Columbus, MT-August 13, 2012

We stopped in Anaconda last night. The only thing I can say about it is that we will have to come back next year. This is an area very rich in copper history and we want to know all about it. It goes without saying it is beautiful. This morning we got up and realized we could not see any of the mountains. Smoke, lots and lots of smoke covering everything. It was awful. If this had been my first trip to Montana I would have sat in my comfy passenger seat and cried all day long. You could not see anything except the highway. We crossed the Continental Divide at only 6393 feet. But the next mountain made our check engine light come on. It went off. Then up another big hill we started loosing power. I convinced Jerry to pull off the road at Three Forks and go in the truck stop and see if they knew a diesel engine repair place anywhere. There was one on the other side of the interstate. We limped over there and were taken care of right away. The mechanic checked the fuel filters for water. None. Then he said he needed to check the air filter. We discovered that the air filter in this barge had never ever been changed. It was so dirty that a big pile of dirt and miller moths fell out of it when he finally got it out. This coach has been in at least 4 places that could have changed that filter but no one touched it. It is very hard to reach so it was ignored. It goes without saying that he had no filter in his business. He called around and found one in a nearby city. To save waiting on delivery we jumped in the Cute Red Vehicle and let it run. We came back with the filter (it is just huge!) and it was installed in no time flat. We were off and Jerry has struggled to keep the speed down on this thing all afternoon. The engine is so happy. And so are we! Diesel engines seldom ever display a check engine light so we knew it had to be something other than real problems with the engine. I am telling you that even though we lost about 2 1/2 hours in Three Forks we fully felt the presence of a wonderful guardian angel in this coach today. It ended up being only an inconvenience and we got to Columbus where we wanted to be today. We'll be up early tomorrow and hope to land in Buffalo, WY tomorrow afternoon.