On My Own Again + The Most Beautiful Drive In America? Beartooth HWY | RV Life | Van Life

It's been a while since I've been on the road on my own for more than one or two nights, but that is about to change. Good morning from Montana! We have a little bit of catching up to do. I haven't posted in a couple of weeks, and last you saw me, I was up in Canada. So how did I wind up from there to Montana? I'll explain that in just a moment. If you're new here, my name is Katherine. I have been living on the road now for five years. I'm two months into my sixth year. I first started out in an old Lance truck camper. I lived in that for the first three years. In 2022, I moved into a 21-foot travel trailer where I currently reside. I travel primarily the western United States, traveling, backpacking, and sharing my road life, but do venture into Canada occasionally, which I just returned from. I've been traveling alone for the majority of those five years. However, for the last six months, my friend Joey's been traveling with me, and we've been having an absolute blast. It's not a permanent situation, but I'm enjoying it while it lasts. So let's get back to getting caught up. When I last saw you, I was in the Snaring River Campground in Jasper National Park. I can tell you now that it was a Snaring River Campground because I have left. I usually don't like to divulge my location while I'm still there. It was an absolutely beautiful campground. My door opened right onto the river. It had beautiful mountains all around it, and I stayed there for the entire two weeks that I was allowed. If you were paying attention, I mentioned that I would be going on a backpacking trip for my birthday, which was on June 30th in the back country of Jasper. That changed when some weather moved in. We opted not to do the backpacking trip because of the weather. We thought we didn't want to be out there getting rained on in storms with mosquitoes all around. It just didn't sound too pleasurable. So I just went to breakfast in Jasper, had a pretty decadent breakfast for my birthday, and then we moved over to BC to a campground called Lucerne, which was beautiful on a little lake for a few days. At that time, we decided that we would head back to the United States for various reasons. There were some trips that we both wanted to do here, and I decided for my birthday gift to myself that I was not going to film or edit for that week. I just wanted to be in the moment, enjoy my last few days in Canada, and we would be driving for about four days to get back here to this spot in the U.S. It's really hard to be present and in the moment when you're filming and editing, so it was just really nice to take that week off. I like to keep my driving days under six hours, so that's why it took about four days to get here. I looked for about the coolest place that I could find as temperatures are rising all across the U.S. and Canada, and that's how I wound up at this place in Montana up in the mountains, and it was kind of close to some areas where we want to do some adventuring. Joey is currently out on his own adventure, so I'm on my own, and today the plan is to drive one of the most scenic roads in the entire U.S., the Beartooth Highway. I have never driven it. I cannot believe I've never driven it. So the plan is to go all the way over to Red Lodge and back. We're going to see some beautiful waterfalls, some gorgeous lakes. Unfortunately, there's a little bit of haze and smoke in the air from fires, not here, but in surrounding areas, states, that is blowing into the area, so the visibility is a little bit hazy, but it is still going to be beautiful. I'm going to get a lunch made and packed up, and we are going to hit the road. I actually got searched at the U.S.-Canada border because I mentioned that I had some fresh veggies on board the trailer, and I thought it was allowed. I looked at a list before heading back, and unfortunately, I was not allowed to have tomatoes, so I got pulled over. An agriculture inspector had to come onto my trailer, not in my presence. I had to wait outside while she searched. She came out with some tomatoes and some eggs. It's the first time I'd ever been searched coming over the border, so pays to pay attention to what you are and are not allowed to bring back over. By the way, I had an absolutely epic time up in the Canadian Rockies. It is absolutely stunning, gorgeous. It is tough to put into words, breathtaking. The people were wonderful. I spent an entire month there. It was a great time. Thank you so much, Canada. I'm currently at a campground just outside of Cook City. We're warned upon arrival at this campground that there have been two grizzly sightings recently, and right here in camp, so definitely keeping our heads on a swivel and making sure to maintain all the bear safety precautions while being here. You are not allowed to camp in a tent here or sleep on the ground or be in a pop-up type camper. It has to be a hard-sided camper. There have been incidents at campgrounds, this one and another one down the road, in the past where unfortunately they did not end well. So yeah, you have to be very alert and cautious while camping