June 20, 2024

A Bear 

Back on the touristy trail this morning -- our first stop, after breakfast at McDonalds again, was the Black Eagle Falls Overlook.  This sign was on the parking lot at McDonalds.  Joe said, no wonder we get so confused.

We saw this dam and falls yesterday from the other side of the river. We could also see the bridge that we walked across here. 

We drove onto the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center next. This was one of the better museums we’ve been to.  Of course, we have a vested interest with our history of the Lewis and Clark Expeditions in Indiana. I grew up passing the Lewis and Clark Trail sign every time I went to town.  We got there just in time to see a 30-minute video of their exploration from St. Louis to the Pacific Ocean. Then we walked the exhibits. This exploration was called the Corp of Discovery. I asked if that name was the forerunner of the Corp of Engineers, but they said they were not related.

They  had a buffalo statue just inside, so I got pictures of both sides, since they have different artwork on each side.  We still have to chase down some more of these buffalo.

Because of the 5 falls here (the Missouri River drops over 500 feet through this stretch), they had to portage their canoes 18 miles over land.  This is one of their boats.  You can see the wheels they use to "tow it" over land.

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The Indian woman who joined them on this expedition was named Sacagawea.  One of the interns at the Museum gave a talk about her following the film.  We spent some time at this museum, and it was time for ibuprophen when we got back to the Jeep.

Our next stop was the Giant Spring State Park and Fish Hatchery which was right next door.  Over 150 million gallons of water flow from the Giant Springs everyday and cascade into the Missouri River.  T

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This is a beautiful park and the springs are awesome. You can walk all the way around the flowing Springs.  The water is crystal clear. Over the bridge, there is a very short river that runs into the Missouri.

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We walked over to the fish hatchery. There’s more of that here that we didn’t go to, but there were some beautiful rainbow trout in there, there were two orange ones and they were called albino rainbow trout.

Our next stop was the Rainbow Falls Overlook. This is the one we stopped at yesterday, but because it’s turned slightly, we couldn’t see it real well from that side.

 The water is really flowing out of the far side on this one. 

Our last stop on this road was at the Crooked Falls Overlook. We actually still got a good view of the Rainbow Falls flow from this one.

 The Crooked Falls is much smaller, and then you can see the river curving on beyond. Beyond this is the Ryan Falls that we went to yesterday, which is the Great Falls. There’s one other falls on the map named Converged Falls but since we didn’t think we wanted to go scuba diving we skipped that one. We think we’re done with the falls here now and it’s only 1:15 and we have two more days and so we’re in good shape. The one thing left on our agenda is the Charles Russell Museum and will save that for tomorrow — we have done enough walking for now.

During our lunch break at Wendy’s, we decided to make a 35-mile drive down passed Belt, Montana to the Sluice Boxes State Park (so much for our short day). We’re not sure what we’ll see there, but it gives us a another drive through the countryside which we enjoy.  And it paid off big time.  We saw our first bear!  Good thing I had my new binoculars!

I spotted the bear on the side of a ridge, then it went to the top.  No pictures, we were too busy with the binoculars.  But we got to watch it run for quite a ways.  It seemed to be chasing a big bird.  That was exciting!!  Of course, when I yelled "stop, I see something, I think it's a bear," we almost got rear-ended.  The guy driving behind did not appreciate us barely pulling off the road, and he honked at us.   I guess we need a sign on the back of theJeep that says this vehicle stops for bears because we got honked at when we pulled over suddenly barely off the road.  This picture was taken of the same ridge, just further down.  Eventually the bear ran back up to the top and out of sight, but we got to see him a lot of times. He kept running in and out through the bushes and over and behind rocks.  Joe said he saw him at least three times silhouetted.

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We saw several snow fences on this drive and we are definitely in snow country. This area is so wide open. You can see forever until you get to the mountains which are still snow-covered.

We continued on to our state park.  

This was a very pretty drive, about especially the 10 miles on 89 before the state park. We had mountain ridges on both sides and the Belt Creek that kept cutting back-and-forth. The state park wasn’t much, just mostly a parking lot with hiking trails to the sluice boxes.  I walked over to the beginning of one trail, and I knew that wasn't for us.  I saw some comments on something later that sounded like people take canoes down to the sluice boxes on the creek.

We drove on passed the park to the dirt the gravel road up into the mountain to see if we could stir up anything else. We did stop at an overlook. We’re still in the park.

This drive brought us closer to the snowcapped mountains. A lot of the snow has disappeared, but one mountain in the background is still fully blanketed. 

While Joe was taking the picture of the snow-covered mountains from his side , I turned and looked out my side and there was a big muley deer just laying under the shade tree watching us.  Right after we took off, we found another deer out in the wide open space.

 

We think we found our summer home.  We saw a few of these old shacks back here.  We are really off the grid.

But there were also some nice properties back here.  We came upon one really pretty ranch, nice fence, nice opening, nice cattle.

