Great Falls
Trip Start
Aug 12, 2008
1
9
Trip End
Aug 21, 2008
Great Falls,
Montana,
United States
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
We arrived after 11 pm on August 11th, but it was clear even in the dark that development is rather haphazard and not very attractive. The Missouri River has been repeatedly dammed (Lewis and Clark's Camp Fortunate further south is under a reservoir), so the section of the river by our hotel (about 100 feet from the building and several miles upstream from the Black Eagle Dam) is wide and calm - in fact, it's a reservoir. But... the trail along the river is lovely, full of birds - including scores of the spectacular American White Pelican, which are huge - bees, cottonwood trees and beautiful wildflowers. There is recreation for the community aside from the path itself (pools, skateboard park, horseshoe park (!), tennis) and concrete benches and picnic tables every 100 yards or so. Beautiful and functional
Missouri River view from our hotel room
. Lewis and Clark dominate Great Falls. In 1805 they expected the passage through the area to take a few days, but it became a month of portaging over five massive falls - too bad we can't see what they saw. The falls have a combined height of more than 400 feet, and the work was grueling.
Great Falls is also the area in which Merriwether Lewis was chased into the river by a grizzly - a potentially history-changing event, had the grizzly not decided to abandon him.
Ron and I walked about 5 miles down the river on the morning of Tuesday the 12th, walked back and stopped in the old downtown for lunch at the 5th Street Diner, walked a circuitous (lost?!) route back to the hotel, then rented bikes and did it all over again, riding farther upstream than we had walked - all the way down to the Lewis and Clark National Historic Interpretive Center. We are a bit worried about all the sitting-on-the-bus time in the next few days, so I think we overdid the exercise today.
(I keep mixing up "up river" and "down river," because here the Missouri flows downriver in a northerly direction. Very confusing to me.)
When we were almost back to the hotel, I realized that my eyes were aching. It took me a while to figure it out - it is SO bright here - hard, direct sun. It feels like the Florida Keys feel in April after an overcast DC winter - my body is just not ready for the intensity! The sun is hot and bright, the sky is blue, blue, blue, and the breeze is perfect
Skate Park
. What a great beginning to our trip.Our official group tour began with an evening (private) visit to the Lewis and Clark National Historic Interpretive Center. We needed more time to see the exhibits, but we had a great catered dinner, open bar and lots of socializing. Our tour group consists of more than forty people who have travelled with the Historian Emeritus of the National Park Service (and god to many on this tour) Ed Bearrs, who is now 85 years old. There is a lot of laughter as well as great historical knowledge.
Ed is such an institution that he has a Wikipedia entry ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Bearss ), Smithsonian Magazine ( http://www.smithsonianmag.com/people-places/bearss.html ), he's in Ken Burns' Civil War series, and he has several hits on YouTube. (Here's just one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wg4WkYXfPic&feature=related) Hearing him talk is priceless!
My friend from college Martha Gane is our tour manager. She's full of ideas, attends to details, is knowledgeable about everything, and unflappable. Her company is South Mountain Expeditions: www.southmountainexpeditions.com.
Our final night here was marked by a wonderfully open window to the Missouri River and cool temperatures. Very nice. However, we were not expecting the hourly train passing across the river - memories of Dresden's commuter trains for us. Here, however, the long freight trains announce their arrival miles in advance with extremely loud horns/whistles. Eventually, the rumbling comes, too. I heard three trains, Ron heard five. Not such a welcome sound when one is trying to sleep!
We're off to Glacier National Park tomorrow!