out here. I want you to imagine that you're riding shotgun with me. Just sit back and enjoy the scenery and let me take the wheel and be your guide. It's open range up here so cattle could be crossing the road at any time. Just making my way up the mountain. The Beartooth Highway is an all-American road on a section of U.S. Route 212 in Montana and Wyoming. Between Red Lodge and the northeast entrance of Yellowstone National Park, it crests at Beartooth Pass in Wyoming at 10,947 feet above sea level and was called the most beautiful drive in America by the late CBS News correspondent Charles Kuralt. That is Beartooth Falls visible from the side of the road. You know what I've noticed? AG1 blends in with the colors of nature around me and it actually has something in common with nature. Nature and AG1 are both good for me. Nature is good for my soul and AG1 is good for my body. I'll tell you what, it took me four days to drive from Canada here to Montana and on those four days I did not have the healthiest diet. I ate whatever was quick and easy. Pizza, hamburgers, that sort of thing. I'm so thankful I had my AG1 because it fills those nutritional gaps when I'm not eating so well. Even with the best diet, some nutrients can be hard to get. That's why AG1 delivers optimal amounts of nutrients and forms that help your body thrive. AG1 promotes gut health, supports immunity, and boosts energy and it's also validated by research. 97% of participants in a research study felt more energy after 30 days. My life can be super chaotic with all the traveling that I do and I cannot be bothered with millions of supplements. That's why one scoop of AG1 daily is an easy healthy habit that I can stick with and I have now for going on three years. AG1 includes 75 high quality vitamins, minerals, and whole food source nutrients to support optimal health of the brain, body, and gut. Build a healthy daily habit that takes less than one minute per day. I highly recommend you try AG1 for yourself. If you'd like to do so, go ahead and click that link below or scan the QR code here and they will give you a year's supply of vitamin D3K2 plus five travel packs for free with your first subscription. Thank you once again to AG1 for sponsoring this video. Now back to the show. A quick shout out to Jeff and Corinne from Livingston, Montana who happened to see me taking some shots on the side of the road. They're longtime viewers and they stopped to say hello. Very nice meeting you both. Making a little pit stop here at the Top of the World store. I thought I'd check to see if they have anything other to drink besides water. Top of the World store sits at 9,400 feet along the 69 mile scenic Beartooth Highway. They sell beverages, souvenirs, hats, shirts, books, and more. This looks like the perfect place to have lunch and the wind is blowing which is keeping the mosquitoes away and they're pretty bad right now. So amazing views, no mosquitoes. Sounds perfect. The Beartooth Highway passes through portions of Custer, Shoshone, and Gallatin National Forests and near the Absaroka Beartooth Wilderness. It traces a series of steep zigzags and switchbacks along the Montana-Wyoming border to the 10,947 foot high Beartooth Pass in Wyoming. The approximate elevation rises from 5,200 feet to 10,947 feet in 12 miles in the most daring landscapes. Now I'm going to be quiet because we are about to travel through what I think is the most beautiful section of the highway. I would like you, my passenger, to sit back and enjoy. All I can say is wow even on a hazy kind of smoky day wow it is absolutely beautiful up here. I'm almost to Red Lodge but I just wanted to pull over for a minute and reflect on how absolutely amazing that drive was. People have been telling me to do it for years and years. I don't know why it's taking me so long but I'm so thankful that I did. I would highly recommend it if you're in this area. Don't miss it. I wish I could have seen it on a little bit clearer day but it was still absolutely gorgeous regardless. So now we are going to head into Red Lodge and I'll probably just do a drive through, get some fuel, and guess what? I get to do that drive all over again heading back to camp but this time I probably won't film it. I'll just uh just drive and enjoy it. So let's head on to Red Lodge. On September 17, 1851 the United States government signed a treaty with the Crow Nation confirming control of the area which now contains Red Lodge, Montana to the Crow Indians. Rich coal deposits were found there in 1866 and gold was discovered nearby in 1870. An 1880 treaty between the U.S. government and the Crow allowed the area to be settled starting April 11, 1882. A rail line was constructed into town and coal shipments began in June 1889. The boundaries of the Crow reservation were redrawn October 15, 1892 opening the whole area to settlement. From then until the 1930s coal mining defined the town. Downtown has been redeveloped since the mid-1980s for historic and cultural tourism as the Red Lodge Commercial Historic District. The buildings in downtown Red Lodge fell into despair in large part because population had dropped from its 1915 peak of 6,000 people