Must buy ice before departing, and must buy coffee and sugar at the other end of today’s travels. I’m going to hand navigate the next two legs, because I don’t want Mother choosing the shortest route. I’m hitting the interstate for a while, just as relaxation from all the mountain roads. There’ll be plenty of those in and out of Yellowstone.
Since I had no reservation for this night, I ended up at a KOA in Great Falls MT. It’s OK for an overnight, but wouldn’t want to be here long. Noisy, close together, low-bandwidth Wi-Fi and the best showers I’ve seen this trip. Unlimited hot water in a big enough space that your clean clothing isn’t getting wet from the spray. I’m indoors typing because there’s a thunderstorm front passing through, and it got very wet, very quickly, very suddenly. I figure that if I can tolerate the Waterton Lakes Deluge, one night’s T-storms aren’t going to bother me.
After getting settled in here, I went to Bowser’s Brewing Company, a couple of miles up the main drag from here. A nice place with a limited food menu and 7 beers on draft. I met the apprentice assistant brewer and got the tour and run down. All beers are made from the same, local, base malt. All beers use the same hops, Amarillo pellets from Hop Union, and all the ales use the same yeast. The bock uses a lager yeast, but he didn’t know which. All beers use the same mash and boil schedule. All beers taste the same but are different colors. I can’t understand why… ;-)
To give them credit, they use a lager yeast for the Bock, ferment it cold, and store it cold for 3 weeks before serving. I had them fill my growlette with the Bock. Their best beer.
From Bowser’s I went to Albertsons shopping and then back to the camp site. I took a shower, and had a beer before I was forced inside by a passing thunderstorm. We’ll see how quickly it passes.
It rained hard for about 20 minutes, and seems to have stopped completely. It’s still a bit breezy, and threatening, but the thunderstorm has moved on. It brought the temperatures down 10ºF in 15 minutes.
There’s a Mockingbird in a tree nearby mocking the call of the local birds. It’s nice here in the small rain, except for the sound of my neighbor’s propane heater. Heater… it’s 69ºF for cryin out loud. Oh, maybe it’s his A/C… same problem.
I’m giving some thought to keeping the Lo-Liner, god forbid.
The ugliest problems aren’t terminal to the best of my knowledge. I need to dig in and see if the framing is rotted in the places where the paneling is rotted. I plan to simply de-gunk the TV antenna mechanism, remove it completely, and cover and seal the hole with an aluminum patch. I’m going to glop the open seam on the front left corner. I know the utility compartment is always wet, so I figure that’s where it’s coming from.
If I can solve the current leak problems, I can look at repairing the past leak problems. We’ll see. I like camping in a standee. Small enough to stand out in the campground. Big enough that being cooped up in it isn’t a catastrophe… almost. If I decide to keep it, I’ll move the table, re-upholster the dinette seats, install a local water and a 12 VDC electricity system. Local water is the biggest expense with a tank, pump, plumbing, and wiring.