14 miles of bad road. Day 65. August 25, 2017

But we made it in one piece! 

Wow, we were looking for a camp in the mountains, trying to escape, once again, the heat of the lowlands.  So we picked out this USFS campground called “Park Lake.”  I looked at the distance and the twists and turns we would have to take and saw that as a positive for the availability of a campsite.  Most people don’t want to go more than a couple of miles off the highway to find a spot.  I saw that it would be 14 miles but hadn’t counted on it being dirt, gravel and ungraded.  What a ride.

It was an adventure since we weren’t at all sure there would be a site when we arrived.  But I was correct, not too many folks had ventured up here and there were about 15 spaces open.  We found one and parked the rig.  The cost for this space is $5 per night with the senior pass.  Definetly what you would call primitive.  No garbage receptacle.  Just the way we like them.

This part of the Helena forest has been overrun with bark beetles.  It is so sad and frankly, ugly, what those creatures have done to the landscape.  Now, if a fire starts, and I am sure it will some day, the whole thing will go up in flames like a dry bale of straw.  Hope it waits til we leave.  We will stay here 2 days before we continue west.  There is very little cell service here and not enough to get data so we are really at a loss for what is going on in the outside world but I did get a text this morning from friends in Brookings, OR telling us that there is a fire 5 miles up the river from them and it is burning out of control.  Also, they brought us up to speed on the Hurricane situation in TX.  50 billion in damages so far.  Wow.  Mother Nature really is NOT happy with us. 

Just a short piece from me today since I am doing this tomorrow (figure that one out).  I’ll try to report later on today about today (huh?).

Here are some pictures taken from the car on the way in.  You can see how smoky it is.  I wish it weren’t but I guess there is a reason.