We were leaving downtown Havre, MT. The majority of cars are about this vintage. |
This is the other main street in Havre. |
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Further down Hwy2 in Havre before we turned south onto Hwy 87 |
Looking southwest from Hwy 87 |
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Horses doing what horses do. |
The railroad followed the same line as Hwy 87, but there were no trains today. |
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The Bear Paw Mountains were to our left much of the morning. |
Another section of Bear Paws... |
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Our first water stop was in Box Elder, part of Rocky Boys Indian Reservation. |
This grainery was on the way into Big Sandy, our next water stop. |
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Big Sandy has two grocery stores; one is open on Sunday. |
Another view of downtown Big Sandy. This time across the street from the grocery store. |
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Grainfields looking west -- the big difference between west and east is the outline of the mountains. |
Grainfields looking east -- no mountain outlines. |
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An occasional solitary building will break the landscape. |
And the patterns of the dry and tilled field against the planted ones. A woman at Big Sandy said this is the first year in 5 that they have hopes for a crop. |
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We're finally making the descent into Loma which sits on the Marias River and is 1 mile from Point Decision. |
This is part of the river bottom area around the town of Loma. The owner of the convenience store where we stopped had quit his job as a repair person for biomedical equipment to buy the store and make money on the influx of tourists for the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial. |
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As we left Loma, the cliffs to the east became more dramatic. |
Loma horses doing what horses do -- hang out. |
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The Missouri River greeted us we we stopped at the roadside Vista Point. |
The river snakes around an area in almost an s. |
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The S continues south. |
Circle crop field enhances the spectacular vista. |
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More horses hanging out, this time on the way to Carter, our next water stop. |
We saw two herds of antelope today. The first was a group of five and this was six. I was able to get my camera out to snap this picture. They ran with us for a while and then headed west. Antelope can easily run at 40 mph so they were only toying with us. |
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The bar at Custer sits directly on Hwy 87. The owner bought the building two years ago and completely refurbished it -- rumor has it that he intended to take advantage of the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial increased tourism. |
The video gambling room wasn't filled with people but then it was Sunday when we were there. |
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There were two groups of customers when we arrived. These two Carter locals were still there when we left. The motorcycle foursome left just before us. They had spent the weekend at a Hog rally in Great Falls and were returning home to Chinnok, a small town between Malta and Havre. |
Grainfields looking west. |
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Mountain formation to the west on the way into Great Falls, MT. |
Not only were we able to see the Missouri River again, but we also were able to cross it heading into Great Falls. We were twenty-two blacks from the Holiday Inn. Oh the joy! A rest day tomorrow... |
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