Day 9: Blowing Something

"We want to get up early to leave camp and be on the road by 8am." That's what Kevin thought before he went to sleep last night. Our night turned into something else...  The camp had 40+ individuals get hit with a 24 hr bug (Norwalk virus) over the past few days. We thought Riley was feeling car sick from the switchbacks last evening, but it turned into "something else". He was awake hourly until 6am-ish.

Today was supposed to be a 9 hr travel day to Cody, WY. Not sure how Riley would feel once we started moving, we decided to let him sleep in a bit. Tires were rolling at 9:30am. 

We returned the rental car to the Glacier International Airport in Kalispell, MT at 10am. Then drove south to Missoula, east through Butte, Bozeman, and Livingston.  As we were driving down south 89 towards the North Entrance of Yellowstone, Kevin decided to pull over to check everything. The road was extremely bumpy. Everything was fine. Here's the view of the river and hill side:

On the road again. We were about 45 minutes from our campsite and Riley was looking forward to not moving!

We really started shaking and all of sudden "bang" - We blew something!! Blown tire #2 of this road trip. This time back left side outer tire. 

The scene: a quieter two lane highway with extra wide space between lanes, so cars could pass.  Even though Kevin was lying in the traffic side, he was covered by the shade. 

After Kevin had all his "equipment" in place, Heather quickly jumped on the iPhone and located 7 tire stores. She called the first place at 5:58pm. They had an RV tire that matched our size in stock. She said she wanted it! Their store closed in 2 minutes. Then asked if she could pay for it now on the phone and by chance if someone was driving home on south89 they could drop it off. (Completely forgetting they need the old tire rim to mount the new tire onto!) The crazy request did lead to a conversation with the manager, Tory, who agreed to wait and stay open for us. We said we'd be there in 40 minutes. They were very kind to stay open. After Kevin was done changing the tire, we loaded all the equipment, turned around and headed 17 miles back North into Livingston, MT. By taking care of this tonight, it saved us 2 hrs of driving on Friday morning.  Things went quickly at the Tire-Rama and we thanked Tory and Joe for staying late by slipping a $20 bill to go have a beer and thanked them for their kindness. We were on our way again.  We filled up with gas, bought a few groceries at the store and picked up a few sandwhiches at Arby's.

We arrived at Rocky Mountain RV park at 8:40pm. This is a beautiful campground. We all went for showers and were impressed with the hotel-like bathroom / shower house. There was tile and granite in the showers! Well worth the $61.50.

During the drive today, Heather explored options for re-routing the next three travel days. Plans includes canceling some reservations, but still paying full price! Making new reservations at West Yellowstone and not sure where we are camping in two nights. We wanted to go to Cody, WY to see their rodeo, but all sites are taken at multiple places. We'll see what the next few days bring!