Heading North Again

Heading North Again

Wednesday 12 Sept 2007

Spent the night in a very nice little (private) campground, on the Yellowstone River, just outside of Gardiner. I’m glad now that the Mammoth Hot Springs site was ‘full’. Very clean washrooms, nice hot showers, nice parking spot backing on the river, cable TV, Internet, Sani-connect, power all included in the rate, plus 10% off because I had my CAA card! Dumped & flushed holding tanks and filled up with fresh water.

Up the road Northwards, with a side trip to Chico Hot Springs, an upscale resort in the middle of nowhere, with a private airstrip, fishing facilities, ‘dude ranch’ activities. We decided not to use the hot-spring, as it was just a smaller pool alongside the hotel swim pool, and did not look that ‘inviting’. Headed on up one of the minor roads via Pray and Pine Creek, passing through obvious ranching & ‘hobby farm’ area to Livingstone, where we get back onto the I-90, heading West & North.

The land is flat and/or rolling hills for as far as the eye can see. Not a particularly interesting vista, other than the remoteness, dryness and scarcity of population. Mainly wheat farming as we get more North, although earlier there was a region which looked like cattle ranching.

We bypass Helena (the State Capital, or Capitol as they seem to call them here) and continue Northwards through Great Falls, stopping for gas in a little ‘wheat town’. Nice old truck in the back yard next to the gas station. Looked like it might be an early 30’s IH.

At Shelby we turn West on Hwy2 toward Glacier National, and stop at a Rest Area in Cut Bank (on the edge of the Blackfeet Indian Reserve). Since the town boasts it is in both the Wheat and Oil & Gas territory, did they get the name Blackfeet because of the Oil?

The Rest Area seems to permit overnighting. It doesn’t say so, but there are other signs saying what you can’t do, and ‘Overnight Parking’ is not one of them! So we will see how we fare.

I’ll probably post this now if I can hack a wifi network, since there is unlikely to be anything else until we get up to Drumheller.