Billings, Custer, and Clark

The Billings KOA is the world's first KOA and it is really a nice one: well laid-out, equipped, and maintained. Clean restrooms, nice store, friendly staff. Given our KOA-centered choices of campgrounds, we had to stay here. We've stayed at some old KOAs that have not been kept up to date, so we really appreciate this one. The location is nice, too, right next to the Yellowstone River, not too close to a highway or RR tracks.

Here are a river scene and a campground shot. Lots of tall cottonwood trees to provide shade and pleasant sounds as the wind blows through them.

Anyhow, after we got to Billings late Friday morning, 7/10, after a grueling 60 mile drive, I went downtown for a history walk, which led to an interesting connection. When we visited with my classmate, Ken Tiahrt, a few days earlier in Bozeman, he had mentioned his interest in old highways, in particular the Yellowstone Trail. That highway came up in my history walk and then the tour guide pointed out this marker for another named highway, the Glacier to Gulf Motorway.

That highway ran from Brownsville, TX to Calgary, Alberta, with a spur from Galveston. These named highways were established soon after automobile travel became popular, before the government came up with numbered highways in the 1920s.

I sent Ken this picture. He wrote back that I had made his day. A great discovery for Montana car buffs. He would post it on his old car club's website and acknowledge me for its discovery. Ain't history fun.

Our main reason for coming to Billings was to visit the Little Bighorn Battlefield, located about 60 miles SE of Billings. We went there Saturday. Started with a bus tour put on by students from Little Big Horn College. Our guide was great, very dramatic. She made us feel like we were there on the battlefield, trapped between soldiers and warriors. (I should note that the National Park Service on its website sniffs that they cannot vouch for the accuracy of presentations by organizations other than themselves. Our guide said there are 5000 books on the battle and none of them agree. Nobody in Custer's immediate command survived to tell the story, so there is room for much speculation.)

Here's the hillside site of Custer's Last Stand.

When troops from another cavalry force came on the scene a day after the battle (which was June 25, 1876) they marked the locations of the bodies they found in this horrific scene - more than 200 deaths. The marker with a black shield is Custer's. The bodies were initially buried where they were found. Subsequently they were disinterred and some 220 soldiers who died here are buried in a mass grave at the top of the hill from where this picture was taken. Bodies of the officers were moved elsewhere, including Custer who is buried at West Point.

Here's the memorial to the soldiers, and some civilians, who died on this battlefield.

The Little Bighorn River is in the valley below. That's where there was an encampment of around 8000 Indians from various tribes, 2000 of them being warriors. Custer, with his force of 600, was either unaware of how large the force opposing them was or was overconfident in their ability to defeat it.

In 1997 this Spirit Warrior memorial to the Indian warriors in the battle was added to the battlefield displays.

It was a very somber thing to be here. You ask Why? and How (could things have been handled differently)? but no satisfactory answers come.

Returning to Billings, we made our last stop on the Lewis and Clark trails. Pompeys Pillar is a prominent outcropping on the banks of the Yellowstone River about 20 miles east of Billings. Clark and his party stopped there on their return journey -- it's recorded in Clark's journal. He said he wrote his name and the date there and there it is - the first graffiti west of the Mississippi?

The rock was named for Sacagawea's son, who made the whole trip. Pompy was the boy's nickname and Clark actually called this place, Pomp's Tower. When you google Pompeys Pillar you get a pillar in Alexandria, Egypt, as well as this National Monument in Montana .


Here's a view of the river from the top of the Pillar. A board stairway has been constructed which gets you to Clark's signature and to the top.

Hail and farewell to you, William Clark.



We had planned to leave Sunday noon, after church, to head south through Wyoming. However, the campground was practically deserted, a pleasant breeze was blowing, there was no one in the swimming pool, and we didn't have a need to rush, so we stayed another night. In late afternoon, while we were dining at Cracker Barrel, a strong thunderstorm went through the area. At the KOA it knocked out power and blew down a few limbs, but there was no damage.

