20.05.2012 – 20.05.2012  16 °C

We drove out of the north gate of Yellowstone early this morning in order to start the next part of our journey up thru Canada and across the Rockies back to Seattle. Today’s drive took us across a third of Montana.

Our first stop of the day was in a moderate sized town called Bozeman (gateway to Big Sky ski resort). The drive out there was pretty picturesque.. huge mountains on either side of the valley (that the road drove thru), rolling greeny/ yellowy grass covered hills filled with cows! Montana is just how I pictured it; huge mountains, rolling green hills and that big ‘open’ sky. Its quite a bit more populated than Wyoming (probably because the farm land looks a fair cut above) but still has that big open feel. We stopped at Bozeman with the express reason of going for a swim in their hot springs. We knew it was a commercial venture we just didn’t realise how commercial… A couple of biggish swimming pools and a few smaller ‘soaking’ pools. It’s a Sunday today, so the kids were going mental in the pools, it is an indoor venue…. You get the drift! Lots of noise, splashing and fun (particularly if you are seven).

Our drive continued north west across the Montana countryside towards Helena (the capital). By now, we had left the big mountains behind and just had hundreds of acres of farms, particularly, wheat fields! They just go on and on and on! We actually found a commercial sized mill and bakery on our way so stopped for a pastry for morning tea and a loaf of bread for lunch.

Helena came (smallish city.. not even Coffs sized) as did lunch. Our lunch was a picnic lunch of stale bread (thanks to the factory..), meat and cheese, consumed on the local public servants lunch table.. The first park we found was next to the capital building for the state of Montana!

The drive after lunch saw us climbing up into the mountains of Montana and across the continental divide (yup we’re back in the Rockies) towards Missoula (a city on the western side of Montana). We left behind the rolling grasslands and returned back into pine forests, craggy mountains and all of it still dusted by snow!

The late afternoon saw us pull off into a little state park called Beaver Tail with a plan to stretch our legs and see if we can find some of the little critters along the banks of the river.. No luck with the beavers but we did manage to get some of the kinks out of the legs!

Missoula is probably one of the largest towns in Montana and was our place of lodging for the evening. Its situated in a basin surrounded by huge mountains.. I can imagine it gets a bit chilly here in the winter! Dinner was at the local Chinese before we headed in for an early night.

Song of the Day– Dixie Chicks, Wide open spaces