Our RV Adventures

After an easy morning we pulled out of Yellowstone Valley Inn & RV Park about 9:30 heading for Billings Trailer Village RV Park in Billings, MT about 120 miles away. But our first stop was at the Wild Horse Café about 15 miles away on the western outskirts of Cody.

We were meeting our friends Al & Adrienne for one last get-together breakfast before we headed out. We decide to wait to hook up the toad until we left the restaurant so Jan followed me in the truck and we park the rig right down the street and across the road in the parking lot of a microbrewery that didn’t open until 5pm.

Wild Horse Café was a two’fer. Our breakfasts were delicious, especially the Huevos Rancheros. And for Jan, it even had a gift shop where she found a moose necklace that she just had to have.

By the time we finally said multiple good-byes, it was after noon before we got hitched up and back on the road. But it was worth it to spend some more time with them.

Back on the road we came to the town of Belfry about 10 miles inside Montana and ran into a problem, or at least a detour. The road ahead was block, and I could go right or left. But this was a detour without being told which way to go. And I went left, which turned out to be the wrong way, but turned out to be the right way.

We ended up heading west toward Bearcreek and Red Lodge with no way to turn around. on the two lane road.  Coming into Bearcreek about 8 miles after our wrong turn, we saw signs for The World Famous Banana Cream Pie served at the Hungry Bear Café. So I stopped.

Turns out I’m wasn’t the first person to show up lost. The husband and wife owners said I would be able get turned around by taking one of the dirt roads around the block in town. But if I continue on to Red Lodge and then turned north on US212, it would only be about 2 miles farther to get to Billings then if we hadn’t had to detour at Belfry.

So I not only left the Hungry Bear Café in Bearcreek with good directions, but also with a couple of slices of their World Famous Banana Cream Pie. So it was all good.

We pulled into the Billings Trailer Village RV Park about 3pm and got set up. We’ve stayed here 5 or 6 times and this is the fullest we’ve ever seen it. Glad we had reservations.

We both ended up napping for awhile before heading out for dinner. Neither one of us really had any place in mind, but then we came across Café Rio and decided to give it a try.

It turns out that the place is kind of like a Chipotle Mexican Grill, where you chose what you want, i.e. taco, enchilada, burrito, salad, etc, then you chose what what meat, and what other fillings you want.

And it turned out to be very, very, good. They advertise that they make everything by hand, fresh every day, including their tortillas. We both agreed that we’d eat at one of these again.

On the way home we stopped off at a CVS Drugs and a NAPA Auto Parts before getting back to the rig for the night.

Tomorrow we’ll be having dinner with our friend Linda who lives here now. Jan and Linda used to work at the same hospital back in the Houston area before Linda moved up here to Billings.

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Thought for the Day:

"Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information on it." — Samuel Johnson

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A little while after we got up this morning, Jan saw this guy in the next field over, where along with his friends, were leaping over the fences like they weren’t even there.

About 10:45 Jan and I headed into Cody to meet our friends Al and Adrienne at the Irma Hotel & Restaurant. Built in 1902 by Buffalo Bill Cody as a destination for tourists on their way to Yellowstone National Park.

And it still serves that same purpose today, although it’s grown a little bit over the years.

We were meeting Al & Adrienne there at 11:30 for what turned out to be a delicious Sunday lunch buffet. Grilled Chicken, Grilled Cod, BBQ Pork Ribs, and some really good Prime Rib. And for dessert, their famous Bread Pudding with Whiskey Sauce.

HMMM! GOOOD!

And of course we sat around for another hour and a half just catching up. Finally we followed them back to their rig so we could see Banjo, Cassie, and Abby. We’ve known Banjo the dog, and Cassie the cat, since we met Al & Adrienne in Fairbanks, AK in 2008

Leaving their rig we all drove about 15 miles out toward Powell, WY to visit the Heart Mountain Internment Camp. Built in the summer of 1942, the first internees arrived by train in August.

Heart Mountain was one of 10 camps built around the country in 1942, and at its peak held almost 11,000 people.

The Heart Mountain Center has a number of rooms filled with exhibits about the place and the people, many of them done by people who were in the camp.

All four of us were moved by our visit to the Heart Mountain Center, and it’s well recommended to our readers.

Coming home we passed the Wal-Mart and noticed it looked like an RV sales lot. It’s hard to tell by this photo, but there must have been 40-50 RV’s lined up all the way back and more were coming  as we watched.

Either that or Wal-Mart’s started holding RV Rallies now.

As I was getting the truck packed up for tomorrow’s trip to Billings, I said ‘Hi’ to a couple walking by. Then the lady looked over at me and said “I know you. You’re Greg”. It turned out to be LeRoy and Anne Willis, who we’ve meet at Nick’s Gypsy Rallies. They’re here in the Cody area until the middle of July. It was good to catch up again.

Tomorrow we’re meeting Al & Adrienne at the Wild Horse Café for breakfast on our way through Cody and up to Billings.

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Thought for the Day:

"You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them." – Mahatma Gandhi

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