Patio Lantern Tour

Last night we went to the theatre in Spearfish.   We saw a show called Phantom of Mathews Opera House.   It was a spoof of Phantom of the Opera.   Nice little theatre…the show a bit wacky…it was a farce…which of course Americans will not call it because that is a British term…they call it slapstick! Today we traveled through the Black Hills National Forest.   It is touted as being an example of the US Federal Government preserving nature.   For the entire 200 kilometres that we traveled through it, we saw ‘zero’ wildlife but saw lots of other things that made us wonder exactly what nature they were preserving.   We saw clear cut logging.   We saw houses and more being built.   We saw cattle grazing and farmers baling hay.   We saw campgrounds and all sorts of other businesses.   We saw a Lake, but it was actually a reservoir created by a dam built for flood protection and availability of water for Rapid City and the nearby Military Base.   Overall, it was a nice drive with lots o

We went back into Spearfish Canyon today to do another hike.   We hiked up Iron Creek Canyon.   Having 500 to 600-foot limestone walls about 100 feet on both sides of us gave us a whole new appreciation for the area…funny how one’s perspective can be changed in 24 hours. I am beginning to lose my patience with Harley riders and their ignorance of common courtesy…at least the ones in our campground for the last 2 nights.   These ‘overfed’ leather clad ‘clowns’ were something else last night and again this morning.   They wander around the campground like they are entitled to every square foot of it and I will not even talk about the performance the group behind us put on last night…suffice it to say we are a little tired.   They had very little…I should say…no respect for someone else’s space.   Good thing that this group is gone.   And now as I write this an RV has pulled in next to us.   They are Harley owners without their bikes…incredibly friendly…almost makes me feel guilty a

We visited Spearfish Canyon today.   From everything we had heard and read, we were to be in for a treat.   Frank Lloyd Wright the famous American architect, was once quoted as saying:   “How is it that I’ve heard so little of this miracle and we, toward the Atlantic, have heard so much of the Grand Canyon when this is even more miraculous.”   We wonder if he was ever to the Grand Canyon!   It is not that there was anything wrong with Spearfish Canyon, but the Grand Canyon it is not.   We are unsure if our reaction is due to all the amazing land forms, we have saw in the US so far or whether it has something to do with these rock formations being limestone, something we see every day as we look out into our own back yard.   Spearfish Canyon’s limestone cliffs are just higher.   We were, however, treated to 3 waterfalls on our hikes today.   I think that made up for our initial disappointment with the Canyon. Now for the title.   We were unaware that we were traveling in an area t

Today we visited the Little Big Horn Battlefield National Monument.   Most people will have heard of the battle in June of 1876 when the 7 th Cavalry led by Lt. Col. George Custer got their ‘asses kicked’ by a combination of Lakota and Cheyenne Warriors.   It was a total defeat and eventual slaughter of the US Army forces.   Custer and his entire company of over 200 men were killed. The National Monument is well done.   There is a military graveyard that you can walk through and then you go up to the Memorial for the fallen US Cavalrymen.   Over the hill there is now a well-done Memorial to the fallen Lakota and Cheyenne warriors…problem is this Memorial was only added in 2013.   One of the quotes from a native survivor of the battle pretty much sums up how the US Government misunderstood or did not care about why the Natives did not want to be confined to Reservations.   “We did not want their land or any part of their civilization.   We were just trying to preserve our ancestr

The City of Billings Montana and its citizens actually support their Farmer’s Market.   They shut down 2 major streets in the heart of their downtown every Saturday morning.   It would be like shutting down 2 nd Avenue East from 8 th Street to 10 Street and 9 th Street from 1 st Avenue to 3 rd Avenue every market day.   Can you imagine the City of Owen Sound and its citizens actually caring enough about its Market to do such a thing… probably not in my lifetime! The Billings Market is vibrant.   It has tons of vendors selling almost everything you could imagine.   There were numerous vendors selling baked goods and breads.   It Looks like their rules are a little bit more relaxed than the Province of Ontario’s are about Markets…Do not get me started!!!   It had live entertainment on each street…not the riff raff we get in Owen Sound playing guitars (poorly I might add) for money.   The crowds were amazing.   This market had atmosphere!   A quote from the movie Field of Dream

Friday, July 26, 2019 We saw cattle, we saw hay, we saw wheat, we saw barley, we saw fields being irrigated, we saw custom cutters, we saw crops that we had no idea what they were…can you tell that today was a ‘tad’ boring as we crossed from Central Montana into Southeast Montana?   On the positive side, traffic was at a minimum…obviously no one in their right minds travels from the northwest corner to the southeast corner of Montana? However, today was not all lost.   We learned that Central Montana houses a major part of the United States’ defense system.   We saw at least a dozen missile detection sites/mobile missile launch sites in the middle of nowhere.   These are part of the ‘Minute Man Missile’ program launched during the ‘cold war’.   Boy we felt safe!!! We are in the Billings Montana KOA.   It advertises itself as the ‘first KOA’ in the world…that is probably about the only thing it has going for it…But it does look like it has a pretty impressive Mini Golf Cou

