Tuesday, June 14
We had a good nights sleep, but both of us woke a few times as the strong winds just shook our trailer. It felt like we were moving at times.
We were impressed with this KOA as it was very clean, well set up, and conveniently located. They even had pet sitters. We'd like to go back and spend some time another year. There is just so much to do around there.
We went to the St. Mary's Lodge for breakfast and for memories as we had stayed there on the last trip we took with Chad and Sean. It was as beautiful as we remembered and we relaxed with a wonderful breakfast, Frank Sinatra songs playing in the background, and gorgeous views out the windows.
We went into the gift shop and met the manager who had designed the mugs we used in the restaurant. she advised us to go back up to Babb, just north of us, and take the park road into Many Glacier. There had been lots of bear sighted there. They let us leave the trailer in the parking lot and away we went.
It was a beautiful drive up the other side of the St. Marys River. We climbed into the mountains and into the rain. Mist and fog blew in and out with the clouds the higher we went. We saw one moose and several sheep, but no grizzly. Time to push on.
We took 89 south and drove through acres of sad forest fire damage. Under all of the littered, blackened, bare sticks of trees, there was brave green grass and dandelions.
We went into beautiful range land that looked like I think Montana should look as my head played, "Happy Trails to You." A small herd of horses were grazing right beside the road and we stopped and got out to click pictures of them. As we watched, a cowboy on a Buckskin horse came from a field on the other side of the road and herded the horses away from the highway and back down into their field. It was so cool to watch! I want to be a cowboy when I grow up.
We came into the scrub town of Browning and stopped to buy kettle corn from a Native American. It was just the snack we needed. After that there wer miles and miles of range land and you could see our ribbon of a highway far ahead as in looped up and down and wound through the hills.
Choteau was a nice clean little town with an organic market and expresso shop. There were lilacs in bloom everywhere. We continued on across the vast land until the hills began to get bigger and there were occasional rock formations that looked like the canyon country of cowboy movies.
As we neared Helena, Montana, the grassy hills became dotted with pines and there were more and more cattle grazing. We picked up 15 south into Helena and back to super highways. Helena was a nice, clean, college town built into the hills with views of mountains in the distance.
We picked up speed and enjoyed the convenience of the highway, but we sure enjoyed the interesting scenery, small towns, and the wildlife we saw on the back roads.
Just when we thought we were winding down, we headed into some mountains again. They were pine covered and reminded me of Tennessee. We meant to stop at a campground there, but as we got on 90 east, the campground was the other way and we didn't notice until too late. We were getting pretty tired when we found a camp in our guide in the tiny town of Three Forks, Montana. It was a little scary as we turned off and we were afraid it would be a dusty parking lot behind a gas station or something. It turned out to be absolutely beautiful. It was spotless, friendly and just like a park with piles of trees and birds singing everywhere. We took a nice walk and enjoyed the views and watched the full moon. This was a lovely park. Saved again.
Note: The next morning, getting organized for the day, I accidentally deleted all of my pictures that would go with this post. I lost pictures of St. Marys Lodge, our last moose, some mountain scenes, the cowboy herding the horses, the forest fire damage, and the ribbon of road through the vast range land. We were sick, but the pictures are in our heads. Bob had one picture and was very glad he hadn't been the one to do the deleting.
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