Passing the mustard in Butte, MT
For our big trip this year we decided to head to Glacier National Park. In looking at the drive time from Salt Lake City, we were seeing that it was over 10 hours. Given that we are traveling with a 5 year old, we just felt that it was best to break it up into two hops. After a bit of looking we decided to make it into Butte Montana for our overnight and opted to stay at the Butte (Journey) KOA. Back in Episode 41 of the RV Family Travel Atlas Podcast I had made a comment regarding our upcoming trip to the Butte KOA and being so close to our neighbor that I could reach out the window and ask them to pass the Grey Pupon.
The Butte KOA was about what we expected and served as a great stop over location. The roads are all gravel and the sites are VERY close together. Granted we were in the cheep spots, but event the more expensive sites were only marginally better. As I understand it the campground is under new management and they are trying to make up for several years of neglect. The playground is quite dated but served as a good distraction for a few minutes. The highlight for us was the pool. It was a great amenity that we dangled in-front of Lily several times during the drive. She really enjoyed jumping in the pool and I think this was one of her highlights for the entire trip. That night we got a recommendation for dinner from one of the KOA staff members but ended up going to Casagranda’s based on the online reviews and were very happy with our choice.
The town of Butte is a very interesting place. We didn’t plan any time to stay and explore, but every one of us was interested in coming back at some point and digging in a bit more. Butte is an old mining town and has produced a large amount of copper over the years. Due to various changes in mining processes the mining industry is all but gone. It seems like there would be a lot of history here and it was neat to get a tiny peek into a huge part of Americas copper production.
Tomorrow we head out for Glacier…