Goodbye Montana, Hello North Dakota

We are in a new state for both of us.  Neither of us have ever been in North Dakota.  We are in a small town called Williston, ND.  We are in the least expensive motel we have stayed at yet.  No, I think it's the nicest one in town!!  Oh well, we are only here one night.

This Hi Line, highway 2, is a great little road to ride.  There are lots of little towns along the way.  And friends, when I say little, I mean little!!!

We discussed making a left turn and going into Canada but decided we were having too much fun on the Hi Line.

We are just barely over the border of Montana/North Dakota so we have lots of driving to do to get across ND yet.  We plan to go to Fargo, then cut south to Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

This area is known for agriculture of course, and oil.  Yes, oil.  Who knew?

Lots of road kill for those of you who are interested in such things.  Today we saw more dead critters on the road than I think I've seen in my entire life.  Among the numbers were skunks, oppossum(s?), dogs, cats, deer, porcupines and one that I couldn't figure out.

Everything in eastern Montana was one Indian Reservation or another.  Lots of casinos, large and small.  Last night at the restaurant, we had dinner with cowboys and indians !!  

We are both feeling good and very refreshed after our down time in Havre.  Spending the extra day there made a big difference.

Today was also the first day I did all the driving.  Wayne has been doing most of it but today was my turn!

Tomorrow can't come soon enough, I think Wayne is really anxious to leave the thriving metropolis of Williston, North Dakota and I think I  agree.

More later........

Havre? I didn't even know her ! (insert laugh here)

-Here we are in Havre, Montana.   Our journey across the Hi-Line, otherwise known as Highway 2, has been very interesting.  There is a lot of nothingness out there.  For as far as you could see, just wheat fields and flat lands.

Every three or four miles is another grain elevator.  Some are old, some are new, lots and lots of wheat grown in these parts.

If you like seclusion in your life, the Hi Line is the area you should live near.  We would see homesteads miles away from the nearest sign of civilization.  It makes one wonder what happens in an emergency?  What happens in the case of an extreme dose of boredom?  I guess they adapt.  Personally, I would prefer to know that if I step outside my front door and scream bloody murder that someone will hear me besides the cows!

Don't get me wrong, we love this type of land and driving through it is very entertaining.  We went through a typical town called Chester Montana.

Main  street in Chester Montana, yes, that's the whole thing.  Chester was very small but had a definite personality.  I did a video travelogue through Chester if any of you are interested, let me know and I will send it!  Had lots of  fun doing it.

Indicative of the personality of Montana small  towns is the sign we saw just before coming into the metropolis of Hingham Montana.....I wrote it down so I would get it right here......."596 nice people and 1 old sore head"

I told  Wayne we should walk into a cafe (if they had one) and march right up to the counter and say "ok, I would like to meet the old sore head please"

Trains, now there is a subject.  Wayne was in train heaven along the Hi Line.  We saw a few and got some good pics.  But the real thrill was when we got to Havre (pronounced   Have-er)  and found the Diesel repair facility.  Got some pics.

Note to Jim:  This one is for you

One of the more delightful indian folk lore was noted on the sign in the next picture.  The sign says it far better than I could paraphrase:

Hope everyone can read it.  It's a very nice story.

When we got to Havre, it was early afternoon yesterday (Thursday).  We decided to stop anyway and take root for a while.  We reserved our room at the Best Western Great Northern Inn for two nights.  We chilled for the afternoon then went to a recommended restaurant nearby for dinner.  It was fantastic.  We both had steak and shrimp and it was so good.   I haven't had a more tender piece of steak.

Today we just vegged all day.  It felt so good to just rest and sleep and sleep and rest.  I went out to a grocery store this afternoon and got a few things and we just got back now from having a very nice dinner at the 4B's restaurant.

Tomorrow it's back out on the road again and the balance of the Hi Line.  We plan to ride the Hi Line all the way across Montana and North Dakota to Fargo.  Don't think we will make it all the way to Fargo tomorrow but we will stop when we get tired.  We are several days ahead of schedule for getting into Sioux Falls.

More later........love to you all and thanks for following our adventure!

