6/3/13 Medora, ND to Billings Montana

Traveled today, we left North Dakota at 9:00 this morning and didn’t get into Billings, Montana until around 5:00. Should not have taken that long, but old Murphy was sitting heavily on Phil’s shoulder today.  Nita tells the story the best, so here is her journal post on the day:

" It was raining when we got up this morning, and it rained nearly all day. Pushing the rain showers was a super strong headwind (is there any other kind??). A headwind of any kind kills your gas mileage!! Added to the mix were some really long steep climbs. Do you see where I’m going with this?? Yep…it happened again!! We ran out of fuel!! Only difference was, this time we were paying attention to it. The engine warning light is going off again, and I truly think that it has something to do with the computer. When Phil noticed that we might have a problem with fuel, the readout said we had enough fuel to go 71 miles and we only had about 55 miles to go to reach the RV Park. Then the available miles started to rapidly fall and damn, we are on the side of the interstate again!! Fortunately, this time John and Fran were behind us!! John drove up to the next town, picked up fuel and brought it back to us. When we finally got the truck going again, the computer said we had 71 miles of fuel left!! On five (5) gallons of fuel!!! Yeah, right!! Lesson learned…don’t trust the computer, trust the gauge!!"

But, wait…there’s more! When they pulled off of the interstate to get fuel, Phil noticed that the trailer is leaning a little bit. So when they got to the gas station, he got under and looked, sure enough, they had a busted spring on the passenger side of the rig, and we are in the middle of nowhere in Montana! Our destination for today was Billings, MT, so our only choice was to try to make it. At least they had a full tank of fuel, but the wind is still blowing a gale, and now their trailer is going down the road at a slight angle. We are only going 50 miles per hour on the interstate trying to keep their tires from blowing with the added stress of the broken spring.

 A very stressful 45 minutes later, we pulled into the RV park that will be our base camp for the next four nights, that is, provided we can get the spring replaced and get the truck looked at for the engine warning light.

 After we got settled in and relaxed a bit, Phil & Nita's friends, Eric and Connie Johnson came over and we followed them to the Red Lobster for dinner. We had a great dinner and really enjoyed meeting Eric and Connie.  After dinner we found the local Wal-Mart and did some grocery shopping. So, it was late when we got home and got everything put away. Been a long day, glad it’s about over!!