Tanks full!!

The next day we made our way to the Missoula area.  I needed a place to dump my tanks and decided to spend the night in an RV park.  After being out with no hookups for the last 10 days, I wanted to take a good shower and not have to worry about water usage.

I drove through Missoula, MT and then on to Victor, MT and was surprised there were not too many campgrounds.  My friend Steve had suggested the Black Rabbit RV Park in Hamilton, MT just south of Victor.  So Black Rabbit it was.  Thanks Steve for a great suggestion.

The lady at the desk only had one campsite left so I was very lucky.  The longer shower was sure nice and I was able to clean up my rig from all the dust I accumulated.  After all I had been down a bunch of dusty washboard dirt roads going from campsite to campsite.

Great friends at Crooked Tree Ranch

The next day I got up and headed to my friends ranch outside of Victor, MT.  They had given me directions to take to get there and then said to call them once I hit the dirt road.  I called and Diane said they would be down shortly on one of their quads and escort me to their place.  Tad came down and led me to their place.  I would never have been able to find it on my own.

They are way up in the Bitterroot Mountains, where they have built the Crooked Tree Ranch over many years.  They used to come up there on their vacations from work and live in a trailer.  Their property is heavily populated with trees and it took them many summers just to clear them before they could start building.

This is the entrance to their ranch and you can see the Bitterroot Valley far below.

Their trailer reminded them of all the hard work they put in and had it enclosed in a log cabin.  How cool is that?

They had both 30 amp and 50 amp hookups with a dump station and water for their RV visitors like myself.  Here is where I was camped for two nights.

Driving quads – What a blast!!

The first day I was there they got out the quads.  They were 4WD and could go anywhere.  This was my first experience driving a quad.  I am hooked for life.  These things are a blast.  You can go anywhere in them.  At first we stayed on the dirt road until I got used to driving it.   We made this stop at the Bear Creek Trailhead.  What a gorgeous view of the creek.

We stopped at one of their neighbors homes built right on a creek.

Here is a pic of my gracious hosts, Tad and Diane in front of their neighbor’s home.  Those were the quads we drove over there on.

Here is another pic of a different portion of the creek.

Then we drove home through many really neat forest trails.  Later in the evening, after dinner, Tad and I took went for another ride through more steep terrain and found some bones.  I didn’t really run over them. HA!

Then we drove over to a lookout where another neighbor had built a home.  The scenery around here is breathtaking.

Here is a pic of Tad under the neighbor’s outdoor shower.

What a wonderful day!  Then back to their home where we got out the wine and enjoyed some great conversations and star gazing.