LOCATION:  Missoula, Montana, in west central part of state
CAMPGROUND:  Jim and Mary’s RV Park.  Just beautiful!  More like a nursery with flowers everywhere.  We have a nice, shaded and flat site.  Full hook-ups.  Great laundry, bathrooms, showers, wifi, and cable.  No firepit.  For a commercial park, this is top knotch.  At $41/night, it is high, but that seems to be the going rate around here.  5 stars out of 5
WEATHER:  Beautiful.  Very cool in the AM (40s) warming up to a sunny  80
DRIVE:  3 hours

We have been off-grid for 5 nights, so this has been a test about how well we can do.  We don’t have solar panels or a generator, but don’t seem to need one.  Since we have been doing Harvest Hosts sites and staying with a friend, we have not had water for 5 days.  Our fresh tank is still half-full.  Yay!  We have been conservative with water usage.  Our grey tank is only 13% full, and the black tank 31%.  Our battery is completely charged as it charges itself when we drive each day.  We even watched a little TV using the inverter when we were without electricity.  This proves that we can go even longer next time.

We took a long hike in the forest at the state park where we stayed last night.  Just beautiful, but no wildlife to be seen.

Then, we packed up and headed about 110 miles toward Missoula.  We found a very nice “scenic viewpoint” looking out to Mission Mountains for a lunch picnic.

We limped into Missoula with 1/10 gallon left in our tank, as George hadn’t wanted to pay the higher gas prices in the towns we went through.  Urrgh!

This RV park is beautiful – probably the nicest commercial park we have stayed in.  Photos with flowers that are everywhere will follow.  We got settled, then George wanted to head into town to start checking off one of the 11 breweries in the area!  We went to the most famous one first – Big Sky Brewing.  I had an IPA (for only $2) and George had a different IPA for free – as the keg was almost empty.  He filled our growler with stout for only $8 – a very reasonal price.

PHOTO

Back at the RV park……showers, glorious showers!  Not having nice showers when we dry-camp (also called boondocking) is a downside.  This one today felt marvelous!!!

DINNER:  Blackened  tuna steak.  Sides were rice and steamed peas.  George did the tuna on the propane grill in an iron skillet (thanks, Alexis for the skillet!)