South Willow Creek Campground, Beaverhead National Forest Recreation Area, Montana --> Bozeman, Montana

June 30, 2004

	In the morning David said that he had heard the mouse again. As I got up and peeked into the engine compartment I saw some grass sticking out. The mouse had made a nest! We hoped that it had not had babies yet. I went off to take some photos and David made some coffee. Then we decided to get rid of the mouse. It was a nice woody place so we thought we could just relocate the nest.
	David removed the air filter and I took new photos of the nest. There were two almost full-grown mice in the nest and a bigger mouse ran into the engine. It turned out that the mama mouse must have been living in the car for a while. It was probably the washboard-like gravel road that had shaken the nest so that I could see it. I lifted the nest carefully into a plastic container. The two baby mice, who had been sleeping (deer mice are nocturnal) looked around but stayed in the nest and soon went to sleep again. We left the nest alone hoping that mama would return to her babies.
	David changed the fuel filter (and got half covered with gasoline :( and washed and then we were ready to go. So we dug a hole into the ground on a slope and took the mouse nest there. Sadly, mama had not returned. Since we did not hear anything from her, we assumed that she had left the car. The two pictures with a dried pine bow and a stick are of the place where we put the mouse nest. To insure that the babies would have something to eat I left them some hazelnuts in the hole as well. The picture below with the bus shows the campground.
	We drove off to Bozeman. On the way we saw the first European place - Belgrade. <-- The youth hostel in Bozeman, where we slept in real beds. It was exactly a week from the beginning of our journey.