There was a prominent rainbow as we drove back to the KOA. This is what remained by the time I got my camera out and clambered up the river bank.

Cheers,

Susie and Rob

Red Lodge and Fishtail

As of July 8, we've been on the road for a month -- seems longer to us. You, too?

Anyhow, we marked the occasion by spending a night in the Red Lodge Comfort Inn. Susie misses having a bath tub, so she's catching up -- three baths during our stay. That should get her home.

I had been thinking of surprising her before our trip to Cody and saying, Pack an overnight bag. But, when I tried to get a room in historic Irma Hotel and couldn't, I went to Plan C. Plan B was to get a motel in Billings this weekend. However, when we left Cody, Susie saw a Comfort Inn and said, I want ... . I didn't say anything then, but the next morning (yesterday, 7/8) when I got up, Susie said she hadn't slept the whole night. She went to bed and I went in to Red Lodge for the morning. While there I made a Comfort Inn reservation (Plan C). Went back to campground in late morning and told Susie, Pack an overnight bag. We had planned a loop drive from Red Lodge and I was going to finish that by driving up to the Comfort Inn. Well, she wanted to know where we were going, in order to choose the proper wardrobe, so I told her.

Our afternoon activity was to take the aforementioned loop drive. The main objective was to visit the General Store in Fishtail. Just before we left Cedar Crest, Susie saw an article in Country magazine about the oldest continuously operating general store in Montana. It's known for its monster cinnamon rolls and friendly, wide-ranging service. Their motto is "A Little Bit of Everything Since 1900." Stuck that article in our folder of things to do on our trip and luckily looked in the folder in time to plan a visit to the store.

Here's a picture of the magazine one-page article. We took that page with us and had the staff all sign it. They were tickled. They had had a few visitors since the article was published, but nobody had asked for their autographs. The owners, Katy and Bill Martin, were away on a rare vacation. A friend of theirs works in the store as a volunteer and just raved about what fine people the owners are and how much they do for the community. E.g., miners on their way to work stop in for burritos and to pick up sandwiches for lunch.

We had the cinnamon roll -- took us two days to finish it. Lots of cinnamon and brown sugar, covered with creamy frosting. Here's Susie with the cook.

Thursday, we 'did' Red Lodge. Walked both sides of the five blocks or so of shops. Had lunch at one of the locals' favorites - a combination organic grocery store and cafe, mostly the latter. Then we took another loop drive in the afternoon. Managed to find some barns and other scenic shots on these drives.

The brand represents the Broken Horn Ranch.

Couldn't miss with this road sign: Red Barn Lane.

Which led to this barn:

One more entry in the barns of Montana sweepstake:

This picture combines a barn with a rushing mountain brook for a twofer.

Then there's mountains and pastures.


Big day planned tomorrow: driving 60 miles to Billings for the weekend. Main attraction: Custer and the Battle of Little Big Horn.

Cheers,

Susie and Rob

Buffalo Bill

After descending the south end of the Beartooth Highway, we caught the Chief Joseph Scenic Highway, running east toward Cody, WY. It follows the Clark's Ford River, named for our intrepid explorer, William Clark. When Lewis and Clark returned from the Pacific, they divided into two parties in SW Montana. The Lewis party went north to the Marias River and followed it down; the Clark party went east to the Yellowstone River and followed it to its confluence with the Missouri where the two parties met and continued on down the Missouri to enduring fame. Clark only saw this fork when it entered the Yellowstone, but he still got the honor of having the river named for him.

Some pictures:

Along the way the road crosses a deep, narrow canyon via the Sunlight Creek Bridge, shown here from an internet picture.

Here's the view looking down from the bridge.

We got to Cody for a late lunch at the Irma Hotel, Buffalo Bill's favorite, then spent the rest of the afternoon at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center. As they say, it's five museums under one roof. Lots of great exhibits and information. We spent three hours there and could have easily spent more.

