Drive Day - Greenough Lake

Day 6 – Friday

We left Glacier for Greenough Lake Campground, just outside of Red Lodge, Montana.  Jason drove for 10 hours and it was getting HOT inside the RV!  The AC was not keeping up, it was 90+ outside, and the engine was heating up the front.  The floorboards were hot to the touch.  We killed thousands of bugs and near the end, the girls and I were losing clothes.  I started paying them a quarter to see who could win the most games of Guess Who and/or Bingo; $1 each.  We all piled out at a free grocery/bait/gas/dump station in Red Lodge that had AC and we all walked in and said, “Ahhh.”  Jason had to come and get us.

We finally made it to our beautiful campsite in the Custer National Forest.  We were leery though, as we were welcomed by signs indicating that we needed to use “bear boxes” and use proper food storage.  People just walking to the bathrooms were wearing bear spray.  Immediately, I started scoping out families with RV’s, children, and Montana plates.  I’d found my target, “Um, hello… We are from Oregon and know nothing about camping with bears.  Do we need to unload everything from the pantry and put it in the bear box?  Can bears smell the food in the RV if we leave the windows open?  Is it wise for my husband to go trail running? (He was wild after driving for 10 hours.)”  The answers are, if you are in a hard sided RV you can leave everything in the RV but it should be put away and you can leave the windows open.  You should not go trail running.  The 

“target family” could tell how inept we were that they gifted us some bear spray.  They told us to always keep the kids in eyesight and always carry the spray.

Loaded with our new bear spray and Jason’s fishing gear from 1987 (thanks Uncle JP) we walked to Greenough Lake to catch some trout.  Violet caught the biggest fish.  Alice cast and reeled one in on 

her own.  Neither would touch the worms or the fish.

We planned to leave as early as possible the next day.