Blogs from Montana, United States, North America

We all slept great last night and started the day off with bacon and eggs cooked outside. What is it about food cooked outdoors that just tastes so good? a quick drive through the Badlands with opportunity to stop a few times and view some wildlife we are not used to. The Prong Horn Antelope are beutiful but this time of year they are shedding thier winter coat so most of them looked a little shabby. Lots of praried dogs and a couple of wolves spotted in the fields. We drove to Mt. Rushmore since Joe had never been there so we could snap a few pics. My favorite part of this area has always been Hill City. Just love that little town. The drive after that was somewhat boring until we got into the higher ... read more

I once was a wee lad who used to go fishing on the weekend with his mates. As I would sit on the riverbank eagerly casting my bait in anticipation of what lurked beneath, my eyes would be drawn to the shadow of an overhanging branch on the far bank, where the river ran tantalizingly dark and deep. That is where the monster surely lay, undisturbed and uncaught, and that is where my bait, and I, by proxy, needed to be. When the urge took possession, I would walk downriver to just past the riffles and wade chest-deep through the water and fight my way up the far bank through thickets and nettles until I stood excitedly within rod’s reach of that very spot. In hindsight, the monsters I caught there may have looked the same, ... read more

I woke up and headed to the toilet where Steve soon joined me. He looked a little pissed as he was desperately trying to dry his trainers with the hand blower. Turns out that whilst the rest of us took cover from the rain the previous night, Steve and the rest of Group C still had the washing up to do. The small room on the block that could be used for washing up could only take one person in it, and there was no hot water. Basically the four of them had to take it in turns standing in the room washing up whilst the rest stood out in the rain getting drenched and trying to dry up. Steve was really pissed, and was slowly calming down as Todd and I apologised for their predicament. ... read more

Having survived the wind through the night and getting some sleep, we loaded up and headed towards the North Entrance and into Yellowstone National Park. Almost straight away we on a road that runs alongside a stream, but not any old stream. At one point the stream flows into and passed a natural hot spring, turning the water from refreshing coolness to extreme hotness. After being dropped off at the top of a hill covered in sulphur pits to make our way (carefully) down to the bottom, we headed on to the natural spring, and took a dip. I was the first to walk the long path to it, and waited for the others to turn up before taking the first steps into it. It was pretty cool how the water changed between hot and cold ... read more

At some point in the night Mark and I got an unexpected wakeup call as we slept on the picnic tables, when the rain came. I woke up and quickly realised what was happening, and seeing Mark practically sprint to the van, I followed in pursuit, entering the van to discover we had woken Todd up very abruptly. For obvious reasons he didn’t look too pleased that he has been woken, and we both quickly settled down on a row each, before the van fell into silence again as we all got back to sleep. Only problem was I’d set myself up in my sleeping bag the wrong way on the row. Whilst Todd and Mark were lying with their heads by the side of the van and their legs hanging over the aisle at the ... read more

It was an early start as we headed into the heart of Glacier. Mark, Jess and some of the others were dropped off at the visitor centre for the start of the longest hike in the Park, whilst Scott, Kylie, Steve, Annabel and I were taken a few miles further for the Gillam Glacier hike. Todd dropped us off and we were quickly left on our own to take on the hike. So we set off straight away, crossing a small wooden bridge over a small creek almost straight away before reaching the edge of a lake. To the left on the far side of the lake from us was a pretty awesome looking hotel, which offers boat rides across to the other side of the lake to join the hike we were doing. We clear ... read more

Sadly we left Banff behind to head to our next destination. Somehow I felt that I would return to that wonderful town and take it all in again. Til then, we headed onto Glacier National Park, which meant we were back in the United States of America. The time we spent in Canada flew by, like some of this Tour, but I was continuing to have the time of my live. On the way to Glacier, having just crossed the border, we stopped off for lunch and a quick walk around Head-Smashed-in buffalo jump. Well I say walk around, because that’s what the others did. I on the other hand, hung around outside the visitors centre and called home. Speaking to mum, she told me all about Grace and the labour, and how small and beautiful ... read more

When my folks left Wolf Point in 1990, I had left in 1984, it was not under the best situation. They had put 20 years into this town and done much for it. But we had out grown our building and needed to move. The people were mad at us for moving, but there really was no choice. Our business, Wood's Powr-Grip Co., Inc. had been founded here in 1964 and we had added on to the building so many times that we were losing product in the building. My grandfather had started with a building the size of a convenience store and lived in the basement. Now we had over 60 people working there we were pulling all of those jobs out of a town that was only 4,000 people, this was going to hurt ... read more