The gravel road started out pretty good for about 7 miles and then it deteriorated into Joe’s kind of road for the last 12 miles.  For these 12 miles, we were probably averaging 5 to 8 miles an hour for most of it.  We entered the Lewis and Clark Forest, and that's where the road got bad.  The bear sign was right beside the forest sign.

We stopped at one point just to get out of the Jeep.  It is beautiful scenery back here.  We could imagine why someone would want to live back here, but it is a long way from anywhere.

 Once we got over the top and started down, we had fewer rocks and more mud.  We forged a few of these mud holes as we came down off the peak.  In one of them, we slid a little, but Joe said he found bottom, and that was all that mattered.

We have seen a lot of this creeping juniper while we have been here.  At the Lewis and Clark Museum, they identified a bunch of outside plants, including this one.  Usually, part of it is still green, which makes a very pretty landscaping plant.

We came back out on the highway 8 mile miles south of where we went into the Sluice Box State Park.  I was really glad to see pavement again.

We drove through the little town of Belt and fueled, then headed back to Great Falls.  We stopped at the edge of town at Panda Express for dinner.  That was 2 hour drive. 

But we did chase down one buffalo statue in town.

We got home at 5:20, exhausted.  Those long rides in the Jeep are not easy.

 June 19, 2024

Wednesday

Waterfalls

We did stay in the rest of the day yesterday.  Got some things taken care of on the phone, I fixed a nice dinner.  But the weatherman lied -- it started raining again off and on about 3:00 p.m., and around 7:00 we had a thunderstorm and a downpour.  

This morning it was 41 degrees when I got up at 7:00.  My phone said it was supposed to get down to 36 last night but I don't know if it made it -- probably did.  

But it turned out to be a nice, sunny day  -- until our evening rain storm that seems to be a daily occurrence.  Our two days of rest here have been good for us, but we’re back on the touristy trail this morning. Our first stop was at the visitor center where we loaded up with material for the area. It seems there’s plenty to see and do here. One of our things here is the Charles Russell Museum.  The Visitor Center Lady said we were really lucky because they are working on the big museum in Helena and all of the exhibits from there are now up here in Great Falls at the museum.

Our first destination was Ryan Dam and Ryan Island.   As we turn down the road to the first Falls, we could see snow on the mountain range in front of us.  We are assuming it was from last night since it got so cold here.  Every peak in the mountain range has snow on it this morning.

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At Ryan’s Dam and Ryan’s Island we hiked over the bridge and up to the lookout to see the falls, which is right in front of the overflow for the damn.  This is the Great Falls for which Great Falls, Montana is named. All of these falls and dams are on the Missouri River.  What a sight, and the lovely smell of pine accompanied us on this little hike, but that was enough of a hike for my right knee at the moment. 

This dam has a pretty waterfall right in front of it.  There was a bridge over to a small island, another hike for us.

Our next stop was the Morray dam -- there was not a waterfalls there.

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The road at the Morray Dam took us all the way down, practically to the rivers edge. The water is very pretty pretty-- clean looking --  and you can see they’re only letting water out through one of the overflows here. 

With Joe’s background in generating stations, he finds all this very interesting and is very, very knowledgeable and explaining it to me.

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Next, we drove back to the Rainbow Dam.  The falls are more visible from the other side, so we’ll catch that later.

Black eagle is the third dam we drove to. It has a little bridge to an island on the other side. 

Our next stop was the Black Eagle dam.  Here, too, was a little bridge and island, smaller than the first one.  

 They had parts of the dam laid out here and a picture showing how it all worked.  Joe had me take a picture of this water turbine  

After three dams and two waterfalls, we decided attempting all five waterfalls in one fell swoop was a bit too ambitious for us so when we crossed back over the river, we decided to take a lunch break. 

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After lunch, we went back to the camper for a while, then decided to take a drive out to the First Peoples Buffalo Jump State Park, which was about 18 miles south of town. They were open until six so we thought we probably had enough time.  There was a small museum at the visitor center so we walked through the exhibits.

 Then it was another 3 1/2 mile drive to the actual Jump.  We parked the jeep and walked the trail to the edge of the cliff where the buffalo runner would lead the buffalo over (another hike).   

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We left there with 1/2 hour to spare before they locked the gate.  We had another view of snow-covered mountains on this drive.

There are prairie dog towns along this road, so that’s always interesting to see and we saw two deer on the grounds of the state park.  Later on, outside of the park, we saw a group of 8-10 deer.  We first thought they were cow elk because they looked so big, but we finally determined they were deer too.

We came back a different way (of course -- Joe found a dirt road) and came upon a field of cattle.  We are pretty sure the brown one is a longhorn.  Not sure what breed the black and white one is.

We got back to the RV about 6:15, before our evening rain storm, and felt like we had a pretty good day.  There is a lot to see around Great Falls, and we have to pick and choose what we can work in, since we run out of energy pretty fast.  Hopefully, tomorrow we can check off the other 2 falls and a couple of museums.  It's supposed to be another nice day.

 June 17-18, 2024

Monday and Tuesday

Around Great Falls, Montana

Cathy, I saw your comment.  Havre is pronounced like "you take her, no, you can have her."

