Moorcroft, Wyoming

We finally left Montana today, after 15 days and 2,000+ miles in that state alone. What a beautiful place! Both of us marveled at the diversity in geography, and the awesome beauty that presented itself in so many ways.

But now, on to Wyoming! We drove through Sheridan, which looked like a great mix between the real "Old West" and modern urban sprawl. I would have liked to explore a bit, but we had a long drive today, so we toured the main drag, stocked up on some necessities, and headed east.

One note: festive banners hung LOW over main thoroughfares make driving a large fifth-wheel a bit anxiety-provoking. I believe we left Sheridan's buntings intact.

We are staying in Moorcroft, Wyoming, 32 miles south of Devils Tower National Monument.  The "RV Park" is actually nothing more than 4 spaces behind a small courtyard motel. But it's only for one night, and we are here.

We just returned home from walking Mandy the dog to the little community park. It is by the train tracks, and a long coal train roared through. We didn't realize that the Gillette, WY area has so much coal mining. (Note: we also didn't know that the area around Garryowen, MT grows a lot of sugar beets. It's wonderful the useful things you learn!)

We drove up to Devil's Tower for an early evening hike.  The drive up there was through some beautiful country, and the park surrounding the tower itself is gorgeous.  I think it's time to let the photos do the talking....

The walk up to the Tower, beautiful!

The Belle Fourche River Valley

The lucky couple

Our first glimpse of Devil's Tower

Through the woods

Up close

Signs regarding the local wildlife were a little disconcerting

But found out that we were really okay, and well under control.

Side note: In 1977, Jack invited me to go see "Close Encounters of the Third Kind." If you are familiar with this movie, the ultimate communication with the alien beings landing on Devil's Tower is through a series of 5 musical notes....need I say more?

On to Mount Rushmore and a reunion with my wonderful brother and his wife!! Yay!

Garryowen, Montana

Garryowen is the title of George Custer's favorite marching song for his 7th Calvary. This is the site of the Little Bighorn Battlefield where General Custer met his match.

That sounds rather flippant, but Jack and I have spent the past month touring various sites and museums across the Plains which left us feeling ashamed and sad at the American's government's treatment of Native Americans across the country.  In June, 1876,  nearly 12,000 Native Americans were encamped on the plains near the Little Bighorn River. Custer attacked them, and was surprised to discover that they fought back to protect their land, their families, and their way of life.

The National Memorial site is dignified, low key and very impressive. U.S. Calvarymen and Native warriors alike are memorialized here. As one walks or drives along the 5-mile battlefield trail, there are white marble grave markers placed where each Calvary fighter was found, and brown marble markers placed where each Native fighter was found.

Grave marker of Custer, and some of his soldiers. He is actually buried at West Point

Indian Memorial, commemorating the different tribes in a circular  stone monument

We have just finished our first month "on the road". We have traveled 3,500 miles, yet are less than 1,000 miles from our home in Portland.  It has been so enlightening, seeing all different types of cities, towns and villages, and talking to all different types of people. America is a great country, but certainly not homogenous. The stories of the people we have met would fill a book, and the environment and social contexts which influence one's world view are innumerable. But most of us make it work most of the time. That realization has been the greatest gift of this trip so far.

Miles City, Montana....

After our time in Glasgow...

Downtown Glasgow, MT

...we headed south to Miles City. Well, our destination is Custer's Little Bighorn Battlefield National Park, but stopped here (it's about half way).

The landscape between Glasgow and Miles City changes drastically, passing through an area that is what we anticipate the Badlands of South Dakota to look like. Less rolling hills and prairies, and much more choppy and broken up. But beautiful and vast. Jack describes Montana as "honest" and I think that is a great description.

The RV park here is sparse, but comfortable. Miles City is quite nice too, complete with a lovely centrally located park, swimming hole, and pretty much anything one could want in the way of shopping.

We visited the Range Riders Museum. Range Riders are men who "rode the prairies before there were fences". The museum contained just about every artifact ever found related to living on the prairies before about 1940. It was fairly interesting. The curator was even pleased to show us a 70 pound mud blob that had been pulled from a cow's hoof. But most of the displays were more relevant to real life than that.

