Maddie Goes West

Maddie taking a break at a rest stop in South Dakota

So we decided at the last minute to head to Glacier National Park. We had intended on staying in the Chicago area but it was still pretty warm and our normal campground was pretty full (which means when it’s hot we can’t run our a/c as the power grid is old they plan on updating it next year). At any rate that led us to decide to head to Glacier. It has long been on my husbands bucket list and I wanted to go as well plus I love the mountains, I wasn’t going to pass this up! I managed to make reservations for the week before Labor Day at the West Glacier RV Park. It wasn’t the one that was most popular with the other prevost people on Facebook when I asked (that was the KOA West Glacier) and I have no idea why, the RV park was amazing! Once I made sure we could fit and wouldn’t get stuck I booked Monday-Saturday then made reservations at Montana Basecamp RV in Kalispell.

Due to the fact that it was a “last minute” change in plans we didn't have much time to get out there for our reservations. Floppy had a vet appt Friday morning so after that we were off! The plan was to stay at truck stops on the way out, I didn’t have time to really plan stops and check RV parks to make sure we would fit so for three nights we decided truck stops would be fine.

Our first way-point was just east of Omaha where we got one of the last spots in the RV parking side of the Flying J. It was perfect (it was a little tight making the turn in) but other then that it was great. It was close to grass and well lit which is a must for me as Floppy goes out about every 4-5 hours at this point, so if I get up at 3am I want it to look like daylight out.

Our second day of driving (and by ”our” I mean my husbands I have steered on occasion when we were in the middle of nowhere but have yet to actually drive Maddie) was the longest day of them all. We drove from Omaha to Gillette WY. Parking that night was a bit of a goat rope. We had stopped about 30min outside of Gillette for fuel but I wasn’t fond of the parking setup so we drove onto Gillette to the Flying J. However pro-tip; if you want to stay at truck stops get there by about 6 to get a good spot. We got one of the last spots (at 8pm) sandwiched between two semi trucks. It really isn’t too bad as Maddie is solid and pretty quiet and since everyone is running their generator (including us) it’s not that noisy. The bad thing about our spot was that Floppy was not thrilled with getting out of the bus 2 feet from a semi at 3am, and honestly I wasn’t either, but as I told Floppy “sometimes life isn’t fair.”

Took the picture of our backup camera view, you can see why Flop was less then happy!

Our last full day of driving was from Gillette to Missoula. We stayed at yet another Flying J and learning from the night before pushed to get there early so we didn’t have to fight for a spot. From the satellite it looked huge and had tons of truck parking. It did have tons of truck parking but it was the back in kind, which is fine if we don’t have ”Louie” with us, but with Louie (John's mini we tow behind) we basically can’t back. So we looked around for a different stop and saw a lot of “no parking” signs but found a spot over by the restaurant that shared a parking lot with the truck stop. We parked there and I pulled up the menu online called and ordered dinner and sent hubby in to pick it up and make sure we were ok parked where we were. Their food was amazing and they were happy to have us parked where we were, plus it was a great view out the window.

Much better view then the night before!

Our final day we drove a short 200(ish) miles from Missoula to West Glacier. It was a beautiful drive and we stopped a few times to let the dogs out and take pictures. The RV park was great and easy to get into and very convenient we we’re ready to explore!