Saturday, July 26, 2014

Mountain Acres Campground, Lewistown, MT

The Stars Over St Mary Campground
Saturday, July 26, 2014, Mountain Acres Campground, Lewistown, MT - 253.6 miles, 13,730 For the Trip

While the wind gusts stayed away, it did get cold overnight - down to 45°F. I took a couple of photos of the sun setting on the face of the mountains. Probably would have been better if I drove 10 - 15 miles up the Going to the Sun Road, but I wasn't all that excited about driving back in the dark. Now if the "C" loop bathrooms & showers were in a different place that would have helped!

After shooting the sunset, I set up the D700 on a tripod to do some star photos. Again, the lights of bathrooms didn't help, but the milky way looked good at 1:00AM. Rather than sit outside taking the photos, I used one of my camera "toys" a CamRanger. It is a combination of hardware & software that lets you control a Canon or Nikon DSLR over WiFi using an app on the iPad or iPhone. By control, it lets you remotely change ISO, shutter speed, aperture, etc, even focus. About all it won't do is change the zoom. It also lets you set up multiple, timed exposures, and a series of stacked focus images for shooting macros. A handy device when it is cold out! More photos at today's LakeshoreImages page.

I did manage to wake up early enough so the person booked into the site across from me had not yet arrived, so getting out of the backwards position in the site worked out OK. I still had one more plan to get out of the site if the space was filled, but it would have required driving the wrong way quite aways.

I took the short cut that avoids the worst part of US 89 (Starr School Road to Browning), then continued on US 89 to US 87 to Lewistown, MT. Since I'm no longer is quite the hurry I was in to get to Glacier, (and off the interstates), I went back to my normal driving speed of 57MPH. The drive to Glacier was primarily on interstates, and at 63MPH. Not all that much faster, but my MPG dropped from the usual 15 down to 13.5.

I'm in site 3 at the Mountain Acres Campground, a full hookup site for $27.82. Nothing to write home about, but a good one night stop on the way East. By the way, my average campground cost over the entire trip is now $22.47.

Since there was no picnic table, I was lazy, and bought fried chicken at the local Albertsons.

Until tomorrow.

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