Montana As I Pictured It


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 developed a complex system of irrigation canals.  Like so many areas that we have traveled through, acres and acres of grassland has been turned into what appears to be productive cropland with the aid of a whole lot of water.

We are in the Great Falls KOA.  We will be here for 2 nights as we want to visit the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Centre.  We also need our 2nd oil change of our trip.

Distance Traveled = 328 km.  Wildlife Sightings = Red-breasted Nuthatch, Robin, Red-tailed Hawk, Great Blue Heron, Coot, Northern Harrier, Canada Goose, Magpie, Deer, Red Squirrel.


Rolling Ranch Land


Good Looking Cattle


Irrigation


Mountains in the rear view mirror


A little bit of everything...


Mountains fading from view

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