Whew! We woke and
began packing at 5:30 this morning. By 7
we had said our goodbyes and thank yous and were on the road. We turned off onto 83 outside of Kalispell
and headed for Butte. Again the scenery
was breath-taking. Nathan spotted a
coyote with a big bushy tail running across the road in front of us, and we had
numerous views of the snowcapped mountains and Swan Lake through the
trees. The scenery out here is just
fabulous with all the mountains, green pastures, cattle, horses, deer, old
barns, lakes, etc.
As we got out onto 90 from 83, we began seeing signs for the
sapphire mountains. It would have been
fun to mine, but – got to keep rolling.
These green sparsely treed mountains erupted into the granite mountains.
We stopped briefly in Deer Lodge, MT to look
at the old Montana Prison, established in 1871. It was in operation until
1979. We considered touring it, but time
is not on our side right now as we are trying to get back to Memphis in time to
leave out Sunday to take Taylor and Samuel to BSA camp. It made for a nice stretch time though and a
peek at history. We stopped in Butte at
MacKenzie River Pizza Company for lunch and then got right back on the road.
We are still catching views of snowcapped mountains, now
layered behind lush green mountains which are sitting behind the rolling plains
all topped with gorgeous blue skies and wispy clouds. Every now and then we even see rushing rivers
and streams snaking through the hills. Gorgeous
views!! I have decided that though MT is
also sparsely populated and towns are few and far between, I would choose to
travel it any day over the deserts. I
LOVE the snow, trees, grasses and flowers and wildlife on the landscape! So much more pleasing to my eyes!!
Once in WY we began seeing our pronghorn along the roadside
again. It has been fun coming down 90
and remembering stops we made 4 years ago on our trip out here. Some stretches of 90 in MT and WY will nearly
send you soaring. I’m not sure why the
roads were so bumpy, but we’d be rolling along and all of a sudden it felt as
if the road was dropping out from under us.
Not good since we are all tanked up on Mountain Dew, cappuccino, and
chocolate! Blah! The boys are being
super!! We are all tired and ready to
stretch, but attitudes and temperaments all still pretty pleasant. We’ve had rounds of naps, laughing, griping,
more naps, sightseeing of landscape and critters, and games. So far we’ve covered over 700 miles and still
have about 200 to go as we are looking to roll into Rapid City tonight.
We had a change of plans again as we came to Hwy 16 we opted to drive in to Custer tonight so that we won't be backtracking to see Crazy Horse, Mt. Rushmore, Rapid City and the Badlands. The drive time was going to be about the same as driving into Rapid City tonight, so here we are. We found a DQ open, grabbed a bite for supper and now turning in for the evening at 11:20. We enjoyed our sunset much earlier tonight now that we have come south. It actually got dark around 9! My what a day of driving will do. We came 840 miles today and traveled for 15 hours!!! On a happy note, the van's gas mileage started out at 18 this trip, dropped to 16, and is now back up to 20 mpg! :)
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