Beavertail Hill

August 1st, 2024

After leaving Warm Springs, I backtracked through Missoula and a little east on Interstate 90 to the Beavertail Hill State Park. My friends from Minnesota were coming through on their return trip from Alaska, so we rendezvoused for a couple of days of camping to compare notes, visit, and hike.

The park is about 1/4 mile off of I-90 and the main railroad tracks that followed the Clark Fork River down to Missoula. That made the campground a little noisy, as the freight trains came by every 3 – 4 hours and traffic was pretty continuous on the Interstate. It quickly became white noise to us, and we weren’t really bothered. There were squirrels and chipmunks around the sites and a nature trail looped around the outside edge of the campground, where Sandhill Cranes and Mule Deer could be seen.

As do many State Parks, this one included an electrical hookup at each site. So on the first 90+ degree afternoon, I ran the air conditioner and was able to use the microwave to pop some Orville Redenbacher’s. I didn’t need to worry about keeping the solar panels aimed at the sun and left the Starlink Satellite Dish/Router on around the clock. When you are used to protecting you battery supply week after week, it is suddenly hard to adapt to unlimited electricity. You are in a conservation mode and you forget all the things you can do when electricity is readily available. For example, the second day was cool and rainy, and during the night the temperature went down into the low 50s. I woke up in the middle of the night looking for another blanket when it occurred to me that I could just run the little electric heater. What a treat!

All in all, we had a great time, and I really enjoyed seeing friends and talking to people I knew rather than just strangers. It was enjoyable, or at least was right up until the goodbyes. That can put a damper on your mood. Fortunately, the day was enhanced while I was relocating to a new campground. On the way back through Missoula I found an RV dealership with a free dump, fresh water fill, and extremely cheap propane refill (usually about $15 but I only paid $3.60).

Another thing that is sometimes hard to coordinate is my quarterly task of finding a Walgreens store and getting prescriptions refilled. This was made more difficult as 2 drugs needed a refill while 2 others are 2 weeks later. It turned out that Hamilton had a Walgreens and they were able to get approval to give me all 4 drugs at the same time. The price was also very inexpensive.

Lastly, I randomly found an extremely nice site at a new campground on a lake at the foot of the Bitterroot Mountains. Best of all, each site includes a water and electrical hookup at a very low price. This was a great surprise, as the temperatures in this are expected to be over 100 degrees for the next few days. YES!! Afternoon air conditioning and unlimited showers.

I will name the campground in my next post. I can’t say right now, as that would probably invite tons of single, retired women to find me and show up at my doorstep with pies and other sugary treats…haha!