Glacier National Park 09-16-09

Well just take a look at that boys and girls.  We had another fantastic day!  Glacier National Park is an amazing place.  It has a different feel to it than Yellowstone does, but it is gorgeous.

Today was the first day we had just a slight bump in the day.  First of all, we left our hotel in West Glacier this morning and didn't feel like breakfast right away.  We got into the park and wow, we forgot about eating.  Around 1:00 it got to be that both of us were really getting hungry and there was not an abundance of places to eat!  Finally we came onto a lodge that had a restaurant so we went in.

At that point we would have paid $10 for a package of crackers so it didn't matter that it was probably more expensive than we wanted.  Went in, sat down, and sat and sat and sat.  Looking around, we were one of only 3  tables in the place that had someone sitting at them.  Two waitresses and a hostess along with someone who I didn't know what his job was, was not enough to take care of us I guess.

After being noticeably ignored by the taller of the two waitresses, the other one was clearing a table behind me.  I turned around and said "are you our watress?"  She said she wasn't but that she would send "our server" over right away after I asked her with just a slight edge in my voice if ANYONE was.

The same girl came back a couple minutes later saying now that she was indeed our waitress.  Ok, so here we go, we are both starving, no other choices for someplace to eat so we were just captive to the bad vibes in that place.  I ordered something I have never seen on a menu before.......Elk brat sandwich.  Yes, I ate elk sausage!  It was actually very good.

We both enjoyed our lunch and was happy to be back in the car afterwards.  We had already reserved a room for tonight at a place called Circle R.  They had explained they had nothing less than third floor and no they didn't have an elevator.  They did, however have some "rustic cabins" off site that they could let us have for $89.  Ok fine, we'll take it......uh huh

We get here today, find the motel, check in and the girl at the office gives us directions to drive to our "cabin"......directions?  we need directions?  Off we go.

We got lost, could not find the "rustic cabin" so we stopped a passing deputy sheriff and he says "follow that dump truck, he is going there".........ok, now I know we are in trouble.

We get there, it's in the middle of a construction site, it isn't either rustic OR a cabin!

That is the corner of our "rustic cabin" that you can just see on the left.  gravel road, dirt, dirt, bumpy, gravel, dirt right up to the door.

There she is, our rustic cabin!!!  Right in the middle of a construction site!!!   We unloaded our stuff, sat inside for a few minutes, realized we didn't even feel safe since it was so isolated from the rest of town.  We got in the car, and went searching for a place for dinner.  On the way back into civilization, we saw a cute little motel named "Dancing Bears Inn" and it had a great big "vacancy" sign in the window.  Hello!  We are moving.  Wayne left me at the Dancing Bears to get the room, and went back to the "rustic cabin" to load our stuff back into the car and came back to our new room.  

OK, now I'm ready for a fight.  I'm going to get our money back  from that first place, this is ridiculous.  We marched in, and began to tell them why we weren't staying there.  With no problems, no questions and no resistance, they refunded our money and off we went.  Frustrated!   I was all ready for a fight!

Now we are both really approaching exhaustion so we found a market close by, bought a few things and came back to the room and fixed our own meal.  The new room is $10 cheaper and has wi-fi internet and the other place even wanted to charge us $6/hr for access that we couldn't even get out there in our "rustic cabin"

Oh well, we are fed, movie made of today's video, images downloaded and here we are together again on the blog.  All is right with the world again.

Let us see what we saw today............

Beautiful, huh?

This was found when we pulled off the road and just walked down a little bit and there was the clearest water I have ever seen in nature.  It was in parts about 10 feet deep and you could see clear to the bottom, it was beautiful.

There is/was a fire burning nearby and the sky was a bit hazy from the smoke.  Our pictures do show it.  It was actually beautiful, but a bit smoky in parts.

Guess what we found when we arrived at East Glacier?  Amtrak!!   Can you believe it?  We can actually take Amtrak to this beautiful place.  This is our car in front of the station.  There are only two trains a day so it was closed when we were there.

This is the Amtrak Station from the front.......

