West 2021:
Day 6 - Miles City, MT

	Saturday, May 8, 2021:There was a light rain when we awoke.
	Breakfast was freeze-dried Breakfast Skillet, which is always satisfying, even when some of the egg bits are a little crunchy from not being fully rehydrated.
	We had one other neighbor in our campsite, located four sites down. They had a deck on the back of their rig which was perfect for enjoying the canyon scenery five feet away from them.
	There were flare stacks all over this part of North Dakota.
	The light rain turned into snow after a while, ...
	... but it melted quickly.
	We pulled into Theodore Roosevelt National Park - North Unit a little after 9 AM.
	The visitor center had a sign on its door that it was closed for a couple of weeks, so we put our annual National Parks pass on our rear view mirror and were on our way.
	The park brochure we had gotten at the South Unit the day before included a map of the North Unit (shown here on the right), so we were good to go.
	It was dreary and overcast, but the wet weather made the colorful layers stand out more.
	One of the coolest places in the park was this wall of spherical rocks.
	These are called Cannonball Concretions on the map and they are smooth round balls stuck in the soft rock around them. As the wall erodes, more of them become exposed.
	Are there bison in this park? You bet there are!
	We drove as far as Riverbend Overlook, where there was a nice view of the Little Missouri River. Here's the view to the left ...
	... and to the right. There was probably a better view from that little cabin on the ridge, but it was very wet and we preferred to stay warm in our camper.
	As we looked, several deer ran up the ridge and right into our photos. We opted not to drive to the end of the scenic drive to Oxbow Overlook because we felt we had seen enough on this dreary day.
	After several attempts to seal the leaks in our rig, we learned that it was still leaking. Sigh.
	We continued to enjoy the lovely scenery as we retraced our route through the park.
	It's so cool to see the different geological layers in the stone walls.
	Erosion forms interesting shapes. Here's a closeup of the bottom layer in the photo above.
	Here's another example of hard rock layer on top of soft rock.
	The only good thing about the rainy weather is that we were able to see erosion actively at work. The puddles forming throughout the park carried the colors of the walls around them.
	More bison. This park didn't have quite as many as the South Unit, but they were just as unafraid of visitors.
	An hour after our arrival, we were heading out of the park, ...
	... and an hour after that, we were welcomed to Montana, which was The Ocho's 25th state. (Are you new to our website? The Ocho is the name of our 2021 Thor Sequence 20A class B RV).
	We crossed the Yellowstone River for the first time when we approached the town of Sidney, Montana. This is about 30-40 miles upstream from where the Yellowstone River flows into the Missouri River north of here. From here, we would follow the Yellowstone River for a couple of days.
	We stopped at Richland Memorial Park. The rain had let up so we were able to walk the cemetery.
	In less than five minutes, Debbie found what we had come for: the gravesites of some of her Lindevig relatives.
	Her great-great-great-grandparents came to the US in the 1840s. Their children settled in the Wisconsin area near their parents, but two of their grandchildren, sons of Christopher Lindevig, moved to Montana and their graves were here. Here was Thron Lindevig and his wife, ...
	... and here was Thomas Lindevig and his wife. These gentlemen were double first cousins to Debbie's great-grandfather Hilmar Lindevig, because their fathers (Ole and Christopher Lindevig) were brothers and their mothers (Anne and Kari Lokken) were sisters.
	Norman Lindevig's grave was right next to the other two. He would have been Debbie's grandmother's second cousin and they may have known each other as a result of large Lindevig family reunions held in the 1950s and 1960s.
	We got a photo of the main sign on our way up the road to ...
	... McDonald's in Sidney. With a rig that is too tall for most drive-throughs, we are grateful for online ordering and curbside pickup.
	As we headed south, we ran into some snow.
	It made a winter wonderland outside our window, but it was unpleasant to drive in.
	We got gas in Glendive and considered stopping for a while, but decided to continue, especially since we now had lovely I-94 to drive on.
	We crossed the Yellowstone River near Makoshika State Park. Our original plans had called for staying at the state park campground, but it was walk-up only and we had decided a week earlier to stay at a KOA instead. While we are sure we would have had no problems finding a site, we were glad to have a guaranteed spot further down the road instead.
	The scenery along the valleys created by the Yellowstone River was lovely, even in what was now rain instead of snow.
	Roadside America had tipped us off to look for this odd artwork: a huge baby, a rhinoceros, a bison, and a dinosaur. Make sense to us.
	We passed this pretty horse statue as we headed into Miles City.
	Montana's historical markers are more rustic than many other states'. This one had nice carved detail work on the top depicting the Lewis and Clark expedition.
	We checked into the Miles City KOA Journey, started some laundry, and got some ice cream treats from the store.
	It was great to do laundry. It was the first time we had ever done laundry anywhere other than our sink on an RV trip, and it was surprisingly easy. We'll definitely do this again.
	We had lots of tiny birds pecking the ground around our rig all afternoon, but this yellow-rumped warbler was particularly colorful.
	Tom worked on the rig, finding new places to seal, for the fourth time of the trip. In related news, he added clear sealant to the shopping list.
	We enjoyed partly cloudy skies later in the day, along with a hot shower each.
	Dinner was Pasta Roni with baked salmon from home. We travel with small, one-cup containers of cooked meat from home so it is easy to make a meal out of an easy-to-microwave side dish.
	After-dinner entertainment consisted of a few games of vintage Mastermind and the movie, Sing Street.
	There's the last bit of light across the train tracks near our campsite. Day 7 >