The rest of the pictures

Hopefully I can sent the rest of my pictures I wrote about last night. My computer crashed but maybe it is fixed.
It looks like the pictures all went. The descriptions are in the last blog.
We are off today for another adventure.

Glacier "Going to the Sun Highway"

I will let the pictures speak for themselves. Here is a brief description of what you are looking at.
The white flowers are called bear grass and literally cover the burned over areas where lightning has caused forest fires.
The Cedars Trail shows many cedars over 100 feet tall and some are 300 years old. The root Tom is standing beside shows how shallow the roots are and many have fallen into Avalanche Creek. This trail we took was nearly a mile long and we were at about 4000 feet. We are doing well for old folks, I would say.
There is a picture of a ribbon waterfall coming from the hanging canyon so named because it was formed by a small tributary glacier. When the main glacier melted the canyon formed by this glacier was high up above the valley which had been formed by the main glacier.
The step falls are formed by rocks eroding at different levels.
The triple divide pass is where water goes in three directions unlike the Continental Divide which only divides the water into the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Here is also goes to the Hudson River.
A tourist took a nice picture of the two of us, so am sending it along for the mountain view.
We had to hike a bit to get to the waterfall where Tom is standing, but we made it fine.
I'll have to put the rest of the pictures in another blog. I can't seem to load them all on this one.

Glacier National Park Day 1

A few showers didn't dampen our spirits as most of them happened while we were traveling.
AND the mountains are really something to write home about. It is just awesome!!!!
Our campsite is great with heated pool and hot tubs. DRAT I forgot our suits.
The sites are in the woods basically and not too close together. This is the KOA at West Glacier. There is a nice store and if I don't want to fix breakfast, there is a nice restaurant with a breakfast under $4.00. Dinners are not pricy either. We are out of town in the forest and I bought a walking stick with a bell on it. However, the Ranger told me not to depend on the bell but to walk, talk and clap your hands when on the trail.
There are some short trails which he outlined for us to take tomorrow.
The 'Going to the Sun' Highway will be our goal tomorrow. It will take all day, though it is not long as miles go. With the stops, it will take all day according to the Ranger.
We took a drive this afternoon after having lunch at our campsite. We were set up by 11:00 a.m. Along the drive we stopped to look for wildlife, but ended up with pictures of flowers.
On the way from Conrad this morning, we stopped at an Indian Gift Store in the Blackfeet Indian Reservation. On the way out, three drunk indians were eyeing our car and camper. One approached Tom who is a soft touch and got two dollars from him. Good thing he didn't approach me!!! I don't yield so quickly.
I am sending pictures, but not taking the time to place them. There is just too much fun things to do. One nice picture is one I took on the road here, but it shows the mountains nicely. We can't see the glaciers as they are under 6 feet of snow, again, according the the Ranger. I think the pink flowers are Indian Paintbrush. I forgot my flower book. The lake in the picture is McDonald Lake and the guy having lunch is someone I picked up to help me set up the camper!!!!!!

Outside Glacier

Yes, it is the fourth of July and we are sitting in a campsite just outside Glacier National Park in the little town of Conrad.
The TomTom wanted us to go a route that would have taken us nearly 600 miles today. We knew that didn't work, but Tom had worked out a route before we left home that was about 380 miles. We had to shut off the TomTom as the lady kept telling us to turn around but we took the shortcut. No towns to go through and no traffic. That comment is very true. We drove for nearly 200 miles without seeing but just a few cars. Actually the first 100 miles, we saw 2 cars. There were no houses either. I don't know where the ranchers live. Tom was clicking along at 70 miles an hour, so the road was great.
Before we got to this shortcut, we stopped at a rest stop on I94 just above the Yellowstone River. It was so beautiful and I got a close up picture of the yellow Yucca that was spotting the hills all along the road. Of course I had already stood behind a large Yucca bush for Tom to take my picture when I saw the signs all over the place saying to stay on the sidewalk because of rattlesnake danger!!!!!
The hills were full of something that looked like fields of yellow wild mustard and accented with silver sagebrush. As the wind billowed the grass in waves among the fields of yellow and silver it reminded me of a Monet painting.
Along with the fat cows grazing in the fields, we saw 2 antelope and one deer (alive that is )
Interesting to note that beehives were very prominate in the fields. I guess this is where they spend the summer.
The elevation is not bothering Tom so far and we were at 4700 feet at one point today. Now we are at about 3900 feet.
Tom liked the Yellowstone canyon and we followed the river beside us for miles and miles.
The pictures that I will be sending will show me and the Yucca blossoms. I had actually remarked that I wondered it there was a snake in the plant.
If you look closely to the right on one picture, you can see an elk. There were actually 2 but by the time I saw them Tom was flying by at 70 miles an hour.
I took a picture last night of our campsite by a large clay hill. We walked over to it and it was really made of clay.

