May 24, 2013 - Onward to Canada

We are now in Fort Benton, Montana which is about 37 miles east of Great Falls. On Sunday, we will be in Waterton National Park in Canada. We will be relying on public WiFi while in Canada since using our Verizon aircard for Internet access is ridiculously expensive. I’ll make posts to the blog whenever I can. I might be going through withdrawal without immediate Internet access!

May 23, 2013 - Day Five

Well yesterday was another long day, 527 miles, in rain and wind. Finally hit blue skies when we entered Wyoming. You can see from the map our stopping point. No problems so far. Keep your fingers crossed! Have traveled a total 0f 2,222 miles to date. Will stop around Kalispell, Mt for the night and then cross into Canada.

May 23, 2013 - Day Six

May 23, 2013 10:00 PM MT Made it to Kalispell, Mt about 6 pm MT. We are parked up in Wally World and Pam is cooking supper. Traveled a total of 408 miles today and we are now a total of 2,630 miles from home. We are about 60 miles south of the Canadian Border. Have a shotgun on board, so hope it will not be a big hassle tomorrow. Pete, so far the inverter is working fine. Tomorrow I will slow down to 55 mph or less. Pete & Pam

May 21, 2013 - Beautiful Drive to Ronan, MT

We got out ahead of the storm this morning & only had to deal with a little wind thru the canyons so not a bad drive at all. And it was beautiful! We arrived at Aunt Anna's mid afternoon & got the trailer set up. You couldn't ask for a more beautiful location - a pond with geese & ducks in one direction & mountains all around. We had a nice visit with Anna. David hadn't seen her in 55 or more years & it was great to catch up on the Kruse family. Anna has a young border collie/red healer & she & Callie had a wonderful time running thru...

May 21, 2013 - Flight back to Texas

As most of y'all know, Lyddia's Mom had to have a out-patient procedure done a couple of weeks ago. We were all concern about her but she was doing very well afterwards. Monday she went in for a checkup and they found a abscess in her lower abdomen. They were talking about immediate surgery on Tuesday. We got on line and was able to find a flight for Lyddia to fly out of Helena, MT. Helena only has one flight that connects to DFW a day and it had already left. Fortunately Delta had a flight out of Great Falls. It was 11:00 am and the...

May 19, 2013 - Day 5: Bozeman - local lazy day. Museum of the Rockies and a dip in the hot springs

Prepping for the longer journey tomorrow, just stayed local, a morning in the laundrette and went to visit the Museum of the Rockies pm. Nice enough and interesting – heavily dinosaur orientated due to the nearby Montana State Uni research programs. Not a patch on Drumheller Tyrell museum! Interesting factoid - the first ‘station wagon’, precursor to the current SUV, was actually made in Britain at Ford, Dagenham in the 30s. Literally a van to transport goods (and the occasional person) to and from station. The Americans quickly realised...

May 18, 2013 - Day 4 : Bozeman to Yellowstone Park & Old Faithful - day trip

A long day out today going to Yellowstone, specifically aiming to get to Old Faithful. A novel experience today on calling in to Yellowstone MacDonald’s (Yes they do actually have one at the park gates) – asking for a coffee and blueberry muffin (at 11 am) was gruffly told “That’s breakfast … You’re half an hour late”. I apologised for my tardiness (!), informed them we can get 24/7 muffins in Canada and left with a resolve to write to MacDonald’s HQ to demand parity for the US citizens. Rain steadily again all day (again curiously except...

May 17, 2013 - Hello Great Falls

Thurs & Fri 5/16-17 We had a long but scenic drive over red roads (Routes 200, 87, 89) to Great Falls on Wednesday. The scenery around the Lewistown area near the Belt Mountains in the Judith Basin was particularly nice. We had to take a 30 mile detour off the road in the vicinity of Sluice Boxes State Park. The detour took us to about 5400 feet in the mountains and the scenery was quintessential Montana. Grassy hillsides with large groups of pines, snow-capped mountains in the background. We arrived at our campground (Dick’s RV Park) in...

May 17, 2013 - Day 3 : Bozeman to Virginia City - day trip

Day trip out today to Virginia City. Old Western town now preserved as a heritage site and exactly as it was in the late 1860s. Growth was based on the discovery of gold in Alder gulch behind the city, and estimated $100M in gold extracted (still some activity in a small modern mine there now). A living museum and incredible to walk through. Sadly realised today the US season doesn’t really start for another week so barely anything open, and what is open isn’t always fully prepared yet so can’t deliver a great service. Example in point...

May 17, 2013 - day 22 to Terry MT

day 21, again, was not a hot a day for photos - these are in he prairies of NE montana... miles and miles of hugh farms/oil/mining/cow grazing land... our day 21 photos: https://picasaweb.google.com/110438477258823146205/Day21Photos?authkey=Gv1sRgCMGLr-Ky54uyLw# our spot where we were: http://fms.ws/C50rs/46.26017N/106.69266W day 22 another drive day much like 20/21 more ranches/oil/pastures and lots of prairie land plus haze, clouds making fuzzy photos... our day 22...

May 17, 2013 - Duct Tape

We are now in Lewistown, Montana which is considered the geographical center of Montana. It is also the county seat and largest city in the county (population 5,000). When I saw the billboard and signs as we entered the city, I knew I would have to break out the duct tape to apply to Art’s mouth. Some of the signs were: “Welcome to Lewistown from the Republican Tea Party;” “No God, No Peace; Know God, Know Peace.” “Abortion stops a beating heart.” “Sierra Club Sucks.” Aren’t those signs welcoming? At least we didn’t see the Ten Commandments...

May 16, 2013 - We can slow down now and check out the sights and the fishing in the area.

Well we left Texas on the 1st and meet up with John and Nancy on the 5th in South Dakota. We then traveled together across South Dakota and squeezed in some really neat things to see. Now since we are in Montana and in the area that John has been before and that he has down a lot of fishing with his Dad and brothers. So we are going to take more time to check out the area around white Sulphur Springs. It is a center location to some blue ribbon trout springs. When our limit on the pics drop then we can post some more pics of our adventures....