Billings, MT

After we left Deer Lodge we traveled to Billings, MT. We were going to stop along the way but the rainy weather was not inviting so we drove to Billings where the weather was in the high 60's and clear. We did stop at Three Forks (sorry I refered to it as Three Rivers earlier) it is part of the Lewis and Clark Trail where three rivers come together at the Missouri Headwaters.
We stayed a very diversed campground - there were four different kinds of campsites -
tent - rv space with electric and water - rv space with full hook-ups, wooden swing and fire pit, and an rv space with full hook-ups, cement and grass area for entertaining, wooden swing and flower bed - That was a first for us - we had a great spot with a view of the Yellowstone River.
We have been very lucky everywhere we have stayed we have been next to a river. Too bad the rivers are too low to do any fishing and float trips.

We drove to Little Bighorn Battleground - you can walk on the trials, drive and walk so you get the whole picture of how the battle was fought. Can't believe that Custer would try to take on thousands of indians with only 250 soliders. The Fall colors added to the demension of the battlegrounds.

We drove to Pomprey Point where Clark wrote his name on a rock that the indians had put drawings on - they are doing there best to perserve this but it is sad that others felt the need to write their name - some even over the indian drawings.

We drove to Red Lodge which was about an hour away - a whole different terrian on this drive. The town has some unique buildings and alot of shopping.

Dick spent a few minutes taking pictures of a big 4 x 4 buck and his family. Just standing in a field by the freeway.

We continue to see herds of antelope, beautiful birds, and deer very close to the road.

Montana has been a beautiful state full of history and wildlife.

We are now on our way to North Dakota -

Deer Lodge, Mt

We have been in Deer Lodge for two days due to poor weather conditions. It has been rainy and windy since we got here. It didn't keep us from sightseeing- they have the first territorial prison here that was used up until 1970's. It is an interesting place to visit but it makes you wonder why anyone would committ crime and have to go there. They were one of the first prisons to use the prisoners to do structural work on additions to the prison. It is located on main street and looks like a fort - a well-guarded fort. They also had a very extensive display of carriages, old model cars along with pictures of Yellowstone and how they opened the park up to the first automobiles to tour - they even showed how the tourist camped. In another room they had all the 50's-70's cars restored.

Today we went to see a historical ranch and that proved to be very interesting - the state has perserved it after the grandson donated it them. His Grandfather had the ranch which he bought from the original owner it was then sold off and the Grandson purchased it to keep it the family. The ranger who gave the tour of the house and blacksmith shop actually worked with the grandson and had been in the house when the family owned it. They have the actual bunkhouse, chuckwagon, barns, carriage barn,with actual carriages and wagons, equipment that was used in the 1800's to ranch and a very interesting hay stacker - that we had seen along the road to Bannack Ghost Town - they have a small model so you can see how it works. This is still an active ranch but instead of 30,000 acres and is now only 1,600 acres with a few herd of cattle and some horses.

The state parks department in Montana is unbelieveable in preserving history. They have very friendly and knowledge park personnel.

Since it was raining we have no pictures of Deer Lodge and no golf - bummer. Tomorrow we will move onto Butte and Bozeman - hoping to have good weather so we can stop at three rivers.

Big Hole Battleground

wildlife and fall colors

stanley, ID - Salmon River, Sawtooth mountains

Snake River & Shoshone Falls - Twin Falls, ID

Valley of Fire - Nevada

North Carolina - Outer Banks

Montana

We are going to be in Montana for quite a while. We have already been here for a week and have enjoyed every day. The fall colors are beautiful. We have changed rivers now - we are now on the Bitterroot River. Our campsite facing the river with a nice little sandy beach. The Bitterroot mountains surrounded us. It is a bigger town that we had imagine but the people here are little friendlier than those in Idaho. California tourist are actually buying property and moving here so it has areas that are little yuppie looking.

Our first day here we played golf at a beautiful golf course, visited a beautiful mansion (plantation like). We drove up to the Skalkaho waterfall actually hoping to see wildlife (we saw lots of beautiful birds). We drove to a small town - Stevensville and visited Fort Owen and St Mary's.

We drove to Big Hole Battlefield - walked the trail to the Nez Perez Indian camp. They have rebuilt the tipee's so that you can get a visual of what the village was like the day the military
charged the village. We then drove to a ghost town - Brannack - it has 50 buildings that they still maintain and most of them you can go in for a closer view of how things were built and the people lived. Along this drive we encountered two bears (chubby bears) one ran across the road in front of us - the other was trying to get under/over a fence along the road. Herds of antelopes, an elk drinking from a creek, deer, turkey's and another herd of cattle moving up the road.

We took one day just for hanging out at camp - sunning, reading and fishing. We went for a bike ride past horses, old barns and beautiful fall colors and of course the river running through.

We are now going to head towards Butte, Montana our first night will be in Deer Lodge - according to the tour books this is a very old historic ranching town. By this I can see we are leaving Lewis and Clark and the Nez Perez Indian tribe behind us and going into the western history.

