Leg 1 1/2 Great Falls and Shelby

 

We arrived in Great Falls Thursday 5/20 and stayed at Dick’s RV.  Great Falls is full of history, most notably Lewis and Clark and Charles M Russell the artist.  Of course there are the “Great Falls”, which I didn’t realize are a series of falls, most of them now dammed for electric power, in fact Great Falls is called the “electric city” due to all the hydro-electric plants. Below are pictures of Rainbow Falls.

  and more:

 

We did not have the correct lighting for a full rainbow, but above you see some effect.  Imagine the words Lewis and Clark’s crew had when they saw these insurmountable hurdles, to them it meant days of super hard portage labor.

And just below Rainbow Falls is Crooked Falls, one of the few falls that remains today pretty much as it was when the expedition came through.

Above looking down the Missouri, Crooked Falls in about the middle of the picture.  Did you know, or realize; the Missouri River is the longest river in the United States?

Here is Black Eagle Falls, the uppermost of the Great Falls.

Interestingly, right in Great Falls, the shortest river/stream in the United States flows into the Missouri.  It is a river/stream that results from a pure springs, forms a little pool and then flows 200 feet to the Missouri. Beautiful little springs, some pics below:

At this site is also a fish hatchery where rainbow trout are raised.  They keep a few old timers around just for display.  I couldn’t resist showing these to some of  the fisher people, wow these were some mega trout!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Right by our camp site was a river that fed the Missouri.  The town has beautiful parks and walk way paths, well maintained and very clean. Here is Roxy checking out the river.

And one more shot of the day dwindling by the river.

 

Had to check out Charles Russell’s house and museum, what a great artist. Here is his house, right in town.

And this gorgeous lilac (the town was full of rich, wonderfully colored lilac).

And immediately next to the house, his studio (I mean how cool is that!  Bet his wife didn’t yell at him for playing the ukulele in the house! :-) )

Lots of stuff to see inside the museum, but if you are even a casual fan you have seen at least copies.  One exhibit that caught my eye was about black and white photos of women in ranching, very informative, artistic and mind capturing.  Included, and further capturing my hat loving eye, were these old authentic cowboy hats:

and I had to fix this one up a little:

(Oh, did I mention I had to buy a new cowboy hat in Great Falls, shoot fire, how could you not buy a cowboy hat in Montana!)

Next, the small town of Shelby, where our rowdy crew finally gather as one.  Nice little camp right below a small reservoir, very enjoyable gathering. This is our last U.S. stop for quite some time.

 

We arrived first and set up camp.  This shot was taken from the earthen dam forming the reservoir behind it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Roxy getting some fresh air.

 

Some shots around the little reservoir:

And there must be a “before” picture so here is our rowdy little band of gypsies, ready to tackle the Alcan highway and go north to Alaska.

From left to right; Joan and Rich Walter, Murray and Shelle McDole, Jeff and Susan Collingwood, and Mike and Sally Theroux. Oh, and of course Ms. Roxy front center!

Tomorrow we cross the border into Alberta Canada.

Leg 1 Home to Shelby, Montana

North to Alaska, go north the rush is on!  To borrow a lyric line from Johnny Horton (1960), we are a fixin’ to do just that.  Been planning this trip for over a year now and the time has come.  We will be traveling with 3 other couples, very good friends made through our HitchHiker (our trailer brand) forum/internet association.  We like having a small group to share fun and experiences with, while providing some comfort in being able to help each other if necessary, but not so large a group that planning and finding camp spots gets challenging. Our general plan is to be gone 4 months.  We will officially rendezvous in Shelby, Montana, then proceed north to Fairbanks, arriving in time for the summer solstice (and longest day of the year) celebration. From Fairbanks to Denali Park, Anchorage, Homer, Valdez, Chicken, back to Canada to Banff and Jasper and back to Washington State for a HitchHiker rally in Prosser.

