The Carolina Bed & Breakfast Helena

... Lake lay at the very top and we got to the top at dusk. The small lake at the top by the camp site had hundreds of little fish jumping out of the water bug hunting. Amazing site to see. There were some other campers up there, so Matty asked them if we could put our food in their car so we didn't have to tie it up in a tree that night. It was about 4 degrees so we were keen on getting our tents up and into sleeping bags asap.

Still in heavy bear country, and ...

... to be pretty much up to its highest level of the banks.

We made a couple of stops at rest stops along the way but by 1130 we had reached our exit 240 on I-90 for US-89 north. This took us up through a farmed wide valley that lays between two mountain ranges one of the mountain ranges being Crazy Mountain on the east that still had snow on top and down the sides a ways.

On US-89 north we went through Clyde Park, Wilsail and ...

We day tripped in the car to Great Falls today. Jane drove the entire day and the two of us are still on speaking terms! We visited the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center. Even though it's about the third center we have been to, each one has taught us something new. Lewis and Clark were told by the Native Americans that they would know they were on the Missouri River if they saw the great falls. There is a dam there now, but the falls are ...

... of St. Helena a few blocks away. This was our second surprise of the day. It was more beautiful than we had ever expected. We thought it compared to the most beautiful cathedrals that we saw in England and France. There were dozens of huge stained glass windows manufactured in Germany. 37 of them told Biblical history.

We came back to the motor home to crash, have dinner, and plan the days ahead.

 This morning it rained again and Jim and I finally got to sleep in a bit, although everyone else was up about 6:00 AM to take my sister to the airport for her flight back to San Luis Obispo.  When we woke up Jim talked to his Country Coach advisor, ran some errands and then had to make some fixes to our light system for the ...

... they simply put a fresh layer on top of the old ones and go about their business. I was very excited to see this because I suspected that my black and white “mystery bird” from the Yellowstone entry might be an Osprey too. (However on second look maybe not; if you look more carefully my bird did not have a white front ...

Friday 1st August We were supposed to be back at the surgery at 9 am for a check up on my new tooth, we were a bit late oops! I felt like I had been hit by a bus and felt particularly fragile. My jaw was very swollen too. Once Jason was satisfied that my tooth was exactly in the right place and that my bite was correct I was dosed up with pain killers and we left. We had a loose arrangement to may be go water skiing again later but we didn't definitely expect to go as ...

We woke up Sunday morning and after breakfast, rode our bikes around Deer Lodge, enjoying the scenery and the sites. The old prison is very interesting and so are the many shops and saloons downtown. Note the burger joint next to the prison which features the "Warden Burger". Maggie bought some jewelry made by inmates and of course, Mike "The Spike" had to pose at ...

After breakfast at the Java Shop, a café and local Greyhound depot delightfully caught in the fifties time warp, with the local retired (?) men using it as their early morning meeting place, we headed south. From now on our travels are primarily catching up with friends and newly-found relations so we anticipate we will be spending more time with people and less sightseeing. We waited in line (queued) for about 30 ...

Montana had varying scenery which was nice since it is such a loooooong state. Either Butte or Billings was doing a lot of new neighborhood construction and I loved loved loved the houses they were building! They weren't copy cat houses and they were very cool outdoor-sy/forest looking type houses...I'm horrible at describing these but ...