Saturday 9-7-24 Repairing Refridgerator & Sweet Grass County Fairground

Hi everyone, Just letting you know we may not have any internet for the next few days not worry. We still having fun.

 

Our neighbor at Mammoth Campground

We had another hot day. The high was in the 90's in Montana. The smoke was in the gray area. 

I woke up at 6:30 and went back to bed for another half hour. When I crawled out of bed I got dressed. Then I made pancakes for breakfast. After breakfast we put things away and secured. We had three wonderful days in Yellowstone, we wish we could stay longer but there were no openings.

We were on the road by 8:15 am. We took the old Mammoth road to Gardiner. As we were driving the curvy road out of Yellowstone we saw a lot of elk on the side of the hills, mountain and by the road. We saw a small herd of Pronghorns on the hills. It was an amazing site to see as you are leaving Yellowstone. Then we drove through Gardiner. 

 

Beautiful cow checking the cars out from a hill

 

Gardiner is a quaint town. It has restaurants, hotels, inns, cafe, souvenir shops and other shops. 

We drove to Livingston, which was 60 miles north of Yellowstone. The drive was very pretty. We got to Livingston at 9:30. Larry wanted to make sure our part for the Minnie came in before he drove all the way to Bozeman. The gentleman said it came in so off to Bozeman we went.  

One of the mountain ranges

Bozeman was 30 miles away. It was a beautiful drive. Larry has an outstanding memory. We were last in Bozeman 15 years ago to get a part for the Minnie at the same place. He remembered where it was. Bozeman has grown a lot in the last 15 years and another company now owns the place. The company is now Bish's RV of Bozeman. While at Bish's we filled the Minnie with propane. The people who took care of us were friendly and helpful. After getting the part and propane we went to Walmart so Larry could install the new refrigerator circuit board. 

This Walmart was huge and had a huge parking lot, there were lots of signs saying no overnight parking, you will be towed. However, there were lots of RV's that had certainly stayed overnight. The reviews indicated these signs have been there for years and lots of RV's are parked there every night. Someone had talked to the manager who said that the city of Bozeman passed an ordinance making it illegal to park overnight inside the city limits. It didn't appear that they were enforcing it because when we were driving around we saw multiple areas where there were lines of RV's parked that had obviously been there for months. 

Larry parked the Minnie so that he was working in the shade. He had to dig the tool box out from under the sink, then he got busy. I think it took him about an hour to install the board. Afterwards he tested the refrigerator on both gas and electric, it worked on both like it should. We will have to wait and see if it is fixed. While it would act up anywhere it gave us more troubles at higher elevations. Tomorrow we hope to camp in some higher elevations so hopefully we can give it a good test.

After installing the board we went inside Walmart and did a little grocery shopping. When we got back to the Minnie I put the groceries away. Then I made lunch, which was a Philly Cheese-steak sandwich from the deli. I started the generator to heat the sandwich up. This was the first time we had the Philly cheese-steak sandwich, it was very good. After lunch we were back on the road. Before leaving Bozeman we stopped and filled the Minnie with gas.

Our next and final destination was Sweet Grass County Fairgrounds in Big Timber. Big Timber is 60 miles from Bozeman. It was another beautiful drive with a lot of mountain scenery. Sweet Grass County Fairgrounds is an old fairgrounds, it has a bathroom with running water but no showers. The bathroom is a bit crude but it was clean and usable. The camping area has no hook ups and you can camp anywhere. There were some campers in tents in a grassy area. We didn't want to disturb them so we decided just to park in the parking lot. They say they will accept donations but we didn't find a box. 

 

Entrance to Sweet Grass County Fairgrounds

 

The grandstands in the fairgrounds

 

Camping in the grassy area

 

Camping at Sweet Grass County Fairgrounds

 

 

It was hot but we setup our chairs and relaxed in the shade created by the Minnie. The temperature wasn't bad outside.

People started showing up around 6:00 and continued until after 7:00. Larry asked a gentleman what was happening, he said it was a wedding. Big Timber has a population of 1600, it looked like a large percentage of that was invited because there were cars everywhere. They had a live band that played from 8:30. When I went to bed at 11:00 they were still playing. There was a blow up playground for the kids to play in. The band was very good. People said it would get rowdy but they were actually pretty reserved. We didn't even hear them leave. Much quieter than any Walmart parking lot.

I walked around after dinner and when the sun started to go down for about a half hour. I ended up getting 17,000 steps, which put me in 7th place in my group.  We had a super day.