Down the road to Buffalo Gap Campground

This morning we bid goodbye to our Bluebird friends...

Morning hot beverages with Lee, Jacque, Jim (Zoey) and Nancy

at Buffalo Gap Guest Ranch Campground, and moved to Buffalo Gap Campground, just at the interstate at the beginning of the road leading to the ranch. We had talked with the camp host yesterday and found that we could *not* reserve a spot, but we *could* come early this morning and leave a chair on any open spot to claim it.

So, after Tabitha got me up at 6am to be fed, we drove over to the campground - the site we wanted was occupied, but we found another that we thought we could fit into, so we left a chair there.

We headed back to the ranch, had morning hot beverages with our Bluebird friends there, and then left with Miss Doozie to move to Buffalo Gap Campground. As I drove Miss Doozie down the hill, I saw that the site we really wanted was empty, so drove to it instead of to the site where we left the chair. The occupant who was parked there early this morning left today, so we were able to get the site we wanted! We got parked, then Dwayne went to get the chair... he came back and said, "Do you remember where we left the chair?" I went with him, and we definitely found the site (I had put a reservation slip on it) but the chair was missing. It had legs, I guess it could have walked... but... I asked the guy on the next door site and he said that he had seen another camper walking by on his way to the shower, stop, look at the chair, sit down in it for a bit, but then go on.... but later he noticed that the chair was gone and wondered if the fellow had taken it. He pointed where the other camper had walked from, and it was near where we were now parked, and, sure enough, there was a chair outside his motorhome JUST LIKE the one we had left... we went up and knocked on the door, no answer - Dwayne checked and the chair had our "property of" label on it, so we just took it back... we're not going to confront the neighbor, but we're not going to leave chairs out either!

After we got parked, Dwayne decided to hike up the hill next to our site - believe it or not, he is waving up there...

And there are Miss Doozie and the Jeep...

When we were coming into this area of North Dakota, Dwayne had asked if I thought we might be able to go up to Sidney, Montana - turns out that many years ago, he and a friend flew the friend's airplane from Dallas to Sidney to deliver a part to a customer of the friend's company, and then flew back the same day (left Dallas at noon, got home about 10pm). Dwayne had wanted to see the land around there, so we decided to drive to Sidney today.

We took the recommendation of the Garmin, and it routed us over in to Montana and then north up a highway that started out as a nice road, but then became a gravel road... it was in really good shape though, so not too bad....

But, the directions it took us to get to the airport took us to the back of the airport and we ended up finding a "less improved" route to get to the front of the airport... (not recommended by Garmin, by this point I was looking on googlemaps and thought this route would get us to the airport entrance).

We did get to see some harvesting of small grain going on (irrigation ditch between us and the field).

Eventually, we did get to the airport. The airport has a few public commercial flights a day to Billings, Montana - that's the plane getting ready to load outside the window...

My honey at the Sidney Richland Airport!

The Jeep needed an oil change so we decided to get it done while we were in Sidney - the waiting room had a nice trophy elk head!

 We decided to come back a different way - maybe a little longer, but not a gravel road - on the North Dakota side of the border. We ended up missing a turn and to get back on the right road we were back on a gravel road....

This one went through a cow pasture (it was called Sheep Butte Road, we didn't see any sheep)....

Most of the cows and calves looked like black and red Angus, but this one looked like a longhorn!

Maybe some black baldies in the group too...

We eventually made it back to the campground - it is filling up - we've been able to chat with a couple of our neighbors and the campground seems to be friendly too. When I went out to walk this evening, a guy a couple of sites down assumed a dog that was around was mine... after the dog's owners called the dog back to their site, the man and I started chatting - turns out that he is from Sidney and his son is the manager of the airport. Small world!!!