Thursday, July 25, 2019 A day spent in Great Falls Montana to most people probably seems a little bit strange.   We were unsure ourselves.   It turned out to be a ‘great day in Great Falls’. We spent almost 4 hours at the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail Interpretive Centre.   Meriwether Lewis and William Clark were sent on an expedition by President Thomas Jefferson to find a route to the Pacific.   They set out from St. Louis in 1804 and arrived on the Oregon Coast in 1805.   They returned east in 1806.   They were the first to chart the river systems east of the Missouri River and first to figure out that there was no water route to the Pacific. They spent over a month in the Great Falls area trying to get their dug-out canoes and all their supplies past the 5 sets of rapids/falls that they encountered on the Missouri River.   It must have been a quite a feat to drag them the 18 miles overland…it became known as the ‘Great Portage’.   The Interpretive Centre brings

We were able to slowly pack up this morning and enjoy our quiet campsite.   We knew that today would be a relatively easy drive.   It was kind of sad, however, to think that today we would leave the mountains behind.   They have been our constant companion for a good portion of this adventure.   But before leaving them behind, we had one more mountain pass to conquer…an easy one at 5280 feet. Very quickly the mountains turned into foothills and then into a series of bumps.   Probably for the first 100 miles, we were still able to see the mountains from our rear-view mirrors.   Even at a distance it is easy to see why they were such a barrier for settlers.   At the same time, you can see why they are such a ‘lure’ for tourists, especially of the ‘Eastern’ persuasion. Today, Montana lived up to the picture that I always had of it…cattle grazing on the thousands of acres of rolling ranch land.   What we were surprised to see was the amount of crops being grown.   They have devel

A 6:05 departure this morning paid dividends.   It was a 55-minute drive up to Logan Pass, mostly by ourselves.   I thought that this would make the most difficult section of The-Road-to-The Sun easier…I think that I was mistaken.   When the road is busy your speed is kept to a minimum.   With only a few cars, of course your speed tends to increase.   I had some nervous moments as we headed upward…rarely has that been the case on this adventure. We pulled into the Logan Pass Visitor Centre at 7:00 to find it ¾ full.   Where all these people had come from is a mystery to us…maybe they slept in their bloody cars…not sure. The hike was billed as being one of the best in the park.   It lived up to its hype.   We hiked up over 750 feet through an alpine meadow at the base of Clements Mountain.   As we got higher, we began to look down upon the meadow.   When we would stop and look back, we were rewarded with a panoramic view of several mountain tops in all their glory.   On the wa

You can tell by the title that not much happened today.   A few days ago, we decided to extend our stay in the Glacier area.   As a result, we were forced to move to the West Glacier KOA.   This had been our original choice to stay in, but we were unable to book it for the whole time.   As a result, we were forced to stay in Whitefish for the first 4 nights.   West Glacier KOA is located just 2 miles from the Park entrance.   Hopefully this will allow us to find parking up at Logan Pass tomorrow morning…now the challenge will be getting my better half up and moving early in the morning! The highlight of the day was a visit to another brewery for lunch…I could get used to this daily exercise!   This time it was Backslope Brewery in Columbia Falls.   They served up a couple of amazing burgers along with a couple of pretty good IPA’s. Distance Traveled = 42 km.   Wildlife Sightings = Columbia Ground Squirrels, Red Squirrel, Western Tanager, Dark-eyed Junco, Cedar Waxwing, Robin.

Sleep was a challenge last night.   Two cabins behind and above us decided to have a party.   Everyone knows that I do not mind people having a good time but when 3:30 rolled around I was getting a little sick of it.   Then I hear, “time to pack it in people, quiet hour was 11:00 pm”.   I just found out that it was the owner and that he returned at 7:30 this morning and tossed them out.   I suspect that there would have been some ‘fat’ heads...gee, I hate when that happens! Today we took 2 hikes recommended by a Park Ranger.   The first was up to Johns Lake, a pristine little Lake. The return trail took us past ‘Dancing Cascades’, a strange set of rapids on McDonald Creek.   We were pretty much on our own for the entire hike.   The masses really do not know what they are missing. The second hike took us up to Rocky Point.   The trail wound up through part of the area that was burned in 2003.   That fire consumed 13% of Glacier.   It is amazing to see the regrowth of a forest