Blogs from Billings, Montana, United States, North America - page 5

It has been very difficult the last few days to have internet access available. That is why when I post these, I will be posting several days at a time. Hopefully nobody is worried about my safety and well-being. I suppose if anyone was really worried they would just call me. But cell phone service seems to be in and out, and sometimes when I am in it is still in roaming. I think when I am in roaming it costs me extra for every single call, but I could be wrong. Anyway, enough with the useless jibber-jabber that nobody cares about… Today I set a record for driving distance with 460 miles. I got on the road at 7:30am and arrived at Wolf Point at about 6pm. It was a pretty long ride, but it ... read more

Billings, MT, Saturday, July 5, 2008 This morning’s breakfast at the Canyon Creek Ranch Lodge is a little sad for us since we are leaving soon. Karen has prepared another delicious meal and we relax and spend some time over coffee saying our goodbyes. After our ride to Melrose over the Forest Service road we turn to another 17 mile long dirt washboard for Twin Bridges. It is really rough and going is slow all the way to “Unnecessary Hill”, appropriately named as far as I can tell. The last half of the trip is only moderately less rough but scenic. The road is laid over range land that is contoured but relatively flat. At times we can see the road ahead for a couple of miles or so. Cattle and game roam freely along this ... read more

June 27, 2008. Billings lies in a flat valley pushed up against a sheer cliff face on the north side. Logan International Airport sits atop the plateau above town. One approach to the airport is by way of a short but scenic route (Zimmern Trail). Donna recorded the attached video of our trips up and down Zimmerman Trail today. Weather was great today and the sky really is big in Montana. Our frame of reference for temperature is skewed. At 82 degrees we were comfortable with the truck windows open and the a/c off while driving around town. After dinner tonight, the temperature settled in at 78 degrees, yet; Donna was cold and put on an insulated jacket. She is talking about getting in the hot tub tonight to warm up. The day is longer here ... read more

Here is the link to our url=http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?hl=en&ie=UTF8&msa=0&msid=107890789031364520088.00044cc009c37e8330bec&z=5 Montana Trip Map From Blackhawk where we had stayed for the last few nights we left the Interstate for Deadwood then on to the Spearfish Canyon Scenic Byway. Deadwood, SD is where Wild Bill Hickock was killed making famous for the phrase "Ace's and Eight's" (the poker hand he held as he was shot). The town is nestled in a narrow canyon with steep approaches east and west and sheer walls north and south. There are buildings still in use today that were a part of the towns 19th century daily life. Beyond Deadwood and Lead, Spearfish Canyon Scenic Byway is a narrow canyon that drops about 100 feet every mile or so from its southern end north all the way to Spearfish, SD. Once we turned onto this ... read more

Onaxthiel writes: We were up quite late in Billings posting updates, so our September 11 wake up was a bit later than usual. It was again a clear morning, though not as warm as the one six years ago that set me on a course for the Army. All in all it was a very martial day for us. All our stops until our final camp were battle sites or scenic. Since order isn’t all that important in this context, and Obfuscator will put up maps that will tell you how we really hit the sites, I will lay out the battlefields in the order they were fought, rather than the order we visited them. This will be a rather dry entry for most people, I think. The first place we went was the Fetterman fight. ... read more