Day 7: Rest Day
Welcome
Yesterday we continued our journey east and had a rest day in Billings, Montana.
Robert had had a pretty rough night, I found out when I awoke and went to sit in the cockpit. We were driving through southern Montana and although the highway had mostly cleared up by morning it had been a pretty slow night of driving with between 2-6ft of snow in some places. Our journey had taken us from northern Idaho, across the Bitteroot Range into Montana, across the northern Rocky Mountains and the continental divide, and now I-90 was following the Yellowstone River east towards Billings, and our waiting hotel.
One of the places next to the freeway where they put all the hotels. Ours was the tallest.
It was just beginning to snow as we drew up outside the Holiday Inn Express & Suites Billings West. A nice, gentle snow that left intact snowflakes in your palm and deposited a perfet layer of soft powder on the footpath. I felt like I was in a tourist ad for winter.
My morning routine began in earnest. It is still under development, I might add, but I always start by getting the coffee machine into action and once it is dripping away I rummage through the bus cupboards to see what food we have - usually stuff left over from the rider. Yesterday I found a packet of Stroopwafels and put a couple in the toaster to soften up. Alongside these I enjoyed a fruit medley of raspberries, pineapple, kiwifruit, and banana, all topped with yoghurt.
Once I have finished eating I clean my dishes. In this case I had used a melamine plate to place my food on, a chef knife to chop the fruit, and a small plastic disposable spoon to serve the yoghurt. These disposable spoons are great because they are very easy to clean and reuse.
We don’t have running water on the bus because there is nowhere to fill up the bus water tank at this time of year. All the truck stops have their taps turned off to prevent the lines getting destroyed when they freeze. Instead we have a water container on the bench for washing dishes and hands. I first of all give my plate a good wipe with a paper towel to prevent any food scraps from going down the sink. Then it is a quick rinse with some detergent and cold water and a dry with one of our inspirational tea towels.
My office for the afternoon was this corner of the hotel lobby which had reasonable wifi, comfortable seating, and a view of some deciduous trees and a Holiday gas station. I sat for a couple of hours to write the blog and enjoyed getting the time to listen to a few new things on my bandcamp wish list.
Later in the afternoon I put my warm clothes on and set out with Liz and Tristan to go bouldering. It was a quite a mild temperature by that time of the day and we decided to walk there and get look at some of the town. Unfortunately it turned out that we were in an area that was mostly logistics centres but what we missed out on in sightseeing we made up for in snow-based activities.
We did pass some excellent rock art along the way.
It was President Day, a public holiday, which meant that Steepworld Climbing & Fitness was awash with children when we arrived. They all wore tiny climbing shoes and harnesses and they were racing up these climbing walls like they’d done it their whole lives. There was even an 8 year old girl who was trying to vibe us out, showing off how many push ups, and then sit ups she could do. This was quite a small gym compared to the big city ones we have attended but the puzzles were creative and very satisfying.
After visiting a local restaurant for dinner we returned to the bus and the evening movie screening, which was a favourite of mine. A Town Called Panic is a French-language stop motion film that beautifully depicts life in a small French village.