After seeing all these beautiful colors I don't think I will need to take the Fall Foliage Cruise.
Thanks Carolyn for all the good advice on sightseeing. Gary you and Kathy would love all the birds that we have been seeing. Marilyn and Gary the surroundings are so much like Twin Lakes and the Virigina's that you are in our thoughts daily there just aren't as many fish during this season with the rivers so low.

The abundance of wildlife is amazing and yesterday Dick was pointing out more deer and antelope and I told him I am on wildlife overload. The day we visited Big Hole and the ghost town was overwhelming trying to put so much information in my brain that I was on history overload.

Idaho-the last saga

Hello

It has been a while since I could get into my blog. In order to get online at our last stay I had to search the town to find a connection. One night we had to have dinner out so I could use their wi-fi. Most days I found sitting in front of the library as they had the strangest hours. One day Dick was getting info on fly fishing and I was able to sit in a parking lot in front of the chamber of commerce and do my work.

Our last day in Idaho we went to check out Williams Lake (Carolyn has actually fished there) it was a nice drive from our campground and we encountered our first traffic jam - a herd of cattle. We didn't have time to fish as we wanted to get on down the road to Montana.

Idaho is a beautiful state and the Salmon river is awesome - it is very low right now but you can tell how fun it would be run the rafts and do a little fishing.

Idaho - Lewis & Clark

Today was the best day of all - we went to drive the Lewis and Clark trail which was incredible then we had to choose which way we would go back to our campsite so I chose - wrong decision.
Dick went the way I instructed and two hours later we had found ourselves on a four wheel drive trial that was beyond our wildest dreams. Our jeep did a great job and finally Dick was able to get his barrings - he walked the trials and found one that had recent tire tracks so we followed that one - I never thought I would see a paved road again. We were on top of the world I kid you not - then we went down and up to the top again. I didn't get scared until I could tell Dick was not comfortable where we were - his biggest fear was that we would have to spend the night in our jeep in unfamilar territory. All turned out well but he will not let me direct him without looking at the map first. The funniest part was that we had a GPS system sitting in our motorhome -
We saw the biggest Antelope Dick had ever seen, deer, a coyote and beautiful birds along the way. We actually were following the Continental Divide and at one point we were in Montana instead of Idaho. There is one flower that grows along the roadway and I have to found out what it is - it is a cross between a desert flower and a sunflower.
Dick was able to visit tonight with some of the guys in the campground who are here to hunt Elk -so he is much happier.
Sorry this is so long but it was a very eventful day.

Idaho continued

We have just spent 2 days in Stanley, ID on the Salmon River. It is a beautiful setting we did a little fishing - I caught one and Dick caught zero (this has to be a first) we saw a red fox and deer. We are on our way to Salmon, ID to see if the fishing is any better. We have not run into very many friendly people - no one has much to say so Dick is a little disappointed. One lady in the fishing store was helpful and so Dick is trying out his fly fishing skills. I have the pictures downloaded now and I am trying to get them to the blog site. This time they may all come on one page but you will be able to figure out which update they go with.

Idaho

Wow - what a spectular site in Twin Falls. We saw the Snake River Canyon (Evil Knevil attempted a jump across it - crazy) we took pictures as it is unbeliable. There is the most gorgeous golf course along the snake river in the canyon. We are going to the Shoshone Falls and a scenic 68 mile drive today and then we will head onto Red Fish Lake where we will try and spend a couple of days before heading to the Lewis and Clark Trails.

Nevada

Well we have been traveling in Nevada stopping at several interesting places - We tried out luck at gambling and will stick to the Indian Casinos. We stayed the night in the Valley of Fire. It was spectular when we arrived in the evening - we hiked a little the next morning. We headed on down the road and stopped at some historical sites along the way. We spent the next night in Ely, Nevada what a difference in temperature - they have several fishing lakes and we took a side road so Dick could try and spot some Elk. We are on our way to Idaho now and hope to find a great place to camp and spend a few days relaxing and fishing. Hope all is well with all of you and maybe when I get to Idaho I'll have more computer time and can download some pictures.

first trip - The Carolina's

We just returned from our first journey. We had a great time in Virginia where we took in the sights of Williamsburg, Yorktown and Jamestown.
There is so much history there - we concentrated on the Revolutionary war and will return for the Civil War sights another time. We then traveled to South Carolina to see my nephew and his family for a very long overdue visit. Then we traveled onto North Carolina (the Outer Banks - OBX) we met up with our friends and enjoyed seeing 4 lighthouses (one of which we took the 257 steps to the top) the Wright Brothers Memorial, took a ferry ride, crossed over rivers that look like our lakes. Dick went fishing and caught a marlin, a mallot and a sea trout. We actually surf fished on the beach - that was a very interesting way to fish. When we returned to Norfolk, VA we went aboard the USS Wisconsin - a ship that has seen every war since WW I.
Our trip was awesome and we are now looking forward to starting the RV trip as soon as Dick gets home from his dove hunt in Yuma.
I am trying to download pictures and as soon as I learn how I'll add them to our blog.
Take care - we will miss all of you while we are gone and hope to hear from you.
Dick and Phyllis