Great Falls here we come

Last evening we asked owner where we could for our exercise. She said follow the road that goes across their ranch, it goes for 3-4 miles. So this morning we hopped down to the road and took off. As we walked we noticed that this is the route that Reno(Custer's Major who was leading a flanking assignment) had taken. As we walked over the first hill all we saw was prairie. In just a moment we came upon a pronghorn and just after that we heard some howling from several different animals. Our supposition was that they were coyotes. They were close and in the middle of no where, were a bit frightening. We had walked from civilization back in history. What an awsome feeling.

As we left, we had intended to fuel up, but there was no way out once we pulled into the pumps. We would have had to release our car(the tow) in order to back out. Not fun at all. So as I was turning our vehicle around in a parking lot across the street, I found that the curb was much higher than I had expected. This put the RV in a twist and we dumped almost all of our ingredients stored on one side of the vehicle. Not only that but I notice about a mile down the road that we had shatter the upper right hand side of our windshield. However, it did not cause any additional problems with the other break from earlier yesterday. In fact, I had thirty minutes earlier just finished filing a claim on the windshield. They plan to have the windshield to us in Livingston, MT in about a week and a half. If this is as bad as it gets, we are okay.

The trip to Great Falls took us thru Billings, MT(straight thru the middle of town) and then we hit the back roads. I wish I could have made pictures that could have shown what this country is like. Sometimes we were looking at miles and miles of plains filled with hay or wheat. Other times we would be following a beautiful river shaded with cottonwood trees. One community "Barber" had about 10 buildings and homes, none of which were probably built since the dust bowl days. Ranches were everywhere, mostly cattle but some sheep.

Before we left, I made the statement that I would feel that we were nearly home when we crossed the Missouri river. Well tonight we are staying about 200 yards from the Missouri here in Great Falls.

Tomorrow we will finally get to St. Mary, MT the eastern gateway to Glacier.