In Bozeman, I asked this place if I could get pad thai here. They said "No". How can that be???
The day before we left Boze, it rained most of the day starting with a hailstorm. A shot from our stoop out to our poor rental car, left garage-less in the bad weather.
We had a super time in Bozeman, met a lot of great people. When we go back, our tango, yoga, and Jewish communities will be there to pick up where we left off.
We then drove to Great Falls, planned three days there.
As I'm driving, Susanne is madly clicking away out the car window. So these are hers, on the trip Bozeman to Great Falls.
There are times when the modern world really intrudes.
I think I have this "Big Sky" thing figured out (finally). It's the clouds. Even when you're stationary, they seem to move quickly. It all goes into fast-forward when you're doing 70mph. The seemingly odd part is that clouds of different types (fluffy/happy & dark/angry) can and do inhabit the same sky at the same time.
Here's a sky in transition. A wider angle lens would've caught more blue sky on the right. BTW, this is typical of the traffic we encountered. We had the choice of Interstate vs. two-lane roads. This was the short cut that took longer, well worth it.
Another cloud sharing. These transitions take place in minutes and in a few more minutes, it goes back to the way it was..
A tango friend suggested we stop at this state park on the way to Great Falls. It was an opportunity to see a rushing stream close up. Obviously, we were in the dark/angry cloud mode. In fact it started sprinkling.
Here the vid of what she caught me taking. (There was a glitch when I uploaded this vid. There's only one but if you see two, the other is a duplicate. But if I try to delete it, I might erase both.)
And I caught Susanne between trees.
Susanne is going to post more road trip pics so I'll move on to Great Falls. We like to stay near or in the downtown area and that works mostly, but not here. The GF downtown is almost dead; an abandoned building, many empty stores, too many "antique" shops. And we didn't like the hotel. So we cut the stay to overnight and made the most of the time we were there.
First, take a gander at how GF got its name.
That's a dam across the top, but then the falls. Again, a photo doesn't do it. I'd like to do this vid over cuz after the falls, I'm shooting too high and don't get the river until near the end. Oh well, no do-overs in amateursville.
The Missouri River, its many tributaries, and Lewis & Clark dominate Montana lore & geography. It's hard to believe that from its source at Three Forks about 150 miles from Great Falls, it becomes a significant river, only to grow as it heads towards the Mississippi.
Here are a couple of shots from along the shore in GF.
The Great Falls discovery story (much abridged version) started in early 1805 when the Lewis & Clark expedition was working its way up the Missouri and heard tell of a great falls. Finally what they found in June was not one but a series of five falls in an 18 mile stretch of the river. You can't paddle up a falls, so they had to portage all the way around all five. Dragging tons of gear & supplies took weeks.
Outside Great Falls is a Lewis & Clark museum that documents & exhibits the entire journey from conception by President Thomas Jefferson to the end, when both men return to civilization to lead very different lives. I had absolutely no idea how long & difficult that several years long incredible journey was, through over 4,000 miles of mountains & rivers and all four seasons several times over.
The expedition concept begins in 1803 with President Jefferson's mission statement. I wonder if Gene Roddenberry read this before beginning Star Trek. (Note the punctuation error with "it's". I wonder if it started out that way.)
Technologically, 1803 was still back in the 1700's. It wasn't until the 2nd & 3rd decades of the 1800's that significant inventions started happening...the steam boat, railroad, telegraph, etc. It wasn't as if L&C could stroll into their local Cabela's and with a government credit card, order up the latest outdoor gear.
This is embarrassing. Susanne & I were so enthralled with the L&C museum, we took almost no photos. There was so much detail, how do you explain one little snippet when there is so much more?
I did get a shot of a model of one of their dugout canoes being dragged up a slope. There is another man on the far side. There were 33 people on this expedition. They had six canoes & two larger boats. All had to be dragged overland when they portaged.
Lewis purchased a dog for $20 (a huge amount in 1803) prior to the expedition. I wanted to impress you with the amount in today's dollars but the data only goes back to 1913 & would be $413.00 now. Use your imagination to go back another 108 years.
Anyhow, for hardiness he chose a Newfoundland and named him Seaman. We don't have Seaman's bones or even stuffed. A bronze sculpture will have to do.
We learned that Lewis had one big regret concerning the expedition...that he didn't bring along an artist. There was so much they saw that could only be shown in rough sketches or described in words.
Just down the road apiece is a state park called Giant Springs, discovered in 1805 by guess who? There it is, right smack dab next to the Missouri, a giant bubbling spring with millions of gallons of pure water rising up daily at a constant 54 degrees Fahrenheit. It's been going on for thousands, maybe millions of years.
Here's a shot that doesn't do it justice. Only a couple of videos will do.
OK, here come the vids.
In moment of sheer craziness that is pure Susanne, she has a "Titanic" moment.
On to our next stop, an hour's drive west to the little town of Choteau (pronounced "show-toe"). Much nicer digs.
But we're still in the country. The view from our motel room window.
I'm going to quit here...this post has gotten quite long.
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