Great Falls, MT

We spent one night at Malstrom AFB in Gateway FamCamp. It is a very nice campground for active duty military and retirees. We got in early enough to do some quick touring of the falls and dams along the Missouri river. We also toured the Lewis and Clark National Historic Interpretive Center. The exhibit is setup in a maze so a person can travel along with Lewis & Clark. A lot of the exhibits encourage touch and smell. Of course, the portage exhibit caught our attention with them carrying everything they needed in big heavy canoes on wheels. At least, our heavy home on wheels has a motor! They even have outfits for people to try wearing. The children were enjoying the exhibits and participating in answering a questionnaire pamphlet. Once completed, they would earn a Junior Explorer patch. What a great way to learn history!

We stopped at Kalispell just 30 miles west of Glacier national park. Spruce Park on the River campground is located among cottonwood trees on Flathead River. Within a hundred yards we have access to the river and a view that never ends. Of course, we are also near the highway, but we rarely noticed it.

In our Montana album, we have pictures of our walk to Memorial Falls north of White Sulphur Springs, a stop on Hwy 2, Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center, and Great Falls. There are only a few pictures of the Great Falls area since it was a very overcast day.

~Rainbow Trout in Great Springs Fish Hatchery.

White Sulphur Springs, MT

We decided to celebrate our Independence Day 4th of July weekend in a small ranching town called White Sulphur Springs (WSS) – population: a little under 1,000. We started the day with their parade. The lineup took longer than the actual parade, but they made up for it by going up Main Street, turning around, and coming back down again. The 10-minute parade became 25 minutes. It may have been short and sweet, but it was twice as nice!

Cows – 9, Cowboys – 0
After the parade, we had choices of going to a dog show and art festival, or to a Ranch Rodeo. We have never seen a Ranch Rodeo (though we have seen traditional rodeos) and we found it very interesting. There were 9 teams of 4 ranch hands or ranchers. The competition included different skills in a cowboy’s workday: the ranch horse, branding, penning, doctoring, cow milking, and counting. Why the score above? Well, the teams were doing very well competing against each other until they got to the wild cow milking competition. The cows were smarter than the average cow. Not a single cow got lassoed during that competition. Watching the horse and rider working as one was amazing. We added some action shots of the rider and horse to our Webshot album. Please see above link.

That evening, the town put on a fantastic fireworks show. While waiting for the official show to start, the locals were entertaining themselves with very large fireworks. They were being shot from all over town. After dark, the town’s firework show went on for an hour. Well Done!

Like many small towns, White Sulphur Springs is showing signs of hard times due to our economy. The town may need some fixing up and paint, but it is clean and shows plenty of pride. The locals were very friendly and proved to be down-to-earth, heartwarming, and very patriotic.

Yellowstone National Park

We spent 3 days visiting Yellowstone National Park. Since we are staying in Idaho, we drive through three states – from Idaho through Montana to Wyoming/Yellowstone and yet, it is less than 20 miles. We have been entering the park through the west gate. Every morning and evening, we drive past an American Bald Eagle’s nest near the road. Because of the nest being near the road, the speed limit has been lowered, and people are not allowed to stop their car nor walk near the nest. Sandy did manage to get a few pictures of the eagle sitting in the nest as Dan drove the car by slowly.

We saw our first wild grizzly bear. He seemed to be playing peek-a-boo with the crowd of people watching him from across the river. He was lying down in the brush on the other side of Yellowstone River. Every once in awhile, he would raise his head above the brush and look at us then disappear again. We found out later from a ranger that he had a calve carcass and was eating and then making sure the people watching him were not getting any closer. Later that same day, we were surprised to see two wolves crossing the road in front of us. They disappeared as quickly as they had appeared. What a great day!

Yellowstone is a very big park. A lot of our time was spent driving from point A to point B with a vigilant eye out for wildlife near the road and beautiful panoramic views. This is our second visit and we will probably visit here again.

Have a safe and Happy 4th of July weekend!

On the Road

In the past couple of days we traveled west through Wyoming and Montana. We drove through some beautiful scenic areas with snow-capped mountains, rolling green hills, and swift running rivers. We are staying at a campground just southwest of Yellowstone NP near Island Park, ID. It is less than 5 miles to the Continental Divide and Targhee Pass. We will be here for 6 days. Our site faces Henry’s Lake and Mt. Jefferson.

During one of our travel days, we stopped for lunch near Hardin Montana in a museum parking lot. We had planned only to eat and get back on the road since we had 4 hours travel to go. But curiosity won and we toured around the Bighorn County Historical Museum (pics in On The Road). There are 22 buildings filled with history, pictures, artifacts, and machinery. We were so impressed with the museum’s exhibits that we spent more time there than we should have. It was a little scary as we found ourselves recognizing quite a few of the artifacts on display. Dan saw many of the tools his dad had in his barn and Sandy pointed out quite a few items from the farmhouse. Yep, it was like taking a trip back in time to our childhood homes, but feeling a little old at the same time. Take a virtual tour of the exhibits on this link: BHCM.

Oh, we decided to name our new found kitty friend – Hitch - short for Hitchhiker. He is adjusting, but longs for his wild days of roaming outdoors. Hitch and Dusty tend to shadow each other while the others just tolerate the young-whipper-snapper.