This morning I awoke to the sound of raindrops drumming on the roof of our coach – the same sound I heard yesterday and the day before that. The north and east ends of Dick’s RV Park are giant mud puddles. I’m happy to be in the drier southwest corner, even though we’re closer to the road noise.

On Tuesday afternoon, we had a break in the rain. The forecast called for about an hour lull in the rain showers. Donna went for a walk while it was dry out. I checked our batteries and puttered around. We had about 60 or 70 gallons of fresh water on board. I dumped the tank and refilled it with 100 gallons of the city water here in the park. Great Falls has great water! Much better than the water we’ve been carrying from the desert. When Donna returned, she told me she saw a tamale vendor on the street corner across the 6th Street bridge.

The next bout of rain showers hadn’t arrived yet, so I hustled over to check out the tamales. There was a trailer set up as a kitchen in the church parking lot at 6th Street and 10th Avenue. It had a sign that said “Electric City Concessions” on the side. Electric City is the nickname given to Great Falls, due to having the first hydroelectric generating plant on the Missouri River here.

They offered homemade tamales wrapped in corn husks. Two dollars each, six for $8.50 or $16.00 for a dozen. Tamales are a traditional Mesoamerican dish made from masa ( a corn based starchy dough). In  Mexico, tamales are made with different fillings and can be eaten for breakfast (usually with a sweet filling) or dinner. The masa is wrapped with corn husks or leaves and steamed.

I bought half a dozen tamales. These were savory with a ground pork filling. I brought them back to the coach and split them with Donna. They were fairly small, so three each was about right for lunch. Electric City Concessions sets up every Tuesday at the church (Tamale Tuesday). We won’t have another opportunity to buy them as we’ll be leaving Great Falls next Monday.

Yesterday, it  rained all day with only a brief break in the evening. Donna and I took a short walk through the park during the break. We avoided the muddy north side. Last night, Donna prepared fish tacos for dinner – one of my favorites.

I’m trying to use the RV park’s wifi as much as possible. With the rain and the park fairly full, their wifi is unreliable. Being inside all day means we are burning through our data allotment. Eight days into our cycle, we’ve used 59% of our current plan. I can raise our allotment and probably will before the cycle ends.

The rain is supposed clear up around noon today. I need to change the rear inner tube on Donna’s bike. I’ll also clean and lube the chain in preparation for tomorrow’s race. At some point, we need to scooter over to the Holiday Inn to pick up her race packet. We may have a shower or two this evening, but we should have clear, blue skies for tomorrow’s race.