Cooney Reservoir State Park, Red Lodge Arm
Tuesday, 23 August 2022
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| today's route |
Thankfully, we had no problems at all during the night. It looked like that bar/restaurant had been open during the evening, but I kept the overhead fan on overnight and we didn't hear a thing. This morning, I could see no reason for us to hang around this strange place so we left soon after 7:30.
The highway department was mowing the roadside grass, and the mower was followed closely by a tanker of water standing by. I wondered if it was in case of fire? Montana has been seriously trying to promote awareness of all the little things that can cause fires - like idling the motor in high grass, or dragging a chain on the ground. And, while I wouldn't see a problem with a grass cutter, that doesn't mean there isn't one.
At the town of Roundup, I took Dext to the city park while we waited for the post office to open. But this was yet another park with NO DOGS signs plastered all over the place. So I walked him around the block - which turned out to be the size of 2 blocks because they'd attached a ball field to the park and put up NO DOGS signs there too.
I'd pretty much picked the town of Roundup out of a hat when David asked me to find a place where he could send me mail. I've often found that post offices in big cities won't accept General Delivery mail except at the main post office, and those are often hard for me to find a parking place at, so I look for towns instead. Roundup looked like the largest town I'd be going through today besides Billings, which is the largest city in Montana so I discarded that as an option.
Roundup has more than 1,700 residents and, based on the ones I met at the post office (where my mail was waiting, no problem), they seem reasonably friendly. And though I know irresponsible dog owners are many, and cause serious inconvenience for all of us, I still can't understand this major emphasis on NO DOGS I'm finding in Montana.
Past the town of Klein, a sign told me the Bull Mountains were here. Couldn't have proven it by me - I saw no mountains.
I did see lots of evergreens and some deciduous trees. Cows, crops, goats, family farmsteads. Occasional burned hillsides.
I passed 2 family farms in real contrast to each other. Both had a house, cars, farm buildings, farm equipment and an RV. But one place looked neat and trim and organized and comfortable, while the other just looked junky. Guess which one I'd rather live in.
I saw a type of utility pole I hadn't seen before. These were metal, huge, and tapered to a point on the bottom. They looked almost like tops balancing on their points. I didn't see any extra wires or structures to keep them in place - anything extra beyond what I see all the time, even in the ordinary wooden telephone poles. Very strange.
We came to Billings (though there was no highway sign saying so), and when I was driving through a business section, I noticed a few buildings with evaporative coolers on the roofs. That made me realize this climate would be great for those "swamp coolers" and wondered why I wasn't seeing many of them. Are the winters so hard they go bad when they freeze? Although I've seen them wrapped up before to protect against the cold - I think I saw that in Arizona.
I'd made arrangements to meet a mobile RV repair guy in a large industrial lot. He said it belonged to his brother, whose farm was next door, and he rented the use of it for his mechanical work. He told me he has a day job and does this mobile RV repair work in his off time. Nice guy. And he seemed to know what he was doing.
He repaired a strip of molding that had come loose. I was ready to just pull the molding off until I realized it was protecting screws that held the door hinge on. By the time I noticed it, the wind had almost blown it off altogether and I'd stuck it back on with strapping tape. That was working but wasn't a long-term solution in my mind. So this guy, Jeff, fixed that in about 30 seconds.
And then he tackled the "check engine" light problem, which was the real reason I'd called him. He checked several things in the engine - spent about a half hour on it - and then said it was a tricky situation. He agreed that the RV's computer said there was a problem with only a couple of spark plugs, but it might be the coils and not the plugs, because the computer doesn't specify. And he also said that the real problem could be that the whole system needed to be replaced - all 12 spark plugs and maybe even more than that. And even changing 2 would take longer than he had right then.
We agreed on a Plan A and a Plan B. Plan A was that I would stop at the Auto Zone in the town of Laurel, which I'd be passing through on my way to tonight's campground. There I would buy a product called Sea Foam, which I would then put in my gas tank, and which should clean my injectors or valves or like that. He reset the "check engine" light and said with the Sea Foam it might be enough and the light wouldn't come back on. And if Plan A didn't work, we'd go to Plan B, which was I'd call back and make arrangements for him to drive out to Hardin, where I'd be staying for several nights.
Well, the "check engine" light came on while I was still driving to Laurel, but I still bought and added the Sea Foam, hoping that would be an easy fix. From there I turned south toward Cooley Reservoir and the state park there.
The state park has several different campgrounds, and the one I was in was the farthest south - and down nearly 4 miles of washboard road. Seriously. The road was absolutely torture. I found I couldn't even go faster than 5 mph in parts of it because it bounced us around so much. And when I got to the campground, I was astounded at the number of big rigs that were camping there. Sure, it was a beautiful lake and people were boating and fishing, but I wouldn't have thought it even possible to get one of those RV monsters down that road.
There was no phone signal there, and my hot spot didn't work, but at least they had electric hookups so we weren't uncomfortable.
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