Howard Road Trip

Montana is a huge state to drive across - the western part and the Rocky Mtns are really scenic. Marina drove us over the continental divide! Missoula and Bozeman are pretty campuses in nice college towns - both cities have lots of restored older homes in neighborhoods with a lot of character. Even Butte, surprisingly, was interesting. It has a lot of historic buildings downtown. It seems like they could be restored and turned into nice hotels, restaurants, etc. Of course, the huge open pit mine in Butte distracted from the ambiance...

Billings is just plain bleak - we arrived late in the evening, spent the night in a hotel there, and took off in the morning. I think they need a zoning ordinance or some type of city planning...at the intersection of I-90 and I-94, there is a huge auto wrecking yard that is highly visible from far away. The cars are piled all the way up this hill and it is appalling!

Marina is right - the moment we crossed the Montana-Wyoming border, the pavement on I-90 turned reddish-pink! Really strange. We stopped at the Little Bighorn Battlefield (Custer's last stand...)National Monument. It was pretty interesting - at least the Indians won one.

We're in Sheridan, WY overnight tonight. It's a nice town with the beautiful Bighorn Mtns. as a backdrop. It has a very "old western town" feel. You can tell the people who live here have an investment in their community - the downtown has been restored to look like it did in the late 1800s. And then there are more contemporary murals, sculptures, and other public art scattered about. However, there is a really high proportion of pickup trucks with rifle racks here...a little scary.

I had fun tonight re-connecting with a good friend from both high school and college (Univ. of Arizona). And the girls enjoyed getting to know his daughters. He's a doctor with the VA Hosptial here in town. We both told stories about each other's past lives which both delighted and embarassed our respective daughters! And I felt good because I neither have gray hair nor wear bifocals, but he does! Ha, ha!

Tomorrow we'll head to Mt. Rushmore, passing through the towns of Buffalo (!), Gillette, and Rapid City on our way. After that, stay tuned for the visit to Carhenge and the Christensen family wheat farm and pig ranch of western Nebraska. The cord for uploading pix from the digital camera to the laptop seems to have "disappeared" so it may be a while before any more pictures get posted.

ESH