We woke up to a nice sunny day this morning. The temperature was around 10 deg C. It's promising to be a fine day but you never know with the weather. We're hearing all kinds of bad weather reports about the mid-west with severe thunderstorms. So, we keep our options open except, what the hay...I'll wear my shorts today for the first time since leaving Ontario eons ago (or so it seems to us).
Travelling from Butte, MT we are going through some good sized mountains where once again the clouds re-appeared and it was spitting a bit. Once through the mountains, we are now on the open M
ontana range. This is a totally different landscape. It consists of gently rolling hills and dry grass and sage land. This is where the beef cattle roam unrestricted. The mountains stay visible in the distance and I must say, the scenery never seems to get boring. Here and there are cultivated areas where crops are grown. They need irrigation though to survive. You see these massive central pivot irrigation systems all over the place. We're driving along I-90 through a large valley basically until we get to Bozeman. There we had to cross another mountain range, the Bridger Range. Once we crossed these mountains, we were again on w
hat I call the open range. The nature of this part of Montana is a lot rougher. Again the landscape consists of rolling hills and low mountains. There are few farms to be seen. We often drive for 30 minutes or more without seeing any sign of human habitation. A fair amount of cattle can be seen grazing on the sparse grass. Also, we saw numerous deer all over. These appear to be white tail deer. We saw mostly does but also a number of bucks.
ontana range. This is a totally different landscape. It consists of gently rolling hills and dry grass and sage land. This is where the beef cattle roam unrestricted. The mountains stay visible in the distance and I must say, the scenery never seems to get boring. Here and there are cultivated areas where crops are grown. They need irrigation though to survive. You see these massive central pivot irrigation systems all over the place. We're driving along I-90 through a large valley basically until we get to Bozeman. There we had to cross another mountain range, the Bridger Range. Once we crossed these mountains, we were again on w
hat I call the open range. The nature of this part of Montana is a lot rougher. Again the landscape consists of rolling hills and low mountains. There are few farms to be seen. We often drive for 30 minutes or more without seeing any sign of human habitation. A fair amount of cattle can be seen grazing on the sparse grass. Also, we saw numerous deer all over. These appear to be white tail deer. We saw mostly does but also a number of bucks. 
After Billings MT, we came to the Little Big Horn area. This of course triggered my "trivia brain" and I got to think about General Custer who lost the battle against Sitting Bull and his Lakota and Cheyenne bands at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. Next weekend there is a re-enactment of this battle on the Crow Indian Reservation there. Too bad we're a week too early, I would have liked to see that. This reservation is enormous, we drove for about 2 hours before we were through it. It is 2.3 million acres large and the fifth largest Indian Reservation in the US.
The reservation ends at the Montana-Wyoming state line. We continued on through Wyoming. They call Wyoming "Big Sky Country" and that is an 
apt name for it. By now the clouds were mostly gone and the temperature reached an astonishing 24 deg C. I was glad to be wearing shorts I tell you. The scenery is just great and ever changing. I'm going out on a limb and say that the east-west route through the northern states will prove to be well worth taking. If we go due north we would be in Saskatchewan, not so interesting. Also, from Montana north we would be in Alberta, also not so interesting with the exception of the extreme western part of the Rockies. So far, we have had a beautiful drive since leaving the Pacific Coast.
apt name for it. By now the clouds were mostly gone and the temperature reached an astonishing 24 deg C. I was glad to be wearing shorts I tell you. The scenery is just great and ever changing. I'm going out on a limb and say that the east-west route through the northern states will prove to be well worth taking. If we go due north we would be in Saskatchewan, not so interesting. Also, from Montana north we would be in Alberta, also not so interesting with the exception of the extreme western part of the Rockies. So far, we have had a beautiful drive since leaving the Pacific Coast.
We will continue to follow I-90 until Madison, Wisconsin. Tomorrow we plan to attend church here in Gillette, WY where we're staying overnight. After church we'll travel to Rapid City, South Dakota, where we'll stay for two nights. Then we are again in familiar territory since we were there two years ago on our last big trip. We are planning to visit Mount Rushmore again, barring the weather conditions of course (thunderstorms are forecast). I'll probably not blog tomorrow so I'll say goodbye for now and I'll catch y'all on Monday night again.
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