Tuesday, Sept. 14th

It has been several days since I've been able to do this. The wifi service here is far from good. These are various pictures from Butte. The statue is The Lady of the Rockies. It is 90 feet tall and built because a man promised he would do it if his wife got well. It is non-demonitional. You have to take a bus up the unpaved road that it kept up by the foundation. The view of Butte from there is just breathe taking. Our weather has been very cold mornings, but nice warm days.

We are now at Yellowstone - it is wonderful. Took the lower tour yesterday and off for the northern rim today. Hope to get this posted and some more pictures later.

Friday, Sept. 10th

Hoping today's entry will be successful. The past 2 days as I've gone to post, