Days 6-7: Some Good, Some Bad, Some Ugly

Having spent Day 5 of our 2007 Alaska trip stranded at the Old West RV Park in Reed Point, Montana, we were eager to get back on the road on for our 6th day of travel. We left our campground at Reed Point that morning, August 13, and drove to Belgrade, Montana, just west of Bozeman, to pick up our repaired tire at Best Rate Towing. We had them check the valve stems on all the other tires, and they said they all looked okay.

We think we drove through some pretty scenery as we continued our westward journey that day, but we couldn't be sure since the smoke from wildfires obscured our vision until we were well past Missoula.

We camped that night in a beautiful campground...Campground St. Regis...in St. Regis, Montana. The sites were very nice, with lots of trees; and the bath house was clean and nice. We preferred to use our own shower, though, so took a site with full hookups. St. Regis was our most expensive campground so far ($30.69), and that was after our AAA discount.

Campground St. Regis in St. Regis, Montana

The restrooms at Campground St. Regis were kept locked, and campers were provided with the push-button code required to open them. On the morning of August 14, Day 7 of our trip, the combination to open the men's restroom wouldn't work, and no one was in the office to provide assistance. A note on the door said someone would be there at 8:30 a.m. The office lady finally showed up about 8:50 a.m. She was greeted by a lot of desperate men.

Meanwhile, I went to the women's restroom and found it empty, so I sent Doug in there while I stood guard. He could have used Harvey's bathroom, but he preferred to save that for emergencies. This nearly was one.

With all that, we got a later start than we had intended. The man in the next site discouraged us from going through Seattle, saying that the traffic around Seattle was horrendous. So we got the maps out and decided to take I-90 to Spokane, then US 395 into Canada. We found a campground in the Passport America directory, just south of the Canadian border. I called there, before we hit the road that morning, and left a message, requesting a campsite for that night.

We'd been hearing a noise that seemed to be coming from the right front tire and decided we'd better get it checked out before we got into Canada. We found a Les Schwab tire center, and they pulled the wheel off and checked the brakes, but found nothing wrong. They didn't charge us anything at all for doing that.

We also stopped at a Walmart for a few things.

We tried again to make phone contact with Rockcut Campground, without success; so we checked out another campground in Kettle Falls, Washington. It looked kind of trashy, so we pushed on 25 more miles to Rockcut. Our hearts sank when we found it closed and apparently abandoned.

By then, we were almost at the Canadian border, so we went on across to find a campground in British Columbia. We wound up at Riviera Campground in Grand Forks, BC. It was on a narrow strip of land between Canada Highway 3 and the Kettle River, and it was cramped, expensive, and crowded. The campsites were so small that the awning of the camper next to us was almost touching Harvey's roof.

We had thought we might do some laundry. Happy to engage in a little additional price gouging, the campground owner sold us a cup of detergent for two dollars. He also sold us some Canadian Loonies (one-dollar coins) and Toonies (two-dollar coins) for use in the washers and dryers.

Poor Doug was hot and tired and frustrated, and he still had to level Harvey and do the hookups. I heated supper in the microwave and had it ready when he came in. But I think he was wishing he'd never met Harvey.

We decided to let the laundry go and do it some other time. But we saved the Loonies and Toonies and that two-dollar cup of detergent.