrounds and walked to the bike park. The Bike Park was just a couple of blocks away. The bike park has two bicycle tracks, a BMX Track and a Jump Track. There were a lot of people using the tracks. It was fun watching them. 

BMX Track

A couple of the jumps on the jump track

More jumps on the jump track

By the end of the day I had done 5,000 steps. After playing games I continued reading This Time Tomorrow by Emma Straub. So far I like it.

 

 

     

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Tuesday 9-15-26 Bozeman Montana & RV Project

 

Gallatin County Fairgrounds Office

We're going to spend the next week hanging around Bozeman Montana at the Gallatin County Fairgrounds waiting for the Minnie's window to get fixed.

We woke up to a cool 34 degrees and it got to comfortable 72 degrees. We had the electric heater so it was very comfortable. Larry got up about 6:00 to do his morning routine so he turned up the heater from 66 degrees to 70 degrees. So when I got up at 7:15, it was very nice.

We spent the morning running around to find stuff to fix the overhead window temporary to get us through the trip. Larry wanted to get a foam board, that was 1/2" thick so he could tape it together with the other foam board we have. That would get us back on the road. 

First stop was The Home Depot. They only had 1" foam board. They said they had 1/2" in stock but the guy who took care of us said that they're in the process of changing the insulation area. They are going to have 1/2", 3", 2" and 1". He recommended Lowe's and Kenyon Noble. Larry told him Lowe's didn't have it. The guy told us where Kenyon Noble was located. 

Kenyon Noble is a huge hardware store and lumberyard. It's smaller in size then The Home Depot but it was very well organized, clean and the employees were very helpful. We were greeted at the door and the gal told us to go see another gal, who could help us. The foamboard was located outside in the lumberyard. Larry asked her if we could go look at the board she said yes. We stopped along the way and asked a guy, where to locate the foamboard. He walked us back in the area. They had a lot of foamboard but not 1/2". This was the first time we have ever been in a Kenyon Noble or even heard of them. Larry asked him about the company he said, that this store was very small and they're in the process of building a bigger one and a warehouse the size of The Home Depot. We were very impressed by how many employees were working, how helpful they were and how they worked together.

We went back to the Minnie and Larry looked up the local Ace Hardware Store. We drove by it, it was located in the downtown and it was very small. We didn't even stop. We found a parking lot to park the Minnie at a park. Larry had to tape down an area, that was coming up because a gentleman from Valley Glass had peeled the tape up to see the frame. Larry climbed on the roof of the Minnie and put some Gorilla tape on the window. Then we decided to go to Andy's Glass Inc., which was about 20 miles from where we were. Larry plugged Andy's Glass Inc. into Google and we were back on our adventure. 

We got there at 11:30 and didn't leave until after 1:30. They took the Minnie into the shop to take measurement on the window. They removed the frame and cleaned up most of the glass. They put a piece of plexiglass on the opening to protect us from the weather. They decided to keep the frame until we got the window installed. Larry had talked to Debbie yesterday and she knew we were thinking about getting the window replaced. She had said we won't be able to get the window done until next week because they had to order the glass and their truck comes on Mondays. Andy worked on the Minnie he told us the plexiglass should hold us until next week. He said hopefully the glass comes on the Monday truck. If it doesn't it should be on the Thursday truck.

Old window in a million pieces

Temporary fix for the window from the inside

What it looks like from the outside

We had a great experience at Andy's Glass. They fit us in very quickly to get on the road. One customer had their RV there and they came in to see if it was ready. Debbie explained that they had an emergency, which was us and won't be ready for another hour and a half. They said that was fine. 

When we showed up we saw the front area full of broken glass, the lady, who helped us before Debbie said that's where they put the old glass. They use to recycle the old glass but it became too expensive so they just throw it in that area. We saw them do that today. A customer said he didn't want the old glass so they threw it in the area. 

We left Andy's Glass and went back towards Gallatin County Fairgrounds. We stopped at Walmart, which is very close (a couple of blocks away). We picked up a few things and an adaptor for power (30mps to 15mps plug). Then we looked at places to eat lunch. There wasn't anything where we could park the Minnie at so we went back to the fairgrounds. When we got back to the fairgrounds I made sandwiches.

We were tired so we relaxed. Earlier Larry received a text from Henry, who moved to Tennessee asking him about four couples square dancing tapes. Larry called him and asked what exactly he wanted. So when we got back he uploaded the files to Google Drive, he then e-mailed Henry a link to the files. While he was doing this I took all the bedding off again and shook it out to remove any glass that had gotten missed. Andy's Glass had tried to remove all the old broken glass, they even used a shop vac to get a bunch of it but since it was in a million little pieces it was easy to miss some. Then I remade the bed.

For dinner we had leftover pasta. After dinner I took some pictures of the fairgrounds. 