There are 13 buildings housing just about everything Montana

Tomorrow, Little Bighorn.....

OPHEIM!!!

So why, one might ask, would we drive clear across the prairies of northern Montana to Glasgow...then drive another 50 miles north almost to the Canadian border, just to visit Opheim, a little farm community with a population today of just 87? Well, I guess it was a personal quest to return to the place where I spent two years in the late 1960s. I was in the Air Force stationed at Opheim AFS, a small, remote radar site manned by 125 airmen and a few civilians. I lived in town, and developed a warm affinity for the townspeople and the town itself.

The Air Force station was closed in the mid 1970s when satellites and GPS made that kind of radar unnecessary. And it did have a sad effect on the town. But Stacy, Mandy and I went out there anyway, and I tried to mentally reconstruct the place from the foundations that were left behind. It was both beautiful and fun out there, as the ghosts of the men I served with still haunted the place. (See photos below.)

Afterwards, we went into town and had lunch at the Outpost Cafe, 92 Main Street, Opheim. It was fantastic - a nicer restaurant than 40+ years ago, and we had an amazing time chatting with the folks. We met a man there who had been raised on a local sheep ranch adjacent to the Air Force station, and had gone on to be President of the University of Montana.  He is retired now, but was visiting Opheim with his family members from Norway.  They were visiting his sister, who still lives in Opheim. They remembered my old landlord, Otto Dahl. He kind of looked after a few of us young airmen who lived hand to mouth, occasionally putting enough propane in our tanks to give us heat until payday. Sadly, Otto died just a few months ago at age 94.

We also remembered Evan Granruud, a man who literally saved my life by rescuing me when I was stranded in my car during a -37 degree flash blizzard and had me stay the night at his ranch. Several years ago he and his wife started a business making and distributing Lefse, a traditional Norwegian potato flatbread. The "Lefse Shack" is actually their private home. We really wanted some. The waitress asked the chef, who was a Granruud, where we could buy lefse. We were directed to "The Co-op" down the street.  We walked down to the Co-op, where the man behind the counter was also related to the Granruuds.  We stocked up!

Beautiful prairie landscape

Welcome to Opheim

Former site of the 799th Radar Squadron. Platform still standing was one of three radar towers.

Me at my former place of business.

So much beauty (x3)

Remnants of the trailer park where I lived for two years

The Outpost Cafe - a totally unexpected surprise.

We stayed in Glasgow at the Shady Rest RV Park.  This sounds like an idyllic little place, but it was a not .  It was filled with oil workers, and Harley Davidson bikes, and was pretty depressing. 

Great Falls, Montana

We have spent the last three days in Great Falls, Montana. This wasn't necessarily by choice, but we needed a big enough place to get some warranty work done on our fifth wheel. (Nothing major, just irritating.) Since we knew we were going to be here a few days, we also had our mail forwarded from Portland. We haven't had mail for almost a month (didn't miss it much). Only seven pieces got forwarded, four of which we tossed out. There is a message there somewhere.

Anyway, Great Falls:

There is another exceptional Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center here. At Great Falls, the L & C Expedition of 1805 had to climb out of the Missouri River and drag/carry their boats and everything they had about 20 miles ("Portage", as one reads frequently) in order to circumvent a series of five impassable waterfalls that cascaded along this part of the river. Rough going.

The river is pretty here, wide and wooded on both sides, with tall white cliffs at places. The five waterfalls now each have their own hydroelectric dam...which makes them less impressive than when Merriweather Lewis first saw them, but still very pretty.

The Missouri River

Black Eagle Dam (and Falls)

Ryan Dam, Site of original "Great Falls"

Ryan Dam Power Plant, 1915

There is a great walking/biking trail along the Missouri, but it has been hot here, so we experienced most of it from inside the Interpretive Center. Great Falls is also the site of the shortest river in the world, the Roe River, all 210 feet of it.