to about 2,000. Back here at camp just chilling. I've been chilling for a little while. Back here behind me in this meadow is where one of the grizzly sightings was so if you guys see anything back there yell, scream, let me know. Anyhow uh what a beautiful little adventure that I went on today. Absolutely stunning. I would highly recommend it as I mentioned earlier especially if it's you're somebody who can't get out you know hiking and up into the alpine. It's a perfect opportunity for someone who might not be able to get up into the alpine on foot to get above treeline and see how magnificent it is up there. I saw a lot of little trails and what have you going to different little lakes so I will for sure be exploring up there more in the future and even if you are able to get up into the alpine on foot I would still recommend driving it because it's just that amazing. It was so nice and cool up there. I would say it was probably close to 10 degrees cooler than it is here. I'm guessing it's around 80 degrees here right now and I'm going to have to go back inside in just a second because the mosquitoes are starting to swarm. I'm going make something simple that I don't have to cook for dinner because it is hot. I don't want to have the stove going so I'm probably going to make a nice salad. I literally just walked inside from talking to you guys probably about five minutes ago and it looks like we might have some rain headed this way. Here's what I got going for my salad. I have some spring greens, a couple hard boiled eggs, some bacon bits, real bacon bits, some salad topper that I bought in Canada. It has sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, cranberries, a bunch of really good stuff in there, a little cheese, a little balsamic vinaigrette and that's going to be it. Fresh cracked pepper as well. A funny but not funny story. I told you after we arrived the camp host approached us immediately and told us about the grizzly bears in the camp and after I went to bed that night which is about three nights ago I was hearing all kinds of noises around the camper. It started here on this end by dinette then it was down on the other end and it was kind of a scratching sound. I thought maybe it was a mouse but it sounded too big to be a mouse so I don't know if it was a bear right outside of the trailer scratching maybe it sounded like it was right on the trailer. Joey was asleep here on the dinette bed and he had a fan going and he didn't hear anything and he didn't even hear me asking him if he was hearing these noises. I had to get up and physically walk over to him and say Joey did you hear that and he got up and kind of investigated went outside he didn't see anything we didn't see anything but then close the doors and all of a sudden started hearing it again. I don't know what it was still but what I did was I took some rope lights led rope lights out from my little storage bin and on night two I strung them all underneath the trailer. I have a little outlet outside that they plug into thank you to my friend Dan for installing that and I've been plugging those in all night for the last few nights I haven't heard anything. Supposedly rodents don't like light it could have been a porcupine it could have been a raccoon something like that and I haven't heard anything since fingers crossed but I'm going to continue to do that because it only draws about three percent or four percent of my battery having them on all night long. Now it's starting to rain and then it was gone. It's nice and cool here this morning this is a beautiful time of day that thunderstorm lasted for a good while last night and I really enjoyed it got some big lightning bolts and some loud thunder crashes I love a good thunderstorm. It feels really good to be back home in the U.S. I loved my time in Canada but obviously the U.S. is home I feel very comfortable moving around here and being places by myself and I know Canada is safe and I would probably be just fine there too but there's just something about the familiarity of home. Joey's going to be heading out on some pretty epic trips pretty hardcore more hardcore than what I'm cut out for so if you are interested in checking out what he's up to go take a look at his Patreon page under My Own Frontier. Before he left however he made sure that his dad came out of surgery okay. I want to give a quick shout out to Vinny Coconato. I know he watches these videos wishing him a very speedy recovery. I think I'm going to go ahead and wrap this video up here. I hope that you all enjoyed coming along with me. I hope you enjoyed that drive on the Beartooth Highway. I'm sure a lot of you have done it but if not I definitely recommend it. If you haven't subscribed to the channel please consider subscribing. It really helps and make sure if you are subscribed that you are still subscribed if you think you're subscribed because I know some people get dropped off without their knowledge and I always appreciate your support. I appreciate you guys so much. I should be back on my regular schedule now so look for a new video every Sunday and I will see you all on the next adventure. See you soon everybody. Bye-bye.