Ghosts, snow, and white knuckles

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Rain, rain go away and come again another day… It seems that we are definitely paying for all the good weather we have enjoyed so far along the way… It was clear just long enough this morning for us to shower, eat breakfast and then pack the truck… However, the tap opened not long after we started out and stayed open to various degrees throughout the whole day!

Statistics

Starting Destination: Great Falls, Montana
Ending Destination: Red Lodge, Montana
Ending Destination GPS: N: 45° 15.367’ W: 109° 13.687’ Elev: 5255’
Miles Driven: 322.9
Deduction: Montanans must be as crazy about football as the Texans!

Snow?

We had a few errands to run before leaving Great Falls, including finally deciding to replace the battery, so we didn’t get going ‘till nearly noon…
This was probably a good thing as we continued following highway 89 out of town, aiming for the Kings Hill Scenic Byway. We had just got to the turn-off when Carl noticed the snow plough coming down the road—hmm… will the road be open? We didn’t see a sign saying that the road was closed so we decided to chance it!! The road wound gradually upwards along the creek and through the Lewis and Clark National Forrest; all the scenes were very pretty with the snow (left) until we found ourselves driving in it!! We also wondered about all the residences along the road—did people really live there all year around or were they only summer/winter homes; and why all the campgrounds were still open? Thankfully the road was open the whole way and on the other side of the pass the weather improved, we were down to a light mist and “threatening” to rain!!

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Ghosts…

While the weather looked like it was going to improve, we decided that we would leave Highway 89 and chance a gravel road into the “middle of nowhere” to find a ghost town (Castle Town, an old silver mining town) that was shown on the map and mentioned in one of the tourist information magazines… After about an 8 mile drive towards a darkening sky we finally reached the ghost town—only to find out that it is located on private property and we could only look at it from the road!! However, there was somewhat of a sliver lining to this cloud—we saw 2 moose (a cow and calf), well ok, we mostly saw the hind ends; but we do have the pictures to prove it!!

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White Knuckles

Our destination for the night—Red Lodge… A reader of the blog had suggested we drive the Beartooth All American Road into Yellowstone national park, so we thought we would check it out… Red Lodge is the beginning of this road, thus a good place to spend the night. Unfortunately, getting to Red Lodge proved a little more difficult than we thought! First there were the nearly 1000 antelope, mule deer and white tail deer in the feed fields along the way—this was probably the most that Carl had ever seen in one day, which was great as he told Maria that if the animals are moving then the weather must be improving—‘till the light began to disappear and it was harder to see them along the road!! Then there was the road construction—it seems that highway 78 must be really popular as the first 25 miles of it were under construction—not the close one lane type, but the dig up the whole road type… Then there was the rain, starting out slow but getting heavier and heavier the closer we got to our destination… So with the number of animals, the road construction (including lack of road markings) and the weather we were very glad to see the campground in our sights… Although, we did wonder about the sanity of the local population—we saw more than one Friday Night High school football game in progress despite the weather!!
P.s. We had to back track a little along Interstate 90… But that was ok as it took us through Big Timber—one of the locations where the smoke had been really heavy when we had passed by 10 days ago—we are happy to report that the skies were clear, of smoke!!

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Carl’s Travel Trivia

Yesterday’s Answer: 520,400lbs
Today’s Question: What year was the busiest fire season in the Western US?

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