The Minnie in it's site for a few days

Gallatin County Fairgrounds Exhibit 1

Gallatin Fairground Exhibit 2

Gallatin County Fairground Exhibit 3

One of the pavilions (Haynes Pavilion)

I played games. I'm all caught up with the Daily Challenges of Solitaire. I did the event, which was Event: Two Game Tango of 20 games (10 Pyramid and 10 Tri Peaks). It took me 1 hour, 7 minutes and 53 seconds to complete, which put me in 7th place in my group. 

Larry finished reading a book.

By the end of the day I had done 6,000 steps. We had a long day.       

      

Monday 9-14-26 Snow in Montana & Change of Plans

 

Snow in Montana

We had a windy night and it rained. When we woke up there was clouds hanging around and the surrounding mountain peaks had snow on them. It was beautiful to wake up to.

The morning temperature in Ennis MT was a brisk 42 degrees. The high temperature was in Bozeman MT was 57 degrees.

I woke up at 7:15 and got dressed. Then I made pancakes for breakfast. After breakfast we put things down and secured. We weren't in any hurry because we were only going 45 miles down the road to Lewis & Clark Caverns State Park. We were ready at 9:00 am.

As we were leaving Valley Garden Campground we saw four deer (three does and one fawn). The drive was a two lane highway, which took us through a beautiful mountain pass and rolling hills and prairie. We saw a lot of Pronghorns, horses and cattle. When we got to Norris Montana we saw sheep. 

Rolling hills

Ranching on the prairie

Snow on the mountains in Montana

Lewis & Clark Caverns State Park Office

While driving the highway we heard a noise. We thought that something fell. We pulled on the side of the highway and checked it out. Nothing fell so we were back on the road. We kept hearing the noise we figured maybe it was ice because the mountains had snow. We weren't sure because it wasn't cold enough. We got to Lewis & Clark Caverns State Park and parked the Minnie in the Visitor Center. Larry went inside to see if there was a campsite available. I got outside to take pictures and I looked around. I saw that the overhead window looked weird. Larry came out the visitor center and looked at it. It took a bit and he figured the window was broken. In fact it shattered into thousands of pieces because it was safety glass. 

 Larry decided the best we could do was to temporally tape it up. Fortunately he carries a roll of duct tape and there was a foam board inside the window that we use for insulation. Larry crawled on the roof and started taping what was left of the window to the foam board. I picked up most of the glass off of the ground. I helped him by going inside and pushing on the foam board so the tape could stick to it. While we were working on it an old A parked next to us. The people in it asked what happen and we said the window broke. The gentleman offered us a ladder to use and leather gloves so Larry wouldn't cut himself. We thanked him but said we were ok. That was very nice of the guy. It took Larry over an hour to tape up the window. 

We decided we had to get it fixed and the closet big city was Bozeman, which was 50 miles away. They have a big RV dealership called Bish's RV of Bozeman.

We slowly traveled to Bozeman. The tape held. 

When we got to Bish's RV Larry went inside to ask if they could fix the window. The gentleman said they aren't a Winnebago dealership and they couldn't get any parts for one. He did recommend Andy's Glass Company and gave Larry the phone number. Larry called Andy's and they said they would have to order it and it won't be in until Monday because they get one delivery a week, which is on Mondays. Larry called a few more companies. A couple of them said they would have to order the glass and it wouldn't be in until Monday. One gentleman said he probably couldn't do it but he recommended a couple of glass companies. Larry found one, which was Valley Glass so we drove over there. The gentleman looked at it and said he couldn't help us. He recommended Andy's. 

We went to Lowe's to buy some Gorilla tape to hold the foam board on the window. It was getting late so tomorrow we'll swing by Andy's to see what they could do. 

Bozeman isn't RV friendly so we can't stay at the Walmart or Lowes'. They have a fairground, it's pretty spendy but we booked a couple of nights with power. The campground is Gallatin County Fairgrounds. It cost $28.00 for dry camping and $46.44 for electricity and $51.84 for power and sewer. It doesn't have any bathrooms to use or water.

You have to reserve a site before 2:00, if it's after 2:00 you have to go to the office. We ended up going to the office. The ladies were very nice and one of them had to come and unlock the power box. The sites are like a parking lot and you're very close to each other. 

That's ok we needed a place to stay and the only other options were RV parks around $100 a night. 

After setting the Minnie up we had dinner. We got a power site. Yeah!! I can use the microwave to heat up leftovers. We can use the electric heater.

After dinner we relaxed in the Minnie. Larry read his news group and I played my games. I have four more days of the Daily Challenges of Solitaire to do. I did the daily event, which was Event: Two Game Tango Mini of 6 games (3 Spider and 3 Free Cell). It took me 15 minutes and 6 seconds to complete, which put me in 17th place in my group. I ended up doing 2,000 steps.