Montana # 2 - Missoula, Livingston, Yellowstone (north) Beartooth Byway

September 13th - We enjoyed the most scenic drive from Columbia Falls to Missoula.  We traveled all along beautiful Flathead Lake.  Simply gorgeous!

 There's just nothing like traveling in a RV with its huge windsheild and panoramic views!

We arrived in Missoula mid afternoon. We’re at the KOA here and it’s really nice.  $60 a night for a premium site…. Includes oversized lot, nice patio area, a swing, table and chairs and a firepit. It’s great since we’re going to be here awhile.  After we got set up we sat outside and read for quite some time before going in and cooking dinner in the RV.

My grill master....

Monday, 9-14 – Earl got up early to take the car over to the body shop.  We had been told that a rental car rep would be there to meet him with a rental car.  Well….no one was there, so Earl called Enterprise.  They had no record of our name/number/case or anything!!!  So one of the body shop guys brought Earl back to the RV, and the Enterprise people said they’d be trying to research it.  Earl tried to get our insurance claim person, and just got a bunch of run-around. Grrrrr nothing more fun than dealing with incompetent people!  Finally about 3:00, Earl got a call from the Enterprise guy saying our car was ready, and wondering why we hadn’t picked it up.  Whaaaat?  It was the MOUNT DORA Enterprise calling!!!!  Lots of good it does us here in Montana to have a car ready for us at HOME!  Pitiful!!!  That guy then called the Enterprise guy here and gave him all the info and case numbers.  In just a short time, they came over, picked us up, took us back to the Enterprise office to do all the paperwork, and we’re off on our own with a car! Finally! Yay! Here's our car for the next week or so...

Tuesday – Sunday  – We have really enjoyed some quiet days here in Missoula.  After lots of awesome fun filled days seeing amazing sights it is good to be at home, catch up on chores, laundry, ride bikes all over, etc.  There’s a mall right adjacent to the park so one afternoon we rode over there and shopped a bit.  We ran across a homeless (at least he looked homeless) man who asked for some money if we could spare it.  We began to talk to him to hear his story.  His daughter died last year from breast cancer and he's been in severe depression, lost his job, etc, and said she was all he had in the world.  It was so sad.  We don't always give them money, but felt led to this time.  I hope he used it for food, he was heading off to Taco Bell, nearby.  We were able to tell him God loved him and is with him all the time.  He seemed so grateful and just craved a human touch. We never know what people around us are going through.

Wednesday it turned COLD!!!  30’s at night and Wed. had a high of 55.  Brrrrr   Wed. aft. we went to a theater and saw 90 Minutes in Heaven.  We had read this book a while back.  Excellent movie, though I have to admit in all honesty, the acting quality left something to be desired.  The movie was somewhat hard to watch in that the pain level the pastor went through was just unbearable.  That was pretty well portrayed, but 90 minutes in HEAVEN!!!  You need to see it.  Not only is it worth seeing, but I feel it is really important to support Christian movies so that Hollywood gets a clear message that there IS an audience for clean wholesome movies!

Check out a couple of the sunsets we enjoyed from our RV, almost every night.

On Saturday morning, we knew Missoula had a great Farmer's Market downtown so we went and it was great.  PERFECT weather, just a bit of a crispness in the air, but sunny and breezy, could not have asked for a more beautiful day!

I have NEVER seen zuchinni(above) and cabbage(below) this big!  I wish I'd put an apple or something beside it to compare them with!  That zuchinni was at least 25" long and the cabbage the size of a large pumpkin!  Whoa.....that would feed a lot of people!

 
 That afternoon we went to see the new movie Captive, the true story of a prison escapee who held a woman hostage and the impact of reading the book The Purpose Driven Life made on both.  Good movie. Just driving around town, we saw some pretty color.  Pretty soon, Missoula will be in full fall colors!

Sunday morning - we have not seen a church that seemed particularly inviting so today we listened to 2 messages of one of our favorite preachers, Dr. Jim Richards. I'm really missing church.
 

On Sunday afternoon, we rode out to the National Bison Range.  We had hoped to see lots of wildlife but were disappointed.  We saw a herd of bison from a great distance, interesting in that they were just in a single line following each other. I wonder if that’s the norm?  Other than that, we only saw one that was fairly close. But gorgeous long range views!

We saw elk, again from a great distance, not even worth taking a picture, and a herd of sheep.  So while disappointed in the lack of exciting wildlife, the beauty surrounding us and the long range views was simply awesome.  Any day we can enjoy this kind of beauty and appreciation of nature is never a waste!  

It was just a one way road around here and just gravel/dirt and no shoulders....