We finally left home after getting ourselves ready (doc appointments etc.), the truck ready, the trailer ready, the camera stuff ready, the fishing equipment ready, the RC airplanes ready, shopping, packing and that old et cetera and et al stuff.  We were crazy enough to buy a new trailer in the midst of all this crazy planning, just to add to the excitement (the Godfather made us a deal we couldn’t refuse!).  Below Roxy’s Rig III ready to go at Topside Circle home.

We like to keep the first travel day short due to the agony of L.A. traffic and went to a place near Beaumont in the near desert.  We were trying out a “Passport America” sight. Passport America sells memberships (inexpensively) and then you get to stay at certain places for half price. Our destination was Twin Lakes RV park in Newberry Springs.  Wow, what a surprise.  See this post opening picture, looks like something out of 1930’s, that was the actual road into Twin Lakes!  Totally in the middle of nowhere.  Wouldn’t normally dwell on a campground so much but this was an experience, maybe our second worst campground. Here is our campsite next to the “Lake”  .

Looks kind of nice, huh? It wasn’t awful but I colored that water to try to make it look a little like water versus a mud pool.  And here is the other or twin “Lake”;

How about their hand painted signs, tre chique, tre gross, or tre gick?

But wait, they did have a pump out station / fish cleaning station (efficient, eh?):

And, shoot fire, they even had a work out room:

Just in case you are looking for it – say what – here is the entrance:

It actually was an O.K. stay and we had fun but oh my what a surprise.

Now it is just get up to Shelby, Montana and start the journey.  Won’t bore you with the travel details getting to Shelby, maybe a couple of comments along the way. Stayed in Mesquite, Nevada, behind a casino, good for an overnight and one artsy night time shot:

Observed a strange sky phenomenon in the Nevada desert, eerie rainbow arc in the sky, not a ring around the sun as we sometimes see, but just an arc.  Looks like this:

 

Here we see it double:

After Mesquite we stayed in a really great park in Fillmore, Utah, Wagons West:

Yes those are snow capped mountains.  Utah is really a lovely state, beautiful country and lots to see. Next onward to Brigham City (oh my, the drive through Salt Lake City is almost as bad as driving through L.A.) and then to Idaho Falls. Weather has been decent but since we left Mesquite it has been cold and some rain.  Hey, we are going north in May!

 

Wednesday the 19th we arrived in Dillon, Montana.  Wow, this is one great town.  Lots of atmosphere, good feeling, nice folks and lots of rivers and streams. Dillon University is here, over 150 years old and looks really cool (heavy stone buildings with ivy and such growing on them). The RV park, Southside Park, is excellent, a stream runs through the middle of it and the back views the Rockies and picturesque pastureland.

See that sky, wow Montana is big sky country for absolute sure!  What a great state, we loved it.  Here are what we call “shots from the cockpit” – shots that Shelle shoots out the cockpit window, some processing help from yours truly. We will intersperse these from time to time.  I have to admit, as a true Nikon man, that our new Canon S 90 (point and shoot) does a marvelous job, and especially when you consider these are shot through the truck window glass.

Cockpit shot along the highway, big sky, big mountains.

Lots and lots of Montana stock, hmmm Sunday steak!

  and

more big sky!

 

1. Meanwhile, back at the park, Roxy decides to converse with a fellow animal (but remember she is a predator and fellow pal here is a prey, things went well until Roxy remembered this part of the fomula!)

We loved Dillon, here is the view from our rig’s back door.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Traveling through the great state of Montana is so wonderful, it is one of the best view states of all.  Shoot fire, even Roxy, who normally sleeps, was often checking out the scenery.

P.S., if you haven’t seen the Rox for a while, it would be discreet not to mention the “whitening” of her lovely fur. She is aging gracefully, perhaps better than I, and keeping up her figure and wonderful enthusiasm.

Out of Dillon, we did actually run into some snow, drove through some snow – yikes, snow in late May – spooky! More views from the cockpit:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So on we push on to Great Falls.  I hadn’t anticipated this part of the journey being this long in the blog.  Must be all that great scenery in Montana. Next post (leg 1 1/2) will pick up at Great Falls.