billings to great falls montana

We had a later start today as Ron was able to find a HONDA dealer to service the van—no problems just an oil change and check up. We followed the Interstate west through more of Montana’s great plains heading towards the mountains. This is fertile land with many of the farms in the valley right at the edge of the mountains. The forest fires near here have created a lot of haze and smoke so there were times when we could not see the mountains or just saw an outline of them. We were looking at the Rockies but certainly it looks very different from the Rockies as we know them in Canada. It is very dry here and a lot of scrub land—it is not hard to figure out where they are doing irrigation. We noticed a sign for a woollen mill at the exit we were taking for our lunch break so found it and had a look. There was a huge inventory of Woolrich garments but somehow the quality was not as good as the mills we had visited in Bemidji MN and Johnson VT—we did not find anything to buy—could be the heat was a factor. We found an interesting place for lunch—a place called the Garage and that is just what it was, an old garage. They made just the best soup—clam chowder and tomato basil—yum. Once back on the road we turned north and headed for the capital of Montana, Helena, but did not stop as we had decided to make our destination Great Falls for the night. We were able to find another in the chain of hospital motels so are happily settled and ready to explore. Great Falls is located on the Missouri River among the five falls that were one of the most challenging but beautiful parts of Lewis and Clarke’s historic journey. We did take time for a very quick look at the Lewis and Clarke National Historic Trail Interpretive Center (they were closing) which did outline their time spent in Montana which had to be an onerous task given the terrain and all the falls in the river. We did find two of the five falls along the River’s edge trail where we had our daily walk. The Missouri is a mighty river too. We finally found our baby back ribs and had a feast for our dinner tonight.