From the banner behind Bill, you can see that the Center, serendipitously for us L&C fans, had an ongoing L&C special exhibit. The Lewis and Clark party made sketches along the way, but the expedition had no professional artist along to capture the scenes and events. Charles Fritz is a Montana artist who has tried to fill that void and his paintings are now on display. They're great.

The banner is from a painting depicting Decision Point where they had to decide between the Marias and Missouri Rivers. L&C look pretty dapper, compared to what they probably really looked like after a winter in North Dakota and then pushing on up the river in a Montana summer. The exhibit has 100 expedition scenes. You can't take pictures, but you can buy a book. I'd like to get a print of the Beaver Head Rock scene, but it doesn't appear to be available yet.

You can take pictures in much of the rest of the Center, though. There are a lot of traditional Russell, Remington, Bierstadt, ... western art pieces. For contrast, there are some modern paintings that got my attention. Here are two famous Bills: Wild Bill Hickock and Buffalo Bill.

A dramatic statue of Sacagawea in the sculpture garden:

There's all sorts of Buffalo Bill memorabilia.

Even his boyhood house has been moved here from Iowa.

There is a diplay of, Susie's hero, Annie Oakley, a star of the Wild West Show, who Susie played (way) off-Broadway.

The Buffalo Bill story is a mix of fact and legend, but it's clear that he was quite accomplished in many areas -- soldier, scout, hunter, showman. For one thing, he was a Medal of Honor winner. The Wikipedia article says he won the award as a scout for the infantry and the award was revoked, then reinstated. Must be an interesting story there. This museum in his honor does a fine job in telling the story of the west and his role in it. I like the mix of art and historical displays and info.

From Cody, it's about a one-hour drive back to Red Lodge. Couldn't turn down one more of those sky-mountain-green grass scenes we keep coming across. Hope you dear Readers are not tired of them. Anybody?

Cheers,

Susie and Rob

Beartooth Highway

We left Dillon on Monday, July6, heading for Red Lodge in south-central Montana.

Two primary stops on the way: 1. Three Forks State Park, to see the three rivers that form the headwaters of the Missouri River, and 2. Bozeman, to have lunch with and visit with an Oklahoma State U. classmate of mine, Ken Tiahrt, and his wife, Nancy.

Ken spent his statistical career at Montana State University, many of those years as head of the department of statistics and other things, I believe, like math education. We've seen each other briefly at statistical meetings over the mere 42 years since we graduated, but this was a great opportunity to spend a relaxed couple of hours chatting about families and interests. Turns out we both have interests in old cars and the highways they ran on. We both have families, also.

The reason for going to Red Lodge is the nearby Beartooth All American Highway. The Beartooth All-American Road is on most lists of scenic drives in America and was christened America’s Most Beautiful Highway by Charles Kuralt, the man for all roads. It’s everything it’s cracked up to be. Even with all the hype, for us it exceeded expectations.

A series of long switch-backs (starting on the North side from Red Lodge, MT) gets you to the top and then you drive along on top for a quite a few miles, crossing into Wyoming in the process. Gorgeous scenery all around. Lots of good pull-outs. You feel like you’re soaring at eye-level with the surrounding mountains.

Some pictures:

As you can see, we had a beautiful day for the drive.

Up in the area of the preceding picture we saw vehicles and a lift line for the Red Lodge Summer Ski and Snowboard Camp. Also saw some skiers returning from a workout.

I show the waiting snow plow for a reason. I read some Red Lodge history in the library today. Way back in 1893 local residents and businessmen started lobbying Congress for funds to build this road. They confidently claimed that it would be possible to find a 'natural' route up and over (to Yellowstone NP) that could be kept free of snow year-round. There were still such claims when the road was approved in 1931, started in '32, and completed in '36. Well, the road has never been open more than about three months of the year. This spring it opened on May 23.

