On the way! - Jan 17, 2008 - Helena, Montana, United States

While hooking up the car this morning, around 8:00am it started to SNOW! This wasn't part of the plan. We thought we could get ahead of it, so we left home at around 8:30am. Highway conditions varied between icy, snowy and good, as can be seen from the pictures. One minor issue at Milk River...we made a last second decision to turn off the road into a Travel Alberta parking lot. Unfortunately, we didn't see the gate that stopped us from getting to the parking lot. We were turned at such an angle and couldn't go forward or backward. We had to un-hitch the car before turning the whole rig around. And this when the next in the series of snow storms hit us! Oh well, lesson learned; don't make last minute decisions!

We made it to the US border around noon. Border crossing was uneventful, some might even say easy. Just a few questions and we were on our way. No searches, no checking of the dogs papers... nothing! We carried on down the I-15 towards Great Falls in snowy and windy conditions, which cleared again after 50 miles or so.

When we were just north of Great Falls, at around 2:30 we decided to press on to Helena. The weather forecast was for the same weather as Grt Falls, cloudy and highs around 32 degrees F. And we would get a jump on tomorrow's travel.

What they didn't mention was the mountain range between GF and Helena. I'm sure the mountains would be beautiful if we could have seen them.

Arrived at Helena at about 4:30pm after driving about 650km. Filled up the bus with fuel (price is equivalent to about $0.80/litre). Carried on to the Lincoln Road RV Park and got settled for the night. There are 5-6 rigs here along with 10-15 'permanent' residents. Busier than I would have expected for mid-January. Talked with the guy next door...he came from GF this morning and didn't encounter any snow!

Tomorrow is a long day, with Utah as the goal.