Three Forks, MT
Monday, May 30, 2022
Hello from the beautiful state of Montana!
Andi and I made last-minute plans to travel to Montana this week. A friend of his invited us to come & scout a piece of land together. Initially, Andi and I considered flying into Missoula and making a couples trip of it, but the logistics of renting a car and finding a babysitter for Tory and Aden proved difficult. Instead, we opted to take the RV for a family road trip.
The distance from Wisconsin to Montana is a long way to drive in one week— 20+ hours one way. We left our house Memorial Day Monday afternoon, driving through Minnesota to reach North Dakota. That morning, the weather forecast looked clear when we checked, but by mid-afternoon severe storms had moved into northern Minnesota. We could see dark clouds looming as we drove further north into the storm. After checking the weather radar on our phones numerous times, Andi decided we should get off the interstate for a while. We stopped at a nearby Wal-Mart in Sauk Centre, MN to get groceries and assess the situation.
Not more than 15 minutes after we arrived, tornado alerts sounded on our cell phones. The four of us took shelter with around 50 other people in the Wal-Mart customer service area. Tory was a ball of nerves, worrying the tornado was going to damage the store or our “home on wheels” parked outside. The sky did look pretty ominous! Fortunately, another mom waiting with us in Customer Service started handing out popsicles to all the kids. Her thoughtful gesture brightened the mood and redirected Tory’s feelings of worry. Before we knew it, the tornado warning expired.
After the storm, we hopped back on the interstate as quickly as we could. Not only was it getting late in the day, but another cell of severe weather was heading through northern Minnesota and eastern North Dakota. Andi and I wanted to get ahead of that storm and find a place to camp for the night out of danger’s way. As we drove along the interstate north of Sauk Centre, MN we saw lots of storm damage (barns destroyed, roadway signage mangled and semi-trucks flipped over). I’m glad we were able to safely ride out the storm in a Wal-Mart and were lucky enough to escape any damage to our RV.
Andi drove for as far as he could that evening. We stopped at another Wal-Mart in Jamestown, ND, and camped in their parking lot for the night. We simply needed a place to park for the night as we planned to start driving again early tomorrow morning. Andi and I reminisced about the last time we stayed in this very Wal-Mart parking lot — In 2019, we took our very first RV road trip to Montana, and Jamestown, ND was our first stop of the journey.
Tuesday, May 31, we drove all day. The wind relentlessly blew across the entire state of North Dakota. It seemed like we were never going to make it to Montana! Andi and I questioned if a week-long trip to Montana was worth the effort. Luckily, we were able to make food and use the bathroom while we drove in the RV so we kept stops to a minimum. Goodness is fuel expensive right now! Over $5/gallon in some places. We’ve spent close to $800 on diesel already and we haven’t even reached our destination.
We stopped in Miles City, MT mid-afternoon to do some schoolwork, and so that Andi could make a few calls. The library was packed with noisy kids playing video games which made it difficult for Tory and Aden to concentrate on their schoolwork. While we were at the library, Tory also participated in her weekly craft class on Outschool. The class made cute summer sunglasses this week.
We finally stopped driving for the day around 8:00 pm and found a place to camp at the Missouri Headwaters State Park in Three Forks, MT. This small campground has 17 campsites and fortunately, we were lucky enough to snag one of the last ones available for the night. Bonus! It was a pull-through site which meant we didn’t need to unhook the Jeep from the back of the RV.
In the past, we haven’t had a place to travel with the kids’ bikes on the RV because we were traveling with two adult-sized electric bikes as our mode of transportation. Now that we are pulling a Jeep behind the RV, Andi mounted the kids’ bikes to the back of the vehicle. Aden was so excited to ride his bike around the campground that he begged Andi to unhook his bike from the rack the minute we parked for the night. He rode laps around the small campground for an hour while Tory and I walked to the pay station at the entrance of the campground.
In the morning, the four of us walked about a mile away from our campsite to the start of the Missouri River. We read signage posted there which discussed Lewis & Clark’s westward expedition traveling along the Missouri River. Montana has hundreds of sites honoring Lewis & Clark throughout its state — it’s a great place to learn about this part of our nation’s history.
After learning about the headwaters, we continued our drive toward Sula, MT.
