1 Aug - Goodbye St Regis MT; Hello Ft Harrison Famcamp, Helena MT!

1 Aug

We wrapped things up at the Nugget RV Park in St Regis MT this morning and pulled chocks at 0906 hrs heading towards our 18th campground, the Ft Harrison Army National Guard FamCamp in Helena MT.  Our travel today was primarily on Interstate 90 until we got to Garrison MT and then we hopped on highway 12 east to Helena.  Along most of I-90 we ran into smoke from the various forest fires burning in Montana.  The result is a haze visible across the mountains and in the valleys.  There was a little odor but not bad.  This is Doreen's and my first experience with a forest fire.  We hope they get them under control soon.  Our thoughts go out to those impacted by the fires.

Here are a few random pictures of our drive today.  The amount of smoke varies as we drove closer to, and then passed the multiple fires.

The red circles indicate active forest fires as on now.  Our starting point, ending point and route are highlighted in yellow.

Active forest fires in Montana (real time):  https://www.arcgis.com/home/webmap/viewer.html?webmap=5850f59388624e90adcb834fc8c47e12

An eerie scene! 

We arrived Ft Harrison Army National Guard Base at 1241 hrs after a reasonable 187 miles drive.  Their security forces met us at the RV gate (the rigs won't fit through the main gate) and we made our way to the lodging office for check-in.  Soon we were on our way to the FamCamp.  The campground has 12 full hookup sites and six overflow with no hookups.  It looks like it has been recently remodeled with new concrete curbs dividing the sites, new concrete patios, new concrete picnic tables at each site and fresh gravel.

One of two empty sites in the campground

Our Jayco Pinnacle parked in site #4

Rear view.  I pulled the RV as far forward as I could so there was room in the back for the truck.

Site #4

Our patio area.  New concrete, very nice.  Doreen has the chairs set-up watching the Chicago Cubs game! 

The sunset through the smoke!

Tomorrow we intend to catch up on many housekeeping and maintenance tasks and check out the local area.  We have purchased tickets for a two hour boat cruise down the Missouri River on Friday  (yep, it runs all the way up here!!).  We will spend part of tomorrow mapping out the rest of our stay here.