Alaska 2015 - Day 8 Harlowton MT - Shelby MT

Day 8 – 5-19-15 Tuesday We departed at 7:15AM after having breakfast. After driving about 4 miles outside town we were stopped at some road construction, the first time we have had to follow a pilot vehicle but we were on a 2 lane road so that was to be expected. The road construction was 7 miles of dirt and gravel and BUMPS. But I guess this was just practice for the road construction we are expecting on some of the Alaska Highway in Canada where the frost heaves are.

After getting by the construction area we drove a couple of hours and stopped to fuel up at a nice little truck stop. Then we turned onto US-87 and the view for the next 40 miles was just fantastic. There was a mountain range a few miles off both side of the highway that were covered in snow. The landscape from the highway up to the mountains was rolling and covered in green grass. I'll post some photos that were taken as we rode by but they just don't show the true beauty of this area. This area was the most scenic of any we have been through and we thought we had seen some scenic areas.

We have been seeing several Winnebago Minnie Winnie motor homes along our route since about midway across South Dakota. They are all painted alike and have Alaska licenses tags and a sign on the back indicating they are owned by a RV rental company in Anchorage Alaska. When we stopped this morning at a rest stop one was parked beside us so I asked the driver about them. He said the rental company had purchased them from Winnebago in Iowa. The people that are driving them are delivering them to the rental company for Winnebago for a 50% discount on the normal cost of using the motor homes. They have 18 days to get them to Anchorage for Winnebago. So Winnebago gets the motor home delivered and the drivers get to travel to Alaska for 50% of the normal cost of renting them.

We continued on through Great Falls and turned onto I-15 which took us to Shelby Montana which is 30 miles from the Canadian border. We will be at the Shelby RV Park site 16 for 2 nights to do laundry and eat and cook any fresh vegetable and uncooked meat as we can't carry these into Canada. Our MH and toad are DIRTY from the 2632 miles of road dirt. We found a car wash and got some of the grime off the Jeep, then stopped for supper at a local cafe. Then returned to the CG to update this blog and do emails, etc. The CG has a good WiFi signal, of course setting right beside the WiFi signal antenna helps. There are several of the Minnie Winnie motor homes in the campground with us.