At the top (10, 947 ft.) we discussed our options: Turn around and return to Red Lodge. Go part way down the Wyoming side, then turn around and return to Red Lodge. Go on down the Wyoming side to where the Beartooth Highway connects with the Chief Joseph Scenic Highway, take that highway down and then on to Cody, WY, then return to Red Lodge via the low-altitude highway – thereby completing roughly a 150 mile loop. We chose the last option and were glad we did. The Wyoming side had different scenery and Chief Joseph has a pretty nice highway himself. And we really enjoyed the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody (hat tip to friend, Dick Reinert). We had thought we'd go to Cody directly the next day.

The terrain coming down the Wyoming side of the Beartooth Highway featured lots of alpine lakes. For some reason I didn't stop and get a picture. Here's one from the internet.

If I put any more in this posting, Blogger might gag, so I'll cover the remainder of our outing in a separate posting.

Cheers,

Susie and Rob

Lewis and Clark - 3

While in the Dillon vicinity we visited some Lewis and Clark “Historic Points,” as the road signs say. Then when we left Dillon on Monday we drove northeast about 70 miles to the Headwaters of the Missouri State Park, near the town of Three Rivers. Our travel is the reverse of the L&C outward trek. I’ll summarize and show some pictures in the L&C sequence.


The Missouri originates where three rivers come together in a remarkable confluence. I tried to find a good aerial view but couldn't. If you use Google Earth, go to Three Forks, Montana and take a look from above.

Here’s my riverbank view.

The explorers named these three rivers, from east to west (left to right above), for their leading supporters: the Gallatin (Sec. of Treasury), Madison (Sec. of State), and Jefferson Rivers. In this picture, the Gallatin is coming from the left, the Madison straight at you, just left of center, and the Jefferson from the right.

Apparently there was some discussion of whether they should call the largest branch the continuation of the Missouri, instead of designating it with a different name. I don't know the protocol, but their designation stuck. They went up the Jefferson to where it was created by the confluence of the Beaverhead, Big Hole, and Ruby Rivers, then took the Beaverhead on south. That river runs through the valley in which Dillon is situated.


North of Dillon about 15 miles is this prominent rock that the Indians called Beaver Head. (The guidebook says you have to look at it from one particular angle, from which it looks like a beaver swimming toward you.) It was a common gathering point. The Corps was looking for the Shoshone, Sacajawea’s tribe, needing to buy horses to continue west when they could no longer use boats. At this point, Lewis and a lead party were scouting ahead; Clark was nursing an injury ("a tumer on my anckle musle") and coming behind with the boats.

Here, Sacagawea tells Lewis and Clark, I told you this was the right way.

At the north edge of Dillon is this little promontory called Clark’s Lookout. From this knob, Clark had a good view of the valley. He took compass and sextant readings and sketched a map. Our National Geographic guidebook says this is one place you can be sure you’re standing exactly where Clark stood. That’s cool.

Here’s my re-enactment:


Caption: Where’s Meriwether?

About a mile south of Clark's Lookout the Beaverhead runs by the KOA site. Who knows, maybe Clark and company camped there, too. Nice Kabins available.

After another four days of slogging up the Beaverhead, still looking for Lewis, still needing to trade their boats for horses, the Clark party was 20 miles south of Dillon. There, with some trepidation, they encountered an Indian party. Then they recognized one of Lewis’s party dressed in Indian garb– they had caught up with Lewis.

People gathered. One of the Shoshone women recognized Sacagawea. As she was translating, Sacagawea recognized a Shoshone chief as her brother! (You can't make this stuff up.) Lewis, ranging out ahead, had encountered a Shoshone tribe and convinced them to come back to the Beaverhead valley, bringing horses that the Corps needed desperately to buy. It worked out: guns and ammo for horses.

History says this was one of the most critical points in the expedition. L&C recognized that and named the meeting location, Fortunate Camp.

