TRAVELING WITH CROSS WINDS JULY 12, 2015

Our day started as the sun was coming up around 5:45 AM.  We traveled about 350 miles to Glacier National Park in St. Mary, MT.  Between Rollins, WY and St. Mary  we rode on US 287.  While the road surface is a bit rough, in no doubt it is one of the most scenic roads in America as it passes through the National Parks and the ranch lands of Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho. Today's travel was long and some of the most arduous thus far because of high winds. But the vistas we took in have to be among the most beautiful in America.

The Madison River in Gallatin Forest.  There are a few fly fishing outfitters in this area.

The wall of rock in this picture is called the Palisades.

As we drove north on 287, south of Helena, MT, we traveled the valley between the Elkhorn Mountains and Big Belt Mountains. 

Ran into 5 miles of unpaved road construction on US 89. While it looked smooth, this un-bladed road was full of potholes and we could not tolerate speeds of more than 25 mph We are still shaking from the pounding.
 

We passed several missile silo's on US 287, north of Augusta, MT and on Hwy 89 south of Browning, MT.  Out in the middle of a field there was a concrete pad surrounded by security cameras, solar panels, and a tall wire fence.  You have to look close to notice them.

It was very windy traveling today. We limited our speed all afternoon to  45 mph due to continuous and steady crosswinds of 25-35 mph.  The fabric cover that rolls out over the slide out section of the moho was catching the crosswind and blowing out and snapping back into place a few time causing a "thunk" type sound.  A moho doesn't handle like a car.  We can't put the slide out  whenever winds are this high. We probably shouldn't have been driving in these winds as the moho was all over the road- but Joe managed to keep the lane.

Today's run normally would have taken about 7 hours. Nine hours after leaving Grizzly RV Park in West Yellowstone, we began seeing the end of our trip off in the distance.  Just behind Duck Lake are the mountains of Glacier National Park.

The drive into this area was much easier at this point because we were driving into a head wind going west instead of the hours of crosswind we encountered in our northbound travel.

We finally arrived at St. Mary KOA, refilled our propane tank and set up camp.  There really aren't any "nice" campgrounds in St. Mary, but the KOA had what we need.  Tomorrow we visit drive the "Going to the Sun" road and Logans Pass  in Glacier National Park-- a favorite of ours.