2012/07 Western USA trip - Sweetgrass |
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Friday July 13th
Overnight, we had thunderstorms and lots of rain, and in the morning we had clouds of mozzies, but no sign of bears. We set off early to climb up to Beartooth Pass. We had lots of stops for waterfalls, lakes, snow, and glorious displays of flowers. The mozzies, however, were just insane, and John and Edna were thrashing around killing them, but I was just resigned to feeding them while I was taking my pictures. 
We finally left the bugs behind as we climbed the switchbacks up to the snowfields at nearly 11000 feet and then dropped down into the dryer hills of Montana.
The road goes to Billings but we found a shortcut at Red Lodge that would take us through the Absarokee ranching area onto the I-90 freeway.
We were just getting bored with freeway driving when I spotted a sign for the Prairie Dog Town state park. The park is conveniently right next door to the freeway, so we just had to take a look. However, the temperature was close to a hundred and most of the prairie dogs were down below in their air-conditioned burrows and the rest were very shy. We had better luck by staying hidden in the truck 
and driving around the park’s roads.
We soon left the freeway and headed towards Canyon Ferry Lake on US89 into even emptier country with tiny towns and closed gas stations until we reached Townsend and thankfully filled up. The lake is a reservoir on the Missouri River; on the west side is Helena, Montana’s capital, but the east side only has campgrounds and boat ramps. I didn’t find the place I had in mind; it was late enough that we took off at the first signpost to the Confederate campground and found a free spot five miles down a gravel road through dry ranching country. It wasn’t 
pretty, but reservoirs rarely are. Note the boring picture! We had deer and pronghorn for neighbours, though. A storm came up soon after we arrived and we went to bed on a muggy night with the sound of surf.
Sandie reported that Karen had been busy loading the trailer with their camping stuff. The plan was for Sandie, Karen and boys to drive to Hope, with Stew flying in later to join them.
Saturday July 14th
The morning was overcast and cool. We drove around the lake and over the dam into Helena and joined the I-15 freeway going north. We’d last been on that road way south near Las Vegas, five weeks earlier. Mostly the road goes through dry, rolling grasslands but there are some scenic sections in the mountains where we were following the Missouri River. We were constantly reminded by signs that this was the route taken by Lewis and Clark, nearly at the end of their canoe trip and at the beginning of their walk to the Pacific.
We came to a brand new and deserted rest area. It had room for 24 big trucks to park in comfort but we had the place to ourselves. Perhaps it’s there and ready for the truckloads of goodies the Americans will be selling in Calgary, or, more likely, somebody’s brother-in-law got a very lucrative contract. Of course, it might also be a convenient place to stage the troopcarriers and tanks should it ever became necessary for the United States to protect Canada’s oil.
We stopped in Great Falls to stock up with food, and ended our day at a campground at Shelby, just 30 miles from the Canadian border. The campground manager was both nosy and obnoxious but it was a good place for laundry and cleaning up. The advertised Internet would come and go but it stayed up long enough to get some emails off to the family, and to fix up Sandie’s access to the Internet. She’d had to use Karen’s email to send me news up to now. Today had been an exciting day up in Okotoks with one of the neighbours getting really upset about the kids’ riding their bikes on the sidewalk outside his house. One of the other moms went over and sorted him out. Gunfire is rarely necessary in Canada.
Sunday July 15th
We’d had some overnight rain, and it was still dull in the morning. We set off to cover the thirty miles to the border. There was wild excitement when John spotted the moose in the pond by the freeway, and then some wild laughter when he realized he’d been had. Every year there’s more daylight showing through the moose skin.
This was the end of our trip through the USA but we were still looking forward to about twelve days of travel in Canada, so this is a good place to end Part Six. The Canadian part of the trip will be described in Part Seven.