A normal driving day for us is around 100 miles, and today we are traveling 350 miles. That's covering a lot of scenery for us! The scenery today proved that Montana really is "Big Sky Country."
One sign that a motor home driver doesn't want to see is "Rough Narrow Road," but that's what we got this morning. Denisa missed getting the picture when the sign first showed up and said that we would enjoy this condition for the next 40 miles. At this point, we still have 30 miles ahead of us.
We are on Highway 200, one of the few roads across eastern Montana, and we wouldn't recommend this route to anyone. Denisa is a pretty brave passenger, but this proved to be one of the worst stretches of road we have seen in a while. She finally had to busy herself with a project to get her eyes off the road that kept causing the motor home to dip and dive for those long miles. You might also noticed that we have absolutely no shoulder on this highway.
We were without a center line for a while, and then we met this wide vehicle spraying yellow paint as we met them.
We were certainly glad when those miles were behind us and we had smooth sailing across the farm and ranch land that makes up eastern Montana. This was our first introduction to this beautiful crop that was being bailed. We're not sure what it is, but it makes for some striking landscape.
In addition to a pink flowering hay, we also love the beautiful golden fields of canola.
After four hours on the road, we arrive at the first sizable town on this desolate route. Our plan (before having to replace our car tires) was to spend two nights in this nice little campground made available through the Kiwanis in Lewistown, Montana. We don't have time to spend the night, but we did pull over to cook a meal and rest before we had to get back on the road.
It was around Lewistown that we saw signs that the landscape was changing. We are now seeing pines and silhouettes of mountains up ahead. We also had a unique experience in our long drive today. We would hear a "splat, splat, splat" on the windshield and then could look to see bee hives close by. So the picture below is a bit blurry from lots of bee splats on the windshield today. We don't remember that ever happening before.
After a long day, we arrived at our destination at Great Falls, Montana at Dick's RV Park. We chose this city because they have some fun activities planned for the fourth of July. Those activities include a parade that runs through downtown. Because it's a special patriotic day, we have to include pictures of some red, white and blue entries in the parade.
We've seen lots of boy scout troops walk parade routes, but this one was holding up a larger-than-life-size United States flag today.
We usually list our favorite parade give-aways, and this one was sponsored by the big red Coca-cola truck. They had an army of people walking behind the truck, giving away cans of coca-cola pop to anyone on the parade route that wanted one.
The weather is beautiful today, with clear skies and temperatures in the low 70's at noon. Mark is enjoying that weather with our free pops during the parade.
Malmstron Air Force Base is located here in Great Falls, so they had a great entry for the parade.
The Lewis and Clark National Historic Museum is another attraction in Great Falls, and this float featured their re-enactors with their annoyingly loud guns that they insisted on firing during the entire parade route.
The main thing that brought us to Great Falls' 4th of July was the music line-up. They are hosting a free "Hootenanny" downtown after the parade.
We assumed that "right after the parade" would be around 1:00. But the opening act--Carlton Anderson--didn't take the stage until around 2:00.
It's a good thing we found a nice shady place under a tree near the stage to wait around and people watch.
It was another hour before the headliner act took the stage. This is Granger Smith, who is making a name for himself in Nashville, and today in Great Falls, Montana.
Granger spent time fist-pumping with the audience, including this little boy seeing the concert from shoulder height. Granger might have a special place in his heart for young fans, since we know his 3-year-old son died in the family pool just a few weeks ago.
His line of apparel and products is known as Yee Yee, and it takes an 18-wheeler to carry all his merchandise. We did some dancing in the street in front of that truck, and we were surprised to see only three other couples that joined us.
We finished our Independence Day celebration with fireworks overlooking the Missouri River in downtown Great Falls. This city allows anyone to shoot off any fireworks anywhere, so it felt a little like driving through a war zone at dusk. Mark was playing with the fireworks setting on the new camera and got some spiro-graph-like fireworks.
It doesn't get dark until well after 10:00, so it was a late night fireworks show for us. It was interesting to see the fireworks reflected in the water of the Missouri River this Fourth of July. But we're glad to be here in Great Falls, celebrating the fact that we are blessed to wander freely in America. God Bless the USA!
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