Great Falls, Montana

Saturday, Sept. 11 - This morning we left our  remaining travel buddies, Marilyn and Collins, as well as Jerry and Judy, and headed on our own toward Yellowstone.  Marilyn made me a lemon pie for my birthday next Tuesday, and they gave me a puzzle of Glacier National Park as a birthday present.  Judy and Jerry presented us with some homegrown honey from the ranch, so we were sent off on our own in grand style.  We had driven through Babb, Montana, the other day but I didn't get a picture, so Eric, this one is for you.

Just so you know, there really is a Babb, Montana.  We drove about 175 miles today, across the Big Sky Country of Montana.  We had always heard it called that, and we were excited to get to see it.  And it certainly is Big Sky Country.  You can see for miles and miles!

The Rockies were a constant companion on the west side of us, and they are always breath-taking.  It was a nice, sunny day for a change -- a little windy, but we could live with that.  Although last night the wind really blew hard all night long, and we had to pull our slides in just so the vinyl covers over them would quit flapping.

We saw lots of cattle (some right beside the road), and horses.  But we also saw a small herd of antelope, maybe a dozen.  One place we passed two fenced pens of animals, and I said to Joe, "is that elk"?  He said, "no, they're camels."  (I really thought I could tell the difference.)  It turned out that we were looking at two different pens, and this ranch had both camels and elk.  We saw some llama too,

and a grouse right beside the road. 

We have a new repair issue to the RV, so we are heading to Great Falls to find an RV supply store.  I got locked in the bathroom yesterday morning, and had to wake Joe up to open the door because the knob wouldn't turn from the inside.  About midnight last night, the same thing happened to Joe, and I had to get up to let him out.  And then today, when we stopped for lunch, he couldn't get in to the bathroom.  He had to find a screwdriver to get the door open.  So as soon as we got checked into the campground, which is very nice, we headed out to the RV store.  We found what we needed, and Joe switched out the doorknob on the bathroom door so we don't have to be rescued any more.  We found an Albertson's on our way back to the campground, so we restocked on groceries too. 

We know we are missing exciting things at home.  Cody scored his first high-school extra-point in his football game this week, and Kaylee scored her first goal today in her first soccer game of the season.  We hate missing out on these exciting events, but Yellowstone is just ahead, then we'll see how long it takes us to get home.