MONTANA !

Been tardy on posting...sorry about that.

I made the photos extra large. It messes up the Popular Posts column to the left but..hope they view okay for you.


Rather than break up Montana into several blog entries, I'm going to just post a lot of photos with captions. We've seen so many places that's it's difficult to put them all in. So, an overview....

Windmill in the Museum of the Great Northern Plains, a mostly agricultural historical museum in the very small town of Fort Benton, Montana. We stayed about 2 hours poking around.

Also in the museum are these bison (mistakenly called Buffalo) that were in the Smithsonian before being situated here. Notice how the small Bison does not look like the parents yet.

Our RV park outside of Havre (pronounced Have Her), Montana. LOTS of room around us...and some gorgeous sunsets.

Took our kayak out for a couple of hours in the local reservoir...pulled up along the shore for some lunch. The lake is like glass. 

This is just one of the houses along the side of the reservoir. The water is waaaay down because a small dam broke upstream so the water has been stopped from coming down into here. You can see how the ladder should be in the water...not that I would want to come down that ladder!

Had some terrific clouds come over us in Havre.

We put the cockpit top on to protect the kayak from the rain and Katie decided she likes it here...zzzzzz.

Bear Paw Lake for some more kayaking. Isn't this a gorgeous spot?

Bear Paw Lake from above...what scenic surrounding hills...so green this time of year.

One of our favorite birds because of it's calls. Red-breasted Blackbird (male). The female is all brown and this red you see is when they're in mating season. Trying to look their best to attractive the female. Nothing every changes.

A couple of white pelicans. They look so ungainly in the water but, when they fly, they soar and are magnificent.

Canada Geese (it's Canada Geese, not Canadian Geese). Mom up front and Dad in the back.

Our spot in Glasgow, Montana for a couple of nights. Went to an old movie house where we saw Shrek on the big screen for $2 each! 

One afternoon we went to the Busted Knuckle bar to try out the local brews. Place used to be owned by a mechanic who got tired of...you guessed it...busting his knuckles fixing cars so....why not open a brew pub? Good choice by our taste buds. Nice beers.

This is a Sears Roebuck's house. You bought it out of a catalog...remember catalogs?...then, it was shipped to you in pieces and you put it all together yourself! Hopefully with some friends and family. Pretty cool.

Inside one of the many, many rooms in this local museum in Glasgow. This happened to be full of taxidermist animals and bar paraphernalia. Sometimes these museums are too much to take in in one visit. We get overwhelmed.

When we're allowed to Katie in with us, I put here in this front-facing pouch. She loves it, as you can imaging...getting carried all over the place.

This is Montana. Personally, I never get tired of the wide open spaces. I could drive for hours like this (and usually do!) and never get bored. It's so peaceful.

Well, I hope you like this one...kinda different, but a small overview of some of our stops.

Keep in touch!

kim/katie/steve

Glacier National Park, Montana

We've been to Glacier National Park at least four times now (not bragging). This time we took our new kayak early, early in the morning on Lake McDonald. You will see, from the photos, that is was a bit colder than we expected, but it was still magnificent.

ready to launch....

Katie loves being out on the water with us!

You'll have to look very closely to see the mom and her babies...a few of them like to jump on her back while she swims. We watched them for about 15 minutes.

Isn't that a gorgeous view !!??

Brrrrr...both Katie and Kim are all bundled up from the brisk morning wind.

On our way back to the dock...in the middle of the lake looking north. The fog has lifted.

We took a short drive to a bridge where the river flows out of the lake...

okay...caption...river flowing out of the lake

...and saw these two deer across the bridge. The ranger told us they're quite used to us two-legged creatures !

After about 10 minutes, they leisurely headed off into the forest.

One last view of the lake....

If you're interested in a video of this gorgeous lake....

https://youtu.be/ndAenc7cZI4


steve/kim/katie

6/30/2020

Gorgeous Montana Countryside

We left Hungry Horse, Montana (outside of West Glacier NP) the other day and decided to go the back roads south to Helena, Montana. Little did we know that we would come across vintage western United States beauty. You can see why they call Montana "Big Sky Country".

Heading east through the Glacier NP and the Rocky Mountains.

Here's our route. You can see the Rocky Mountain range running south to north.

It is so difficult to photograph a bird flying above but Kim got this Bald Eagle just right.

Now...onto the Montana vistas....

Road, roads, roads

See the cloudburst in the horizon?

And...more roads

We only drove 55 mph to enjoy the vistas

Love how the clouds parallel the mountain range in front.

The roads and scenery was like this for 75 miles...never got tired of it.

A gathering of the horses. We saw lots of them along the way. Wonderful animals.

...and, of course, our obligatory Katie photo...

...still trying out combinations for Katie on the kayak.

Short one this time...sure is hard to pick only a few photos...there are so many. Plus, the photos can only convey so much. You really have to be there to fully appreciate the beauty.

steve/kim/katie

Glacial Lake Missoula, Montana

We stopped in Missoula, Montana for a few days to see where the Glacial Lake Missoula formed over 10,000 years ago. We had previously explored central Washington in the Scablands, an area that was scoured by the floods that came through years ago...dozens, and even a hundred times.

Current city of Missoula showing ancient lake shorelines.

Lake Missoula water levels long ago covering the current city of Missoula.

There used to be 2,000-ft ice dam that was created during the last ice age.  This ice dam stopped up the Clark River and began to form Lake Missoula behind it.

3D rendering of one of the many ice dams that blocked the river

3D rendering of how the ice dam might've looked

It's estimated that it took between 50 and 100 years to fill up the lake ! The dam eventually gave way and all that water came rushing through at a rate of  65 mph!

This towering mass of water and ice literally shook the ground as it thundered toward the Pacific Ocean, stripping away hundreds of feet of soil and cutting deep canyons—”coulees”—into the underlying bedrock. With flood speeds approaching 65 miles per hour, the lake would have drained in as little as 48 hours.

Yes, I know...this is a bit geeky, but to us, it is totally fascinating.

 I hiked up to the floodplain lines on the mountain and this is what is what it looks like today looking towards the ice dam on the horizon. The water level would've been over 500 feet above me!

Lake Missoula stretched eastward more than 200 miles and, at its maximum height and extent, contained more than 500 cubic miles of water - more water than Lake Erie and Lake Ontario combined.

Path of the flood across central Washington

So...this is one of the great things about travelling so much. You learn many interesting facts and details about events and places. Plus, we get to be amateur geologists ! 

Hope you enjoyed this educational blog. More flowers and scenic views coming....

kim/steve/katie

oh, let's not forget our Katie-photo....

Katie likes to keep me company in the morning.

We started to post events on Twitter at @lastricks. If you have twitter, check it out.

https://twitter.com/lastricks

if anyone is interested in more flood data:

http://columbiariverimages.com/Regions/Places/missoula_floods.html