The Fortunate Camp site is now covered by the Clark Reservoir -- about halfway out to this island.

So, our trip up portions of the Missouri and its tributaries, retracing Lewis and Clark, ends where they finally stashed their boats and headed on west overland. It's been fun and also sobering to focus on what their expedition accomplished. Hope you enjoyed this part of our Tuzi-trip.

Cheers,

Susie and Rob

Dillon Wrap

As I noted in previous posting, we attended church Sunday morning. Was really a pleasant experience. The preacher was away in Los Angeles attending seminary for the summer. Her sub was her husband. He had a friendly, natural air about him. At the beginning he had people shaking hands and getting acquainted. Then he said, we’re ready for the prelude now. The pianist said, Well, I hope I’m ready. She did a fine job, I thought. The worship leader got up to read scripture and he said, I only heard a couple of mistakes. The man in front of us turned and said, That’s her husband. And so it went.

Mr. Preacher did have a very good communion Sunday sermon. The symbolism: By taking symbols representing Jesus into us, we are saying we want to be more like Him. This realization came late for him, after he was already a preacher’s husband, but pretty uninterested in the whole communion thing. One Sunday, a voice told him, Go forward for communion. Changed his life.

The man in front of us was a retired minister - ancient, but strong in voice. He ran the communion service his way because he had the authority to do so.

We thought it was unusual for a husband to be subbing for his preacher wife. It was even more unusual. She had just been assigned to the church in Dillon; previously they were in far NW Montana, 350 miles away. He still has a business there, so he was commuting from back and forth to Dillon. Don’t know if it was every weekend or not.

After the service they had snacks and more social time. We stayed – food. A couple sat down across from us and we started visiting. We learned that they were responsible for this notable house across from the park where we heard bluegrass Saturday night. They spent 11 years restoring it. When they started it had been divided into five apartments, so they had a lot of work to do to return it to something like its original configuration. Their family grew up and they decided to sell it. Didn’t want to have to paint it a second time, he said.

He worked at the university in Dillon (Montana University Western, it’s called), in computing; she’s been doing volunteer work since the kids grew up. He also said he’s a published humorist. We didn’t get their last name, but plan on tracing it down and finding some of his writing, if possible.

Sunday afternoon we drove about 40 miles SW to Bannack State Park, a preserved ghost town. This was the first gold rush town in the state and was territorial capital for a short while before the gold activity to Virginia City moved the capital there. (I think it’s interesting that commerce came into the territory along gold rush lines, rather than the Missouri River trading route of Lewis and Clark. )

Here are a few Bannack pictures. No ice cream shops here.

This building was originally the courthouse, then became a rooming house and hotel.

The Bannack Methodist Church -- the only church in town.

The school and the school-marm's reaction.

Ho, hum. Another beautiful roadside scene on the way back to town.

Wrapping up our stay in Dillon: the county courthouse,

and, to complete things properly, a couple of barns in the area.



Cheers,

Susie and Rob

Dillon and Ennis

While we were in Glacier NP I had targeted Dillon, in SW Montana, for our next destination. The spot where Lewis and Clark abandoned their boats and bought horses to get them over the mountains and eventually to the Columbia River is near here. Also, I had googled Montana Fourth of July parades and found Ennis, only about 70 scenic miles from Dillon. Its parade and rodeo have a long tradition.

We get to the Dillon KOA Friday afternoon, then head for Ennis first thing Saturday morning. Stopped to buy gas for the Cruiser and find I'm missing my American Express credit card. I thought I had tried to use it (but got rejected as occasionally happens - small businesses don't like what AmEx charges them for the privilege) at the local IGA, so we checked back there. Nope. Went back to Tuzi, checked the pockets of pants I had worn previous day. Nope. Tried to call AmEx, but number on back of card didn't lead to customer service. We figured it had to be somewhere in Tuzigoot so we went on to Ennis.

