Sunday & Monday, September 24
& 25, 2017 - Whitefish, MT to Sheridan, WY to Sioux City, Iowa.
Sunday: Until we arrived in Whitefish, we
were not aware there were forest fires in Glacier National Park. The fires are still smoldering underground in
the mosses and bogs, so driving through Glacier National Park from the west on
the “Going to the Sun” road, is not possible now. We could drive to East Glacier, drive into
the Park from that direction, turn around and drive out the east end
again. We decided that after we had been
to Jasper and Banff, we probably would be disappointed. We are not going to Glacier National Park on
this trip - hopefully some other time we will come this way.
Downtown
Whitefish is full of Bars, Grills, and shops. This is a tourist town with
skiing nearby and Glacier National Park.
Last night
we ate at Craggy Range Bar & Grill. We needed a sports bar to watch the
Iowa-Penn St game while we ate! There
was another Iowan there too – She is from Clinton, Iowa, but now lives in
Seattle. We finished watching the game back at the hotel.
At
breakfast, in a “hot spot” for Sunday breakfast in Whitefish, we made our final
decision regarding Glacier. Breakfast
was fabulous. We had lemon cream stuffed
French toast with raspberry sauce – there were two huge pieces, thank goodness,
we split the order.
We are
beginning our direct trip home, well that is, until we took a scenic-drive
detour on a Montana State road, returning to I-90 about 60 miles later! The landscape of Montana began in southern
BC, Canada, and of course has continued all through Montana. You need to experience Montana to understand
the vastness. It is a totally different
vastness than Alaska or Canada. Big Sky Country is a very appropriate nickname
for the State. The topography is varied
and as you look over the landscape you know exactly where there is a stream of
water or a river - as that is where trees are growing. For anything else to be green, it needs to be
irrigated. Looking across the landscape is interesting as you can see for
miles. You could see toy-sized freight
trains winding their way through valleys.
Talking
about trains – going both ways on this trip, we have seen airplane fuselages on
train flatbeds. We finally Googled and
we think these 737 fuselages are going from Wichita, Kansas west to Seattle
area, where they will be finished – wings, tail, etc. We saw 2 on one train and 3 on another.
We have also
seen long coal trains and long oil tanker trains. We assume the coal is coming out of northeast
Wyoming coal mines, but we do not know where the oil tankers are coming from,
or going to.
There are
hobby ranches, large ranches, horses, rodeos, horse arenas, cattle, wheat
fields, and lots of hay ground, with huge stacks of round and square hay bales
- also round straw bales from the wheat fields. It appeared one small town was having a
contest among businesses in decorating large round straw bales. Some had very cute ideas!
As to
wildlife, this morning we saw a herd of Mule Deer and later several herd of
Pronghorn antelope near the Interstate. There were lots of beef cattle herds
spread across the landscape – some small and others large.
 |
| Mule Deer |
It is a LONG
way across Montana! In fact, Montana is
one-time zone! We finally made it to
Wyoming! We returned to Sheridan, WY, to the same new Comfort Inn & Suites
where we stayed going west.
According to
the weather map there will be snow tonight in the mountains near Sheridan. We prefer it stays in the mountains, so we
can enjoy the view without having to drive on it!
We really
did not take many photos today – we were just driving! Hopefully we will be
home in 2 days.
Monday: It is raining in Sheridan this
morning. Due to fog, we cannot see how
much snow is on the mountains. For
breakfast, we went to a café in downtown Sheridan – a small hometown place. As
we entered, the only place was at the counter, but we could not have sat
together. Within a few minutes a couple
of guys left, opening a place for us at the counter. It was the place to eat!
We were
chatting with the guys next to us at the counter. The hunting season in Wyoming begins in
October 15, so by then, the ranchers will have their livestock (cows/calves)
down out of the high country, where they have been grazing all summer. We
assume the date is similar in Montana.
We have seen more cattle in grazing lands near I-90 on our way east,
than we saw on our way west a month ago, indicating the ranchers are beginning
to bring the cattle down nearer to where they can get hay to them during the
difficult winter months.
I-90 goes
through the northeast corner of Wyoming, which is where there are coal
mines. We took a couple of photos this
morning of a coal mine near the highway.
 |
| Coal Mine near Gillette Wyoming |
We continued
seeing herds of pronghorn antelope – one herd had approximately 20. This area
has been having rain since we drove through here a month ago, which has brought
out the green in fields. The pronghorn
with their white body pattern stands-out again the green in the fields. You first see either their white rumps or
white sides.
 |
| Pronghorn Antelope |
The
sunflower plants we saw a month ago, that were in bright bloom, are still
losing leaves and drying. Those that
appeared to be drying then, are now harvested.
For those fields still unharvested, flocks of black birds are having
great meals sitting on the sunflower heads.
In the Black
Hills area of western South Dakota, we stopped at the Black Hills National
Cemetery which is located near the highway.
We pulled off and drove around the cemetery for a little while. It has been continually raining all morning
so we did not get out to walk around.
From the vehicle, we saw that most of the memorial stones were for
veterans of WWI and WWII and Korean War.
However, we saw one memorial stone for a veteran from the Spanish-American
War – wow, when was that war? Of course,
Google knows everything! 1898! It lasted 3 months, 3 weeks, & 2 days!
This short war changed a lot of territorial sovereignty in the world.
It has
rained almost all day! Tonight, we
pushed it a little later that usual, making it to Sioux City, Iowa – just
inside the Iowa border! We hope to be
home soon after noon tomorrow.
