Feb 12th

Woke up to a warm morning in Idaho falls City. Slept in a bit due to my late arrival last night. I started up Milou and was ready to get back on the road to Montana! I needed to fill up and saw a place with cheap fuel so off I went. Filled up and turned my key….click…click…click. Oh gez… Not an ideal place to breakdown, blocking the diesel pump 🙁 I had this problem over the summer a few times but choose to ignore it :/ Time to trouble shoot.

Trouble shooting steps:

-Can I jump it with my solar batteries? Yes but no start..

-Bang on the starter solenoid? No start

-Bang on glow plug relay? No start

-Wave down a fellow driver for a jump? Still no start..

-Call AAA and look for a garage? Done

-Waiting for tow truck….Hmm… I wonder what would happen if I wiggling the wires to the glow plug relay? YAHOOOO!!!! We are running!!

-Final step, cancel the tow truck 🙂

Back on the road, I left milou running for the rest of my drive. Stopped at a parts store and grabbed a new relay and pointed myself towards Bozeman!

The road was a bit windy and covered in ice! No salt and very little sand on my way over Montana. At a few points I was driving on blue ice!

I made it to Bozeman and called up Andrew Brown (good friend from Norwich) and got directions to his house. Ate some of Leslie’s (Andrews Mother) famous tortellini soup. Delish! Off to bed for a day at Big Sky tomorrow.

Feb 13th

Woke up in Montana! Andrew made some delicious breakfast sandwiches, then we met up with his friend PJ and headed up to Big sky. It was snowing, so the roads where slow. Took us around an hour to get to the mountain.

The winds were high so a lot of lifts were closed 🙁 we did ride the Ramcharger “the most advanced chairlift in the world”. Not really sure I need a bubble or heated seats but it makes for a novel experience. The area is huge and you could spend many years exploring all of the terrain.

To finish the day we head to Scissorbills Saloon for a Milk Shake before our ride home.

For dinner we headed to Bridger Brewery. Split a pizza and some mussels. Then back to Andrews where we finished the night with home made chocolate chip ice-cream sandwiches. Yummm

Feb 14th

Woke up, made some more breakfast sandwiches with some Myers bagels from VT 🙂 Then off we went to Big Sky.

Today the wind had died down, but the visibility was nearly zero. It was snowing hard and the light was flat. We made the best of it it and found the powder stashes. We even headed up the tram, which goes up very high but only holds 15 people, a bit smaller then Jacksons which holds 100! It was fun going up the tram, but we could not see anything and once we exited, we were in a white out! I got a bit of vertigo before dropping in. Lots of steep stuff at Big Sky and very fun, just watch out for the rocks!

To finish the days traditions, off to Scissorbills Saloon for another Milk Shake before heading down valley to the Hot springs 🙂

Took a nice soak in their really cool 102 degree outdoor pool. Then to the sauna before taking a cold plunge. Horrible and refreshing all at once!

We grabbed some pizza for dinner, played a bit of pool then headed to the Imfamous Stringdusters concert! Great show and great night!

Feb 15th

Slow Morning… Gorgeous weather! I think it hit 50 degrees! Went out to breakfast with Andrew, then packed up my gear.

Thank you Andrew for such a great time, all the hospitality and many laughs! So good to catch up and rip it up with you!

Next off to Nelle and Philip Devitt’s house (close friend’s from Norwich) in downtown Bozeman. Luckily they live just across town! Tru (8yrs -Nelle & Phillp’s Son) had just gotten out of school and ran home to meet me, while Nelle made her way back with Calla (2yrs- Nelle & Philp’s youngest daughter). We then walked back to the school where we watched Tru skate and waited for Maple (10yrs- Nelle & Philip’s oldest daughter) to get out of school.

Once Maple was out, we all walked over to Philip’s jewelry shop. He had lots of cool tools, again I probably asked too many questions 😉 so much cool stuff tho! Then off to the toy store to get some birthday presents for the kids friends and home for delicious pizza!

Early to bed as I was exhausted 🙂

Feb 16th

Off to Bridger bowl today with the fam! Yahoo, I had heard a lot of great things about this place and was excited to check it out!

We got up and Nelle made us delicious breakfast sandwiches! Then we gathered up our gear and headed up to Bridger! What a cool mountain. Has a bit of everything, parks, trees, cliffs, even have a lift you need a beacon to get up! I had a blast skiing with Nelle and the kids. 9″ of new snow in the last 48hrs! Then the kids went off with Nelle to their bday parties and Philip took me on a grand tour of some steep stuff! So much fun!! We caught the local bus home and Nelle and the kids picked us up at the bus stop. Tru, Calla and I played a few games of Connect 4 and hung out by the wood stove 🙂

We grabbed an après beer/seltzers at Bozeman Brewing Company.

Nelle made an awesome creamy chicken chili! Very good and perfect dish after a cold day skiing 🙂

Feb 17th

COLD day today again, high of 9F. So we decided not to go skiing instead we headed for Chico hot springs.

After a yummy pancake breakfast, we loaded up and headed to Pray Montana. Beautiful country side that follows the Yellow Stone River with views of giant snowy mountains!

Chico hot spring is a really cool resort that reminds me of the wild west gold town. A fun lodge with a huge pool that is turquoise blue. They don’t add any chemicals because they drain it every night. It is amazing to think they can replenish all that hot water in just a single night.

We had a blast in the pool! Tru and I enjoyed making our hair pointy and letting it freeze in place in the frigid air. After 2hrs in the 98 degree pool we felt like prunes and were ready to get out!

A nice drive home and another yummy dinner!

Feb 18th

Cold Cold Cold. High of 5F today. I decided not to leave, just too cold! It’s Presidents Day, so the kids were home from school. We played some boardgames in the morning. We even played PieFace! Nothing like getting hit in the face with whip cream at 9am 🙂

Later we got some coffee/hot coco and hung out and watched a movie 🙂 very fun and relaxing. Tomorrow I am off, thinking I will head north, hope it warms up!!