To finish the credit card story now, once we got home, in mid-afternoon, I got the AmEx customer service number from the website and called to put a 24 hr. hold on the card. Asked service rep for latest charges. Nothing since Friday at Flying J in Butte - a legitimate charge. Hmm, maybe I left it there. Called Flying J and sure enough they had my card. Fortunately, Butte is just an hour from Dillon and I had time to drive up and back in time to finish our glorious fourth at a bluegrass/country concert in the Dillon park. Here's a picture of the scenery along I-15.

Meanwhile, at Ennis, we set up our lawnchairs by the parade route. En route, here's a view of the valley in which Ennis is situated. Nice day for clouds.

Parade was fun, and provided ample people-watching entertainment, but, frankly, I was a little bit disappointed. Not much music. In particular, no marching band. A couple of bagpipe bands doing Scottish tunes, a truck and wagon sponsored by a local watering hole that was playing the theme from Gilligan's Island, and that was it! Nevertheless, for your viewing enjoyment:

Main action in Ennis was downtown, two blocks from where we were set up. Restaurants, shops, and bars all doing big business. After the parade we joined the throng and strolled up and back, then went back to a barbecue restaurant near where we had parked. Turned out to be sitting at an outdoor table with the parents of and wife of the restaurant owner (actually, husband and wife own it together and also a pizza shop in town; parents came from Minnesota-three grandkids to see). Just bought these properties a few months ago. We had a good lunch and visit.

The road from Dillon to Ennis goes through Virginia City, a restored mining town, once the territorial capital of Montana. We were reading historical descriptions of one block of houses and I decided to take a look at one the governor had lived in. I pushed open the front door and walked in. A startled couple jumped from their living room chairs as I walked into their private residence. They acted like people make that mistake all the time and they insisted that I look through the house.

Some other Virginia City scenes.

This intriguing building was down the road a short distance on private property, so we couldn't learn its story.

We topped off our glorious fourth with ice cream in Virginia City, bluegrass music in Dillon, and fireworks on TV.

Cheers,

Susie and Rob

O Beautiful

O Beautiful for Spacious Skies

For amber waves of grain

For purple mountain majesties

Above the fruited plain.

America!

America!

God shed His grace on thee

And crown thy good with brotherhood


From sea to shining sea.

This song led off the service Sunday, July 5, at Grace United Methodist Church in Dillon, Montana. As we sang it these images from our trip came to mind (but I had to go back a year to California for the sea to shining sea line).

Happy Independence Day!

Susie and Rob

p.s. For the story behind the song, please see this website.

Butte

Update. Can't believe it. Someone who has written a book on the death of Meriwether Lewis came upon our blog posting on the topic and made a comment.


On our way south we stopped Friday morning in Butte - referred to in the Wikipedia entry as once being the "world's greatest mining town," site of the "world's richest hill." At various stages, gold, silver, and copper have been produced from that hill in great amounts. The Moon Handbook on Montana, our guide book, says it's Montana's "most representative city." Couldn't pass it up.

Here's a view of the city I found on the web. Nice location, ringed by mountains, scenic valleys radiating out from Butte.

Butte Hill is to the left of this picture. You can see the remaining active copper pit mine at the left of the picture.

We went to the visitor center and caught a trolley (open-air bus) tour. While we were waiting to depart a couple of trolley employees were telling us stories. Said we had a good driver - just completed his parole. Butte was getting ready for its big July 4th parade. Last year, Barack Obama came. They talked about the heightened security and how that clashed with Butte's gun-totin', knife-carryin' way of life. Said they had to take the gun racks out of the trolley.

Our driver (with whom Susie could identify) was a second-grade teacher, working his summer "vacation" to make ends meet. He was a Butte native and after a few summers spent sweeping streets decided that driving a trolley would be more fun.

By the way, Evel Knievel was a Butte native. They have a festival in his honor every summer.