We are staying at our first KOA Campground.  It's clean, and attractive, but more oriented to families with children, and a bit overpriced for our needs. Still, it has been an okay place to call home for a few days.

This morning, we went to the Malmstrom Air Force Base Museum. Malmstrom today is home to one of three active Minuteman missile installations, with 150 nuclear armed missiles poised in underground silos as a deterrent. We learned a lot about the whole capability. Really amazing.

The museum held special meaning to Jack, as Malmstrom AFB was headquarters for the Aircraft Control and Warning Radar network where he worked in the late 1960s in the Air Force. The network was disbanded in the 1980s, but the museum had a whole section on it, and artifacts including the 10,000 vacuum tube "computer" that he worked on.

For Jack, it was nostalgic, and extremely cool!

The SAGE network, initially deployed to connect radar bases around the country, was the first implementation of the military's ARPANET. The Internet grew out of it.

This whole cabinet contained 4,096 words of memory. Today, your iPhone contains BILLION times more memory.

Sage radar console: This is how aircraft were monitored in the 1960s.

Glacier National Park, Going to the Sun Road

We have seen some great things so far on this journey...but today we was breathtaking scenery unlike anywhere else we've ever been. Both of us had to say "Good Work, God!"

We got up early and got to the gates at 7:00 AM...before the rangers were even there.  The traffic was light, with only a couple of brief delays due to road construction.

Going To The Sun Road is about 45 miles long, and runs from West Glacier to St. Mary's at the eastern gate of Glacier. This is the only road that traverses the entire Park, and was built I think in the 1930's.  That in itself is amazing. But the incredible park it winds through was....well....see for yourself....

Starting up Going to the Sun Road

Very narrow, barely two lanes

July snow bridges...treacherous!

Our new best friends 

Natural beauty... X2

East side of Logan Pass

Lake Sherburne, 5 miles from Canada

McDonald Creek

Onward to Glacier National Park

We finally got on the road about noon for the short (80 mile) drive north along Flathead Lake We arrived in West Glacier about 2:00. We are in a very nice, wooded campsite at San-Suz-Ed RV Park, totally fitting for this gorgeous treasure called Glacier National Park.

After getting settled and enjoying a lunch of Stacy's homemade chicken salad, we set out to explore the area and get ready for tomorrow's exploration of the park (sans 5th wheel, of course), including the breathtaking drive up the legendary Going to the Sun Road. The park ranger told us it gets pretty crowded up there, and advised us to get an early start. The alarm is set for 5:30.

What we found within 5 miles of home was truly spectacular:

View across McDonald Lake

Uncrowded

Fish Creek

This rustic little motel on the lake was right out of an old 1950s movie.

Stacy, Mandy and pristine lakefront

Before leaving Polson...

We left Polson, MT this morning, but not without a few surprises. We went for a morning walk, sneaking through a fence and across a golf course adjacent to our RV park. We found ourselves in a BEAUTIFUL housing development. We had already said to one another, "I could live in Polson, Montana", and this place reinforced it.

There were several beautiful little houses for sale (at very reasonable prices) with gorgeous views of the lake, golf course and mountains. The homeowners association takes care of maintenance, landscaping, snow removal in the winter, etc. so there's an element of convenience and security. It's just a shame we had neither a phone or camera with us to show you.

ANYWAY...it's doubtful either of us could move this far from our friends and families, but it was a nice prospect nonetheless.

Miracle of America Museum, Polson, MT

We were so hoping for a truly stirring experience at the Miracle of America Museum. Turned out not so much. This person DID collect nearly every piece of detritus he ever encountered. That in itself was remarkable.

There were martians, and two-headed calves, a 1910 Harley Davidson, and an entire old village, and an unbelievable amount of old STUFF. It was a walk down memory lane, and a vivid reminder that hoarding is a disease.

A complete 1950s soda fountain

Aliens!

???

Vietnam-era "Huey" 

"Stuff"

Despite this strange (and, we neglected to mention, VERY right wing) place, we LOVED Polson!
It was like a beach town at 3,000 feet altitude. Very laid back, lots of water and sun. We wonder what it is like in February….?