We are off to the Big Sky country of Montana! Nether Kathy or I have been to Montana in a very long time so this was going to be fun.
Wolf Creek Campground is right next to the I-90, but it turned out to be pretty nice. We got showers and a good night’s rest. Nothing else to really do here however unless you travel back to the lake Coeur d’Alene. You could take a camp kayak and paddle back to the lake on the ‘creek’ next to camp. We did not try it.
We did have a great conversation with our neighbors about the Tesla. They had lots of questions and we had some answers. We then noticed that a squirrel in their frying pan on the fire. That is a hot pan, in a hot fire. Squirrels be bad in Idaho.
Missoula Montana Supercharger
Our first stop of the day is going to be Missoula Montana supercharger. About 160 miles away, so no problem.
It is all downhill from Idaho to Montana after climbing up the pass.
Again, Newton’s law of gravity in action! What goes up, must come down. Only, with an electric car your get a lot of that kinetic energy back! Regular cars just generate heat. Heat in the engine going up and heat in the brakes going down. Very inefficient. You get very used to this when you drive a Model 3 on trips. It is awesome!
On the way to Missoula, we had a ‘computer glitch”. The main screen had some issues that were pretty weird, to say the least. Basically, all the graphics had issues, but the functions seemed to be working. We have had the system reboot itself before, but this one was different.
We pull off the highway to work on it and it just fixed itself with a reboot that it did on its own. These issues are almost always caused by the streaming radio when connectivity is an issue. Montana has some ‘dark’ spots. The place we pulled off on was looking like a great fishing spot. We don’t have time to fish on this leg, but would have if we could have.
When we get to the supercharger, we have another first! This is the first supercharger we have seen that is an actual gas station. Interesting!
And again, we meet some great people at chargers. We met a family traveling from Colorado Springs to Baker City OR (we have been there) and then back to the Springs. They had a brand, spanking new Performance Model 3. We also met Tesla Tim. He is an avid Tesla supported and Uber driver! We had a lot in common with Tim (and some differences), but that’s what makes America Great (but not again as it has always been). Anyway, we have another business contact for our Tesla business.
We go across the street for some breakfast. Very western type dinner. Loved it. But we had to move the Tesla because we were already fully charged before even deciding to go over there. No waiting here.
After breakfast, we are off to Butte Montana. Home of Evel Knievel. Kathy is again unimpressed.
Butte Montana Supercharger
Nothing special about Butte (other than Evel), so we get some coffee while we charge. We need to make a plan on how to get to Yellowstone tomorrow. We are going in the back way.
Now, a normal person would continue down the interstate and then cut over to West Yellowstone, but we are not normal.
We are going to go directly from Butte towards Yellowstone, cutting the corner so that we have a decent chance of finding a spot to camp. Remember, this is the 4th of July holiday week and we are going to the most populated national park in America. Might be hard
We cut across Montana on a few goat paths. The Tesla drives them all on Autopilot without issue.
It started out as dirt road. No kidding.
It go better, but not much.
Autopilot working out in the wild, with no connectivity. Impressive.
We find an RV park on the fly and we head for the Ruby Valley Campground and RV park.
We get there late, but with plenty of time for some fishing and dinner!
And no camping report is complete without a picture of the bush TV. Please note that Kathy is a bit of a fire bug.
So on this leg of the journey, we did about 350 miles and drove all day. From our early morning start, to our late evening arrival. Notice that our cost for this journey is estimated at $5.33. And it was not even that. We were fully charged using the Wolf Lodge campground and will fully charge here at the Ruby Valley RV camp. That electricity is included in our fees just to camp.