OK family and friends, I am pooped and need to chill a bit now.  Hope you all enjoy today's pics and forgive my rant about our little "bumps" in the road that we had today.  

Love you all and see us here tomorrow same place, not sure about same time!!!

The travelers......Wayne and Colleen

Bozeman to Glacier Park

Hi there everyone!
Here we are again.  Today we had a ride from Bozeman Montana to Columbia Falls Montana which is just outside Glacier National Park.  We are excited to get to see the park tomorrow.

The ride today was absolutely beautiful.  The forest we drove through was breathtaking.  Log cabins were everywhere.  Log homes, I should say.  There were a couple businesses that made the log homes.  Very strong, sturdy looking homes.  Lots of them here, people are really into log homes.

We spent all afternoon looking for a needle in that first haystack and finally gave up!!!

I have a thing for old wooden barns and buildings.  This was an exquisite example.  These old buildings really have stories to tell if  they could  only talk.

This is not the best glimpse of Summit Lake, but there were no places to stop the car where the view was best.  

It was a beautiful lake.  Another huge lake we past was Flathead lake but sorry, no pics.  

Ok, this is for you Stoney.....thought you'd like this one!

That's it for tonight, tomorrow we see Glacier National Park.  We will have lots of pics for you then........see ya!

Love to all

Wayne and Colleen

Today Bozeman, Tomorrow Glacier National Park

We have been resting a bit here in Bozeman.  We had dinner last night at Famous Dave's BBQ.  It was the usual great food.

This morning we went out to Montana State University and a museum called Museum of the Rockies.  It was a great exhibition of dinosaur fossils, real ones, and early indian relics along with early american vehicles, home furnishings, etc.    It was a very interesting place.

Tomorrow we head to Glacier National Park.  We haven't driven a lot in the last couple days.  We really needed a rest stop of sorts so we stayed the second night here.

Tried to do some laundry tonight but couldn't get an open machine so will try tomorrow.

Hope you are enjoying our travels with us.  Will talk again tomorrow!

Goodbye Yellowstone, Hello Bozeman

Well we changed our minds and decided to come on up to Bozeman, Montana today.  We spent most of the day in the park and then drove up to Bozeman.  We plan to stay here two nights and catch up on some rest as well as do our laundry!

There is a museum here that we are going to see tomorrow.  It is one that Wayne read about online.

I guess blogspot must have deleted the video option.  The little logo for a video clip is gone now.  So there will be no video on this blog after all....sorry.  Also, I looked over the settings and changed the one about you guys leaving comments.  Comments can now be left without having to log in....just comment away using the link at the end of each posting.  Will be lots easier for you.

Three days at Yellowstone have added some beautiful pictures to our library as well as lots of video with our new Flip video camera.  BTW, did I tell you how much........no, i won't do that again!!!

Just a twinge of sadness at leaving Yellowstone for the last time this trip, but excited about what lies ahead of us.  We have been talking to other travelers on the road and everyone says Glacier is amazing and that we will love it too.

We have a nice room in Bozeman and have decided to stay two nights here.  Not sure where we will be staying in Glacier but I'm sure it will be nice!

Note to Lisa and Richard:  We made our reservations for our stay in Sioux Falls.  The Fairfield Inn gave us a room for $  4  9   !!!!    We can't believe it.  That is saving us a ton since we will be there for 6 nights.  I think the usual rate was $99.
Richard, thanks so much for giving us those certs.  We owe you!!!

I even got an Etsy order this morning.  I contacted the lady and told her that we were traveling and not planning to be home for several weeks yet.  She was a sweetheart and said she was a very patient person and would not mind waiting at all.  How cool is that?!!

All of the employees at Days Inn in West Yellowstone were given my cards and offered a 50% discount on any order.  I think I will get some orders from that.  The girl at the desk really seemed interested and even asked me to write it on the back of my card that I had made that offer to her!!!

We are hungry so it's time to close as we are going to go to Famous Dave's for dinner tonight.  Wayne is hungry for a steak.

Hope you all enjoy the pictures and take a minute to leave a comment.  We would love to hear from you too!!!

Love to all.......more tomorrow