Friday, October 26/2012

It was only -5C (23F) when I got up this morning so all should be well with the plumbing in the bays.  I still have water coming through the taps so nothing is frozen and that is a very good thing.
I have started the generator and plugged in the block heater for the bus engine as John has always said that if one walks past a Cummins engine with an ice cream cone, it will have trouble starting!!  Apparently, these engines do not like the cold weather either!!
We will be crossing into the United States of America today and so will begin the "American" leg of our journey.  I am sure that as we travel further south, the weather will stay above zero and eventually we will no longer require the heaters.  That however is a few weeks away (depending on how long John takes to get us to Arizona).
I was chatting with our neighbour Kay this morning (got to love Facebook) and she is still in Nephi, Utah working on the road crew and is in the same temperatures we are.  She too is sitting at 23F and freezing her arse off.  In temperatures like this, I am sure laying asphalt is not any fun.
We got to the border crossing and crossed without any difficulty although I have forgotten that green onions were not allowed into the States so they were taken.  Apparently, green peppers are not allowed either but since I had cut it and it was in a ziploc bag, the border agent allowed us to keep it.  This year, the fellows actually checked Hogan's papers too!!  Wow!!  this is the first time anyone has checked to see if the dog's rabies shot was current.
Even with the scrutiny at the border crossing, we were out of there in less than 10 minutes.  We now begin the American road miles.  There is little to no snow here and the roads are dry.
We stopped at Malta to fill up on propane and diesel and of course I had to buy a 30 pack of Keystone for $17.00.
We did run into a bit of blowing snow today but it was not sticking to the road so the road was only wet and not icy.
Our travels today took us along the Belknap Indian Reservation.  This reservation was established in 1888 and is what remains of the ancestral territory of the Blackfeet and Nakoda nations.  It is scheduled to receive some of the pure bred buffalo from Yellowstone National Park that were transferred to the Fort Peck Indian Reservation in March of this year so who knows, maybe the next time we are down this way, there will be free range buffalo for me to photograph.
We arrived at our camping spot for the night near Craig, Montana.  We are parked along side the Missouri River along with several Canada Geese.  There is a herd of deer grazing in the field next to the bus and Hogan is lying on the dash growling!!  John and I are oh so protected from them tonight so they had better be careful and not get too close to the bus!!

Montana 191 S

Montana #2 West

Awesome architecture on this old church

Bear Paw Mountains

Getting on the big road

Missouri River at Great Falls MT 

Caught up to the Geese

Buffalo Fish - who would have thought!!

Saw this polar bear sculpture on top of a closed restaurant

Heading into the Mountains on I-15 W

different color for sunset

there is snow in them there hills

Sun going down

More Awesome

Sunset and the Missouri River

Wow - I so love sunsets

Deer in the field where we parked

Stopped along the Missouri River

Our spot for the night

We were parked in time to watch the football game and then played a game of scrabble (I lost - again no surprise there).  I had put a beef roast into the slow cooker along with onions and carrots and it cooked as we travelled.  Mmmmm - it smelled so good.  I boiled up some potatoes and made some gravy and presto - supper was ready.  I will start my diet tomorrow!!