Joy Ride

So we finally get across the border after an hour of being 'held' in the US Customs office with about 20 other people who looked annoyed at the unreasonable delay. They all looked like terrorists to me ... you know ... the family of three Swedes, two senior couples travelling together, the thirty-something couple in granola gear ... ya, good job on the not wasting tax payers money US Gov't Homeland Security nonsense. They seem to be trained to make sure you never want to return to the USA.



Just across the border it turns out there is nothing much in Monana except wide open spaces and scrub land. Here is a house which is conpletely exposed to the elements. I'm not sure if it's because these home-owners are too bad ass to need trees or if trees just will not grow here.


This river is in one of the two valleys you drive through to get to Great Falls. The land appears mostly flat with gently rolling hills as in the above photo but suddenly you'll come upon these valleys that cut sharply into the landscape and the motorhome says WTF is this hill doing here and gasps down to 30 miles an hour.


Once you leave Great Falls and head west to Missoula you leave behind the flat prairie and look forward to the distant mountains. They are not as impressive as the Alberta Rockies but frankly anything is better than the endless prairies, still no trees though. It's called Big Sky Country for a reason ...

Voila! Trees, I think they are Ponderosa pines and they are prolific once you get further into the mountains. The hills started to get more serious at this point, the road got progressively more twisty and turny and the motorhome was not happy about the upward climb to the continental divide.

The mountains that surround Missoula seem to hold the incredible heat we had to drive in. I think the motorhome was built before air conditioning was invented so you have to open the windows and suffer through it. I'm quite sure I got heat exhaustion and my mom had to drive the final 45 minutes into Missoula. The kennel club is called Five Valleys and it is so named because 5 valleys converge to create the 'bowl' where Missoula is located.

I'll leave you with a little bit of Montana identity ... yes, that says Testy Festy and yes, it's a Testicle Festival.