Great Falls, Montana

Today we had to go to Wal-Mart to get Jerry's prescription filled and of course she had to do some shopping as well.

On the way to town we passed a park where Canadian Geese and their families lived. They had a large number of cute babies and I just had to stop and get a picture or two or three.

After finally leaving "Wally World" we drove to the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center. In 1805 Lewis and Clark came here and remained about one month while they portaged their canoes over land to by-pass the series of rapids that stretched for several miles on the Missouri River.

The Great Falls area had long been inhabited by tribes of Native American Indians, mainly the Blackfeet, with herds of Buffalo,Antelope, Elk and Deer roaming the prairies. The Grizzly Bears and Mountain Lions also roamed the area.

If you're ever in the Great Falls area you must see the many water falls and of course the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center.

I hope you enjoy the pictures.

An Exciting Trip With Our Friends

We're in the FAMCAMP at Malmstrom AFB in Great Falls, Montana with our friends Michael and Terri and Ken and Mary. We'll be leaving here Friday, May 22, 2009 heading to Coutts, AB to cross into Canada and begin our long journey to Alaska.

I can assure you that we'll take lots of pictures along our way, so set back, relax and have lots of popcorn to enjoy the scenery.

Jerry's New Job

Since I had the trip pretty well planned, Jerry didn't have much "navigating" to do. She decided that rather than being bored she would become a "traveling photographer".

These pictures will hopefully prove how good of a job she has done. We hope you enjoy the pictures as much as she enjoyed taking them. Jerry was bouncing from side to side the motor home taking pictures like there was no tomorrow. At one point she yelled "Boy am I having a blast". She took a lot of pictures and she hopes you like them.

Kaycee, Wyoming

We left Casper heading to Kaycee, Wyoming to spend a couple of days. Our plans were to see Butch Cassidy Hole In The Wall hideout and the Historical Museum in the town.

After we got to the RV Park and got all set up we asked about driving conditions to the Hole In The Wall. We learned much to our displeasure that it's located on" Private Land" and the owner doesn't permit people to drive there. We also learned the Museum will not open until Memorial Day and of course we won't be there then.

We were very disappointed and will only stay here for two days.

We had the control device on our step break and it will not retract. That means Jerry has had a hard time getting in and out of the coach. We found a repar facility in Bozeman, Montana that can fix it and we'll leave tomorrow and get there on Thursday afternoon to get the repair done. After that's done we'll continue to head up to Great Falls, Montana to hopefully meet up with our other travel friends.

Since we were unable to see anything here there are no pictures, sorry about that.
Jerry did however take some pictures on our way to Bozeman. Hope you like the scenery/

The National Historic Trails Interpretive Center

Between 1840 and 1869, approximately 500,000 emigrants traveled through Casper Wyoming area on three National Historic Trails, The Oregon Train, The Mormon Trail and the California Trail. 350,000 pioneers traveled on the California Trail, 80,000 on the Oregon Trail and 70,000 on the Mormon Trail.

They migrated for different reasons. They sought free land in Oregon Territory, religious freedom in the Great Salt Lake Valley and free gold in California.

Here are a few pictures I took in the Center and the last ones are some Jerry took on our way to Casper, Wyoming. We hope you like them.

Wheatland, Wyoming

We are parked at a CityPark in Wheatland, Wyoming. It's small, only eight sites, but they have 30 amp service and some have water as well. There is a dump station just outside the park. The best part of it is that it's FREE and you can stay three nights.

We were only going to be here one night but since it was raining here and on down the road, we thought it would be better to spend another night here.

This morning we looked out the front window and found a family of Squirrels playing in the site next door. Jerry took some state bread we had and threw it out the window at them. At first only one came up and it grabbed a large piece of bread, ate some of it and carried the rest up a tree to his nest. Soon we had about 6 or 8 of them all waiting for some bread. It was fun watching them.

I hope you enjoy seeing them as well.

Vedauwoo And The Ames Monument

Yea!!! We finally made it safely to Cheyenne and pulled into Flying J to fill our tanks. Since this is a small truck stop we went to the Visitor's Center to spend the night. We were there all by ourselves overnight.

Twenty miles east of Laramie, WY along I-80 are the towering rocks of Vedauwvoo (pronounced Vee-Dah-Voo), an Arapaho Indian word meaning "earth born". Indians believe that these magnificent rock formations in the Pole Mountains area of the Medicine Bow National Forest were created by animals and human spirits.

The Ames Monument is a 60 foot pyramid shaped monument. This haunting limestone mass stands alone on the prairie and watches over the lonely remains of the one-time rail town of Sherman. This monument was built in 1881 to honor the Ames Brothers, Oliver and Oakes who were influential leaders in the construction of the transcontinental rail road. The Union Pacific Railroad built this Monument at the cost of $65,000.