Badlands

Well, here we are in the Big Sky Campground in Montana. And big sky it is. Today we were driving and all of a sudden I said to Tom, "I can see everything for 360 degrees." The sky looked sooooo big.
We rode along looking at beautiful farm lands and ponds for hundreds of miles until we hit the Theodore Roosevelt Painted Canyon. It was hard to believe that we went from rolling plains to canyons. As you will see from the pictures, it was really a beautiful sight.
I don't know what the fields of yellow are in the picture, but the landscape was simply one giant painting after another, ever changing in color, shape and texture. The deep blue ponds accented the green fields of corn and often there would be gold where the wheat had been harvested. It was almost like watching a scenic movie.
Last night was horrific because of the wind. It must have been blowing 40 miles an hour all night. I never closed my eyes until after 3 this morning. I was sure the camper would be damaged. I didn't know until I talked about my fear this morning that Tom had the same concern. But, God is good and we suffered no damage, except loss of sleep.
Tonight there is a good breeze, but it's in the 70's and very pleasant. Tomorrow we have many things to stop and see along the way, but we will be on the outskirts of Glacier.

North Dakota

We have made it to ND today after the traffic jam around Minneapolis. We had a by-pass and that was fine, but a zillion cars, trucks and campers jammed the Interstate so we spent about 40 minutes going 5 miles an hour. However, we are here and aside from the heat everything is fine.
It was 90 degrees with wind about hurricane force, so we set up the camper, unzipped all the windows so the wind could pass through and not blow us over and went across the way to a nice restaurant. We ate in the cool of AC and now I am in the lobby of this resort writing. I don't have a picture today, but will be in more interesting country tomorrow. Today we passed 400 miles of corn fields, nice farms with gigantic silos and hundreds of small ponds. Tom speculates that these are sink holes left over from when the glacier moved through a long time ago and now they have filled with water. Some of them are impressively large.
The farms are beautiful because of the green corn fields, freshly harvested wheat fields giving a golden release to the ponds and fields. It really is lovely and different country.

Wisconsin

We lived through the Chicago traffic and maddening toll booths, but I won't say it was pleasant. We actually had to stop at an Interstate Oasis to give Tom a break. We bought a USA today and tried not to read the finance page. After an ice cream and paper reading break we decided to walk down the mall in this highway oasis. We came to an Interstate booth and I told the lady about how we had gone through a fast lane because we had gotten off accidently trying not to go through the fast lane. When you have 8 lanes merging on toll booths at 70 miles an hour, it's enough to give anyone a heart attack. The lady smiled and said not to worry, we were allowed to miss two tolls in a 24 hour time.
Now we are in Wisconsin at a beautiful campsite. We are the only "little' camper here, but we are happy and very comfortable. Tom is reading and I'm doing my blog. We don't always have WiFi but this place is just like being home on the internet.
I had to take some windmill pictures today out the window. We went for over five miles seeing them as far as the eye could see and very close to each other. They were also putting in more and the highway had trucks carrying those huge blades. Actually they are so big it takes a truck for each one. Tax dollars going up fast.
I will send a picture along for you to see and also a unique formation we saw this afternoon when we stopped to eat at a German Haus to give Tom a little break from driving. They made a wicked reuben.
Maybe I can write more tomorrow if we have internet access.