 This was the closest we got to a bison in the park.

Constantly enthralled with the skies in Montana.  Easy to see why the state is called Big Sky Country!

Stopped in a gift shop when we left - Earl wanted to get some bison jerky, and he made friends with this guy, after they finished butting heads, that is.  Ha

On our return we went to Dave’s Famous BBQ and I enjoyed fabulous beef brisket, Earl had pulled pork. Yummy….  It rained while we were inside eating, and on our way back, we saw the most beautiful rainbow!  I don't believe I've ever seen a double one, and since I have heard there are triple, even quadruple ones!  Wow.  The colors were so vivid in this one and it felt so close!  We drove several blocks thinking we'd get to where it really was the end, but you know how illusive that can be!

Monday, Sept. 21^st -  We have our car back!  YAY!!!  Good as new!  They did all the body repairs and sent it out for an alignment and we returned our rental car and picked up our car, so now we’re all set to head out again tomorrow!

Tuesday – 9/22  We drove to Livingston, MT and are staying at Osen’s RV Park ($40 a night) and the perfect location for seeing Yellowstone tomorrow.  You may remember the many pictures I took of Yellowstone a while back, but this is the north entrance.  I had not realized we were so close to Wyoming, but shortly after we crossed from Montana into Wyoming again.

We had so hoped to see some grizzly bears, but alas, not a one was to be found.  When we were in Glacier NP I saw one from a distance, but it was too far away for even a photo, so a little disappointed. Remember Yellowstone is well over 2 million acres, so I’m sure they are around somewhere.

We were really anxious to see Mammoth Hot Springs, as that is one of the more famous spots in Yellowstone, and of course we didn't come up this far when we were in Yellowstone a month or so ago. This is probably next to Old Faithful as to most visited sites. VERY impressive!

We were excited to come across these elk right on the side of the road!

We also saw quite a few pronghorns....

We saw numerous tribes of bison, making up for the lack we saw in the Bison Park....

If y'all are ever in this area, do NOT MISS The Beartooth Scenic Byway!  Oh my goodness, y'all, just amazing views, a few hair raising narrow and steep roads with NO shoulders oftentimes.  We got out at one point to take some photos and I said, "Brrrrr it's gotten cold!"  Earl checked and it was only 50 degrees up there and 83 back at our RV so no wonder!  That's what elevation does for you.

We had taken a picnic lunch with us today and stopped at this delightful, serene spot and as we were eating, this lovely blue jay paid us a visit!

 

There wasn't a lot of fall color in the park, mostly yellows whenever there was any.  I assume because almost all the trees are evergreens, firs, pines, etc.

Can y'all tell how crazy the roads are here? We're on an upper level of roadway looking down to others....I've never seen anything quite like it!  Somewhat like Going to the Sun road in Glacier and a bit like The Dragon's Tail in North Carolina.  Just don't miss it if you're ever here!

A

As we were leaving, we came to the Welcome to Montana sign, so we turned around quickly to also get the Welcome to Wyoming sign.

Earl got me this satellite view of the road we were on.  Pretty interesting....

It had been a very long day, driving lots of miles in Yellowstone, but we remembered that they had a Farmer's Market in downtown Livingston, so we dropped by and it made me feel almost homesick.  The bandshell reminded me of the one in Eustis, and the country music could have been anywhere in the south.  

Wednesday we took a day to rest and catch up on getting some supplies in town.  We had a fabulous steak dinner at the Montana Ribs and Chop House.  They claim to have the best steaks in all of Montana and Wyoming.  I don't know they were the BEST, necessarily but they were awful good!  Yum....

We left Livingston and had a pretty long day of driving today to Miles City.  It almost seemed like it was Kansas or Nebraska except it was mountainous, but wow, endless miles of nothing.... We arrived at the KOA in Miles City, just a few miles away from where Lewis and Clark met up with the Indians when they were tracking in this area.  Then Custer came and wanted to meet up with the Indians and they'd left, so he followed them and it resulted in the Battle of little Bighorn and Custer's last stand!

We didn't even unhook the car, just an overnight here.  When we were getting set up, I was so sad that I broke a beautiful mug that I'd bought in Wyoming.  We haven't bought much in the way of souvenirs and this was just something useful, and so pretty.  Things just can so easily get dislodged while driving and I should have been more careful when i opened the cabinet.  Oh well.... I went ahead and made us a delicious roast beef dinner with vegetables, and we've enjoyed a quiet evening while I caught up on my blog.
 

Saying goodbye to Montana in the morning, and heading out to North Dakota. Stay tuned.