We started at the Berkeley Pit, an abandoned copper pit-mine. It's gradually filling with water (seepage from the surrounding mountains that was pumped out when the mine was operating, but now it is not). The water is about 900 ft. deep, and rising, and is rather contaminated. If it rises much more it will become a threat to the city's water supply, so plans are being made to pump it out, decontaminate it, and pipe it to a suitable site. We're in the middle of some of the world's hottest trout streams, so I'm sure they will be very careful .

Here's the 'headframe' for an old mine. They lowered miners, equipment, and burros down into the mines, and brought up ore, using these structures.

After this mining introduction we drove around on Old Butte streets. Lots of interesting buildings and stories.

In 1917 90,000 people lived on the hill. Now the city, much of which has moved down onto the flats because the Berkeley Pit took a big chunk of town, has a population of 32,000. There were 2000 miles of mine tunnels perforating the hill. Old Butte was a legendarily wild place. Today things seemed deserted. Maybe it was because many businesses and offices were closed July 3.

Butte has a bordello museum. It was open.

Quick! How many dummies in this picture? I had heard that the girls would be butte-nekkid, but at least on the porch, they weren't.

Here's a sampling of Butte buildings, shot from a moving bus.

These identical (miror-image) houses, connected by a breezeway, were built for two sisters.

Somewhere on the itinerary were Teddy Roosevelt's favorite hotel and favorite theater.


The most famous house in Butte is the Copper King Mansion, shown here in a picture I found on the internet (my drive-by attempt was too tilted and off-center).


After all this history and scenery, though, what really got our attention was this:

We've had Grandma's Pasties before, in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, but we think Nancy topped Grandma. (Our trolley driver pointed out Nancy's to us and we found our way back.) Pasties are miner's food: meat, potatoes, onion, and spices, all in a thick pastry shell -- for eating by hand. Nancy's were huge, swimming in dark brown gravy.

A young couple with a teen-age son came in (the serving area was six stools at a counter). They were from Seattle. Dad said he used to eat pasties at Nancy's every day, 21 years ago. First time back in Butte since then, just had to stop at Nancy's. When the son saw our pasties delivered, he said, Can you get anything smaller? It's as big as a chicken! (I was thinking in terms of a catcher mitt). When our pasties were served, we said, Why didn't we split one? Who knew how big they would be -- for only $6!

After the lad had taken a few bites of his pasty he said, Wow, this was really worth stopping for. (Who says today's youth don't appreciate history.) Kept murmuring his pleasure as he ate.

Nancy's pasties is our commercial gastronomic highlight so far. Given a choice, I'd have to say the walleye that Jeff and Valerie Hinkle served us would be my first choice, overall. And you couldn't beat the price.

Cheers,

Susie and Rob

Flathead Valley

July 1.

On Wednesday we explored the upper end of the Flathead Valley, just west of Glacier NP. Mostly in search of lunch, but also barns and other photo ops.

The map of the valley in the tourist guide we had showed the town of Bigfork right on the shore of Flathead Lake. I had read in our tourist guide that Bigfork had become something of an artist's village. Based on this extensive research and my own intuition I reasoned that there’s got to be a restaurant there with a deck overlooking the lake. As we drove through town we saw houses lining the lakefront, but no restaurants. Then we crossed the Swan River. I got a brief glance to the left, away from the lake, and it looked like there were commercial developments back up the river a short distance. That's it! We turned around, re-crossed the bridge, turned off the highway, wound around a few blocks and there it was: an inn advertising open-air dining overlooking the water. I’m amazing!

We had a fine lunch. Across the river was this house that Susie would like to have.

