Taking the Day Off, Sorta

Tuesday started with an early yoga class, nine fit ladies plus Susanne & me.  We struggled, didn't do everything, but ended the class tired by relaxed.

Then off to get Costco gas & some shopping.  The nice part of gas at Costco is you can clean your windshield.  The downside is the price isn't that much lower, 3 cents a gallon.  Prelim. calculations, we're getting 30mpg on the Chrysler.

The locals are really friendly, always happy to strike up a conversation.  I thanked the Costco gas lady for being able to clean the windshield & she stayed with me during the entire fillup, chatting about Bozeman & Montana.

Every couple of months or so, we lunch at Costco....a death dog & a drink, economical & in moderation, not terribly health detrimental.

We capped the evening with tango lessons & a practica.   Didn't get any really good shots.

We've been asked for pics of the apartment.  Problem is...when Susanne & I move in, we spread out so our lodgings rapidly become unphotographable.  If you visit the website for this place, you get pristine shots.

Here's the where to go: GARAJ MAHAL.

Click on the small photos below the large one for more views.

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I have come to love history.  Paris is loaded with it as my blog has shown.  Well, we have some here.

The east coast is filled with Revolutionary War & the period that followed.  I swear, almost any place you go in Virginia, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, & New York, someone claims "George Washington slept here."

Well, in Montana, their version is: "Lewis & Clark paddled by here."  It turns out about 45 minutes from Bozeman there's a place where on July 25-27, 1805 (210 years ago, almost to the day), Lewis & Clark made it to the headwaters, the place where the Missouri River begins.  That was their mission, assigned by President Jefferson.  The Missouri was already named.  It was up to Lewis to name the three joining rivers.  He named them as follows:

Jefferson: The President, of course.
Madison: Jefferson's Secretary of State (who of course later became president)
Gallatin: Albert Gallatin was Jefferson's Secretary of the Treasury.  Perhaps he paid for the trip.

It's the Gallatin that flows to Yellowstone.  Bozeman is the seat of Gallatin County.

OK, enough yakking, let's have some visuals.  I'll start with a video that pans along the Jefferson, across a small stream, then on to the mouth of the Madison, then down stream where the Gallatin joins the flow in a about a mile to officially become the Missouri.

We saw some wildlife.  A small deer was foraging across where the rivers joined.  Susanne's 22x telephoto makes the deer almost chummy.  In the bright sun at 1/400th of a second, all the hand tremors are gone.

We also saw some shore birds in the distance.  The park ranger was walking by & ID'd them as pelicans.  I always thought pelicans were seashore birds.

Which reminds me of the opening lines of a limerick by Ogden Nash:

A wonderful bird is the pelican,
His bill will hold more than his belican

Today, we did a swing to Butte (an old city, we didn't spend much time there) then on to Deer Lodge with a car museum and the Montana State Prison museum.  The prison operated from 1871 to 1979.  We took the tour, it's a grim place.  Photos later.

We also went to Helena, the state capitol.  But by then we'd had a long day so we headed back to Bozeman.

I'm tired.  Will continue in another post.