Great Falls is a maintenance stop for us -- for our bodies, our vehicles, and our computer stuff.  After a couple nights of not sleeping, and fighting the wind to get here, we are taking it easy.  It started raining Sunday night about midnight and didn't stop until 3:00 p.m.  on Monday.  And the temperature stayed in the 40's.  We did get out and about for a bit, getting things started for some prescription refills and blood draws for upcoming telemed call with our doctor.  I guess this is a town of "buffalo art."  I missed this one the first time we saw it, but I got it as we passed today.  I hope to get a better photo before we leave here, and I assume there are others around town.

On Tuesday, we had an early start for our blood draw (mine was fasting), picked up one prescription (the other one won't be ready until Friday), and shopped for binoculars.  Mine are falling apart and we knew we needed new ones before we got to Glacier so I can see the bears.  We went to North 40 and Scheels, and I found a pair at Scheels, got it sighted in, and I'm ready! We got a new Scheels store at home just before Christmas last year, so we were somewhat familiar with it.  Joe has his own pair of binoculars, and they are still intact, so we only had to buy one pair.  At the price, that was good!  Although they did give us a veteran's discount of 40% off the manufacturer's full retail price (which was higher than the store price) plus a 10% veteran's store discount.

We got back to the RV just after 12:00.  And we may be in for the night.  It rained a little about 3:00 p.m. but there is no more rain in the forecast while we are here.  Tomorrow we hope to chase down the 5 waterfalls.

This campground is ok, just a campground.  Does have a nice laundry, and propane on-site.  It stays busy and is convenient as it is right off the I-15 business loop so getting to town is quick and easy.  And with the GPS, we are able to find everything we are looking for.  We have several days here yet, then we are headed to Glacier National Park.  With suggestions from Paul and Natalie, we are booked at Johnson's of St. Mary right outside the park. Very pricey but we were lucky to find a spot on short notice.  We were only able to get 5 nights but may be able to extend to 7 at check-in if they have any cancellations.  And with the snow up there this week, they may have some.  That will be Sunday.

 Sunday, June 16, 2024

HAPPY FATHERS DAY

We had a terrible night. The wind forced us to bring our slides in and our RV is not set up to function with the slides in -- our bed is a retractable one so we couldn’t have it out all the way with the slide in.  Joe slept crossways on it and we put the couch down and I slept on it -- which is also not comfortable. The wind pounded us all night long and on into the today.  Joe intended to spend some time washing the window shield of the motorhome while we were parked here, but we never got that done. It was so windy, I was afraid it would blow him off of the ladder so now he’s hoping for a good rain today to get those bugs off of there. But we did get up early, got everything ready to move, stopped into town at McDonald’s, and then hit the road to Great Falls about 9:50. The wind is still pounding -- 26 miles an hour with gusts up to 40. We had a few sprinkles, but then the sun came out. It was 46° when we got up this morning 

The rabbits were at McDonald’s again, we counted seven.  Somebody in McDonald’s said he thought they had belonged to the owner of the store next-door and somehow got out and multiplied. But I'm not sure these look exactly like the one I saw yesterday.

Just like the other day, we’re driving along a lot of railroad track with stored cars on it -- this time it’s flatbeds and they go for miles and miles, just sitting there waiting to be needed, I guess.

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Bales of hay are scattered along the highway on this road about every 2/10 of a mile.  They are on both sides, right by the road.  We don’t know if they are to feed animals or they’re going be picked up or what. Joe’s guessing that they just bail what they mow and maybe use it on their wildlife refuges or something.   Eventually, we did see the mower, and then a different mower that baled the grass into round bales.

This is the first "yellow" field we have seen.  We assume it is canola or mustard.

 

Except for the wind, it was a pleasant, easy drive, pretty scenery.  We saw several deer and antelope along the highway.  We arrived in Great Falls about 12:15, and extended our reservation for a whole week.  We will be leaving here next Sunday.  We agreed that we needed some down time, and we have some maintenance things to deal with.  After we got set up, we went to the laundromat.  There is one here in the campground and we were all set to use that one, but by the time we got up there, it was busy, so we went to one in town.  After getting that task done, we stopped at Applebee's for Joe's father's day dinner.  Our route to Applebee's took us along the River Road (Missouri River).  This town apparently has buffalo art work.  I missed the photo op for the first one, but this one, like a fish, was along the river.

Applebee's was just across the street from the River.  There were a couple of jet-skiers out on it, we thought they might be rushing the season a bit.

We drove 125 miles today, glad that we had a short day since the wind never let up.  It was chilly (46) when we got up but had warmed up to 60 when we got to Great Falls.  Tomorrow is supposed to be cold, though.  Low tonight of 42, high tomorrow of 49 with rain.  And Glacier National Park, our next stop, is under a winter storm warning (snow) tomorrow.

We calculated our miles today and we’ve driven over 4000 so far in the RV, and probably that many in the jeep as well.  I did not add up the fuel costs, we weren't ready for those harsh facts since we are a long, long way from home.

That's it for today.  Time to get a good night's sleep.

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