From where we parked and where we ate, all we could see of Bigfork was one block with our restaurant and a couple of other inns and some small businesses. We started to turn around and leave, but Susie said, Drive ahead a little. I want to see something. She had seen someone carrying a large hanging basket of flowers. Wondered where they were going. We drove ahead a half-block, just looking to see what had become of the flower-basket delivery, and to our surprise, to the right at the first intersection there was a three block stretch of all sorts of galleries and shops. And, all these shops were adorned by very large hanging baskets of flowers. So, we parked and strolled, enjoying the traveler’s dumb luck once again.

Every shop was decorated with two to several of these baskets. Even the real estate agencies back on the highway, we noticed on leaving, had hanging flower baskets. Don't know how well the artists and real estate agencies are doing, but the nursery or nurseries are doing quite well.

A small sculpture garden featured this bear.

Meanwhile, back in the valley, on the way to and from Bigfork (I kept wanting to call it BigFoot) we saw these fields of a yellow-flowered crop – canola.


Also saw a couple of barns.

Susie wanted to show you that I was outstanding in my field of chasing down barns. Had to wind down a narrow lane to get here. For sale: 190 acres.

Here’s a picture from the internet of a barn we saw near Kalispell, the largest town in the area, but couldn’t conveniently photograph.

Huckleberries are big here – pies, ice cream, jam, honey. They're somewhat similar to blueberries, definitely better in Montanans' eyes. They’re picked in the wild, high up in the mountains of NW Montana. Pickers have to watch for bear competition at times. On the way back to our West Glacier campground I bought a slice of huckleberry pie, then later warmed it up and applied some KOA ice cream to it. Yum-yum. Good stuff.

When we left West Glacier on Thursday we retraced our route to Bigfork and continued on down the east shore of Flathead Lake. This is a very large lake -- the largest natural freshwater lake west of the Mississippi -- 28 miles long and up to 15 miles wide.

There are many cherry orchards in this region. We stopped at one that advertized a large parking lot and bought some cherries and cherry-huckleberry jam and honey. Had a piece of toast with the jam on it as I was composing this posting. Outstanding.

There was a long stretch of torn-up road from below Flathead Lake to Missoula that made for slow going and difficult driving -- bumps, barriers, narrow lanes, ... . We're on our way to Dillon in the SW part of the state. Main attraction is tomorrow's Fourth of July parade in Ennis.

Cheers,

Susie and Rob

Glacier National Park

June 30. Glacier National Park.

You can easily google up oodles of professional, spectacular pictures of Glacier National Park, but in spite of that I'll share a few shots from our visit.

We drove the famous Going to the Sun Road from the west entrance to the summit at Logan Pass, then part way down the east side where we turned around and returned. In this picture you can see the road clinging to the side of the mountains for a long stretch.

The road was completed in 1932. As you can imagine it takes quite a bit of maintenance and that has to be done in the short time period the road is accessible. We had a couple of stops where ongoing repairs reduced the road to one-lane traffic.

Didn't feel quite as exposed on this drive as in our drive from Ouray to Silverton, CO last summer, but then we were in the PT this time vs. the motor home last year. There were more guard rails and walls here, so that made us more comfortable. The max vehicle length on GoingtotheSun is 21 ft., so none of those darn motor homes clogging the traffic up there.


Here's one of the many old style tour buses that take people on Goingtothe Sun.

Some of the scenes those tourists and I were capturing.

We stopped once to watch these two mountain goats (sheep?) come down the mountainside. They calmly trotted across the road, jumped over the retaining wall (not for them), and continued down.

A little later this fellow posed for us by the roadside.

At Logan Pass I started the 1.5 mile hike to the Hidden Lake overlook. The trail, shown here, was mostly snow-covered.

I went about a mile then decided that was enough. I think the overlook was just over that ridge. Here's what I would have seen if I had come about a month later after the snow melted.

What a difference latitude makes (sing to the tune of What a Difference a Day Makes... ). The elevation at Logan Pass is 6646 ft. In Cedar Crest we're at about 7000 ft.

We had a great day at Glacier. First time either of us have been here (I thought I had as a lad, but after being here, I doubt that memory).

Cheers,