On the US 2 we were frustrated by the rain, the flies the ranger station at Essex and the town of East Glacier, we had planned to go into the Two Medicine area on the east side of Glacier and do more hiking but the lack of park services and with the overall disappointment of the Flathead national forest, we decided to cut short our Glacier vacation to head for the city life. Then, the town of Browning frustrated us even more.

We wondered if we would be spending all our time in Montana in rest areas Sad smile I guess we were spoiled in Idaho. Looks like no highways go through public lands, so to s7-15 Dupuyer Reat Areaave money we planed to just drive through this state fast!

 

Dupuyer Rest Area

Fortunately, the first rest area was nice & clean, but we left the forest in search of fresh water for our tanks and they have capped off the spigot here, although they let a sprinkler run for the entire 17 hours we were there.

Towns we saw -East Glacier & Browning
Location: N48.1985°, W112.5075° Rest Area – a few miles north of Dupuyer, Mt on the US 89.
Nights Stayed: July 15th 2014    –   Miles Driven : 81

 

 

American Legion Park – Fairfield Montana – A Nice Little Town

We had no plans to stop here. As we drive through towns we snap pics of the welcome to town signs, mostly just to have a7-16 Visitors Center 2 marker on our roll of film so we know about where we were when we snap a cloud picture.

I was surprised to see a sign through my viewfinder inviting us to stay the night, with a free dump, so to pay them back for their hospitality we bought gas & propane for the Minnow and some food we didn’t HAVE to have and we were very happy to find some cosmetics in their drug store in the morning.

Towns we saw -Dupuyer, Bynum, & Choteau
Location: N47.61655°, W111.97857° – A bit north of Great Falls
Nights Stayed: July 16th 2014    –   Miles Driven : 55

 

Great Falls Montana

Nice city, we got a bunch of shopping done and had a good time in their genealogy center, visiting with the local historians.

7-17 Evening on the Missouri River

Line of geese crossing the Missouri River road in downtown Great Falls

First stop was the visitors center, we asked the ladies about over-nighting, they told us about these Missouri river turnouts that they thought we could use, so we spent the hot evening in one of them after our shopping, yes including Walmart, us old folks on a budget are stuck there, Eh? (We have met a few Canadians, Eh? )

The turnout was filled up with locals escaping the heat with there kids playing in the river, at 10PM (it is still daylight, up here!) dinner was done but we were finishing up our dinner movie when a nice local knocked on the door to warn us that we had to vammoose, the cops come every night and stiffly fine anyone caught there after 10. :/  !!!!! We looked out to see all the upright law fearing Great Fallians scattering like frightened rabbits, we thanked her profusely and hurriedly stowed and battened to flee to Sams Club.
Sams and Walmart were only a few blocks apart but we had noticed earlier that  there was an asphalt smelling plant across the street from Walmart.

Towns we saw – Vaughn
Nights Stayed: July 18th 2014    –   Miles Driven : 54

 

7-18 Armington Junction Rest Area

Armington Junction Rest Area –

Drove by Malmstrom AFB on the way outta Great Falls, it reminded me of all the nuke missile silos out here on the plains, we saw humvees and old 1980’s Peacekeeper trucks all the way to this rest area, when I took my GPS reading, I got a signal under my aluminum roof in the camper for the first time, coincidence ??
Another nice, clean rest area, very noisy with traffic til 10PM then real quiet

Towns we saw – Belt
Location: N5°, W1157° – Just east of Great Falls
Nights Stayed: July 19th 2014    –   Miles Driven : 96 (drove back to Fairfield for genealogy)
A Windy Lunch in Geyser Montana7-19 Geyser Hall

We really didn’t plan on staying the night here – we were sure we could make it the 70 sumthin miles to Lewistown, but while we were eating lunch a serious wind came up, seemed like we had ventured into tornado alley.

There has been VERY thick smoke from Canada fires, Lei got a sick headache that sent her to bed, I didn’t feel that good my self, we noticed as soon as we drove into the state the haze and mentioned it to the ladies at the Great Falls VC, by this day it smelled like smoke.

Towns we saw – Raynesford & Geyser
Location: N47.261693°, W112.495098° – Downtown Geyser next to the RR track by the Community Hall
Nights Stayed: July 19th 2014   –   Miles Driven : 26

 

7-19 Geyser Smoke from Canada

Smoke from Canada & RR Tracks next to our homemade rest area.

Camp song: “Champagne Supernova – Oasis”

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