I don't know if anyone still checks this blog or not since I haven't posted anything in quite awhile, but it's a good record of our travels, so here goes.

Right now, we're driving through Missoula, Montana. The town and the Big Blackfoot River is the setting for the movie "A River Runs Through It" with Tom Skerritt and Brad Pitt, if you remember it. Anyway, it's beautiful country with lots of wide flowing rivers, pine trees, and the upper Rocky Mountains. (I'll add some pictures at the end of the post.)

We ended up here by taking a load from Kansas City to Billings, Montana. We came up Interstate 90 past Little Bighorn, on the Crow Indian reservation, where Custer's Last Stand took place. There is a cemetery there where Custer is buried, along with a number of the troops that were killed with him. Billings is only a few hours northeast of Yellowstone National Park, so we decided to take a couple of days off, rent a car, and drive down to see the country. There weren't any economy cars available, and all we could find to rent was a Ford Excursion - a nice ride, but we were hoping for something with better gas mileage. :0)

The trip was well worth it. Ever since we began this nomadic lifestyle, we've said that if we ever got near Yellowstone, we'd have to go see it, so we were happy to finally get this close. My sister and her husband were here about a month ago for their 30th anniversary and told us how beautiful the country is - they were right. It is beyond words at times, with tall mountains, wide rivers, and plenty of wildlife. Jim wanted to see a grizzly, but we never did. We got a close up view of entire herds of bison and some magnificent elk, though, and took lots of pictures. We came in through the northeast entrance, with steep climbs over the mountains and beautiful views of the Rockies in the Custer National Forrest and the Gallatin National Forrest.

We drove through half of the figure 8 inside the park, then out the south entrance and into the Grand Teton National Park. WOW! I've never seen more beautiful mountains and majestic views. It literally brings tears to your eyes!

Next, we drove back through Yellowstone on the other half of the figure 8, stopped to watch Old Faithful errupt along with 500 or so close friends :) and then traveled up to the north entrance and stayed at a cabin in one of the park resorts at Mammoth Hot Springs. It is an old Fort that was built at the original entrance when Yellowstone was designated as a national park in 1872. The geological formations around the hot springs here are amazing to see, just as the geysers, fumaroles, and mudpots throughout the park. The pressure beneath the surface is visible everywhere, and you just have to wonder what will happen if this supervolcano ever errupts! We'd all be goners, I'm sure.

On our way back to Billings, we followed the Yellowstone River all the way and thought how neat it would be to own a fishing camp here where you could work during the summer and head south for the winter. I can just imagine this place with snow everywhere.

When we got back, they sent us to Sidney, Montana, up north on the North Dakota border about 80 miles south of the International boundary with Saskatchewan, Canada. We were to haul about 40,000 lbs of Holly sugar to Pennsylvania. When we got close, we started looking for fields of sugar cane, wondering how they could grow cane up here where the weather gets so cold, but all we saw was corn everywhere and a smaller crop. I looked the town up on the Internet and discovered that they don't make the sugar there from cane, but from beets. Duh!!! What an education this job is at times. When we got to the plant, there was a problem with the trailer, so they sent us back to Billings. Now, we're headed from Billings to Mipitas, California (just outside San Jose) with a load of huge bulk paper rolls.

It will be new country for us to see, through the Rockies in Idaho, down to Reno, Nevada, and west to California. I'll try to take more pictures and post them with the next entry.

Well, I've rambled enough for now and will try to post a few pictures to go with this blog and will take some more as we head toward California.


I hope everyone is well and please know that we love and miss you all. Jim says "Hi Everyone!"