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.