Washington to Montana 2015

From Washington coast to Montana 8-12-15 to 8-25-15

We left the coolness of the Washington coast to drive east on I 90 through Idaho and Montana. It was a 103 degrees when we went through Spokane, WA and all the RV parks in the area were full. People are definitely on the road. So we drove past Spokane and stayed in a small RV park in Osburn, Idaho. The interstates are very busy and have many more trucks than we remember from our last visit. It makes for some interesting driving going through mountain passes with construction going on. John does it like a pro.

We are still in drought areas as the fields are brown and there are lots of dead trees. So sad to see. There are so many fires, in WA particularly, that there now is a lot of smoke.

We drove on to Missoula, Montana, one of our favorite cities. We have stayed here several times before. It's a small college town with a river running through it with lots of kayaks and float boats on it. The shopping is great, as well as the restaurants. We drove around the countryside and did sight seeing and loaded up with supplies. I remembered the farmer's market from a previous trip. They know how to grow those vegetables in Montana.

This time we toured the Smoke Jumpers base just a few miles from where we camped. The water dropping planes were constantly going over our campsite, so we had to go check it out. They give tours of the whole facility. It was very impressive. We saw smoke jumpers packing their parachutes, the area where they dry their parachutes, and the emergency response room. While we were there, there were also some hotshot fire fighters from Arizona. The fires are so bad in Washington, Idaho and Montana that they have crews coming in from all over the U. S. and Canada.

We also visited an Elk Country Visitor Center. They are some impressive animals. We expect to see lots of them when we continue on our trip.

After a few days in Missoula, we continued east on I 90 to Boseman, Montana. College was starting this week and because of the fires in Glacier NP, campgrounds are again full. We drove on to a small town 25 miles to the east of Boseman. We're finding that it's easier to find CG outside the larger towns.

Livingston is called the Gateway to Yellowstone and lies on the Yellowstone River. Our campground backed up to the river and was situated in a canyon with beautiful cliffs.

We did have one exciting encounter when a black bear ran onto the interstate and just missed us. He got a little excited and couldn't decide which way to go. Also, the morning we left our campground another black bear calmly walked through it. So our street back home is not the only one with bears.

Since we were on the road to the northern entrance to Yellowstone Park,we drove the 60 miles south

to the town of Mammoth in Yellowstone Park. It was a beautiful drive following the Yellowstone River that traversed some rolling hills, flat farmland and majestic mountains. I didn't really get some good pictures since it was very smokey again.

We did meet up with a friend of ours, Steve, who was camping at Mammoth Hot Springs CG. We drove through the town to once again see the hot springs and the elk lounging around on the grass. We will return here later after the crowds have cleared out.

We drove back to Boseman to visit the Museum of the Rockies which is famous for all its dinosaur fossils. The museum has the largest dinosaur fossil collection in the U. S. It was very well presented and BIG AL was a very impressive T Rex.

Another day we took a drive south of Boseman to visit the upscale ski area of Big Sky. It's a scenic drive but it wasn't so scenic for us, because it was obscured by the smoke. No good pictures.

On to Billings, Montana where we visited some of the Lewis and Clark sites. We had seen many of the sites on our previous trip when we followed the Lewis and Clark trail from Indiana to Astoria, OR. However, this time we visited Pompeys Pillar where Wm Clark left his signature on a large rock outcrop. It is the only evidence found of the L and C trip. The park service always does a great job with all of the Lewis and Clark sites (Debbie, even if it doesn't have a national park stamp.)

Montana has been a beautiful state to once again visit. There have been jagged mountains in the western and southern part, high plateaus with grasslands, and beautiful rivers. Fly fishing is a popular sport here and we've seen numerous people in the rivers fishing. Hunting is also popular but we've not seen any evidence of that. Don't think it's hunting season yet. But lots of guns and camouflage around.