Freight Train

Daily Mileage=285;Total trip=7223 (New milestone we passed 7,000 miles today!)

Today we left Glacier and drove to Bozeman, Montana which is about 100 miles from Yellowstone National Park. We decided to stop here and get an early start tomorrow to get to the park.

We found the ride through the north central to the south eastern part of Montana interesting. The topography changed several times. We saw plains growing wheat for miles with cattle and antelope on them. Rich actually raced the Sante Fe train traveling with us and won. You really do see railways everywhere here and we even saw miles of coal cars. (Who uses coal these days?)

We crossed the Missouri River several times. It is big and it was flowing strong. By the way we also crossed the Lewis & Clark Trail quite a few times. (We're taking time doing this trip in a car. Can't imagine how they did this back then or how they made it over some of the places where we have trouble walking on clear trails!!)

Then we drove through rolling hills that turned back into mountains. Of course the Rockies were never far from our sight and could be easily identified by the snow on the tops (they're not in this photo).

We got to Bozeman in time to drive around the town. It has a Main Street which is an old "main business" type but still very much in use. It, like many of the other towns we've visited, is re-juvenating it'self. There are now restaurants, gift shops and art galleries. It's pretty neat. It does have a 'western' town flare as well.

The University of Montana, home of the Bobcats, is also located here. It was a big campus with a mix of older and newer buildings on it. They have the Museum of the Rockies located here. We didn't go in because of time but did stop to get a photo of Rich and a friend for tonight's blog.

By the way, this horse sculpture is actually done with chains.

We had pizza tonight at a local restaurant and it reconfirmed by belief that you can't get good pizza west of (I say NJ; Rich says PA. Well, maybe as far west as Duryea, PA.). However, had a good micro beer made by the Blue Moon Brewing Company in MT somewhere. That made up for the pizza.

We have had wonderful weather the entire trip but that may be coming to an end. We hit some rain on the way to Bozeman but it really poured for awhile this afternoon. Tonight snow is being forecasted for here and parts of Yellowstone. Hopefully that doesn't happen!!

The cloud patterns were quite large (like everything in Montana). We took this photo because it actually has the clouds lower than the hills.

Well, the blog is now updated. Sorry but we were out of cell/Internet range while in Glacier. As I informed some of you already, they are trying to keep it natural and rustic, like in the old days. It's not such a bad idea! So don't panic if you don't hear from us while in Jellystone (I mean Yellowstone). We're staying in the park but for Grand Teton we're in a "real" hotel outside of the park???!!!

Good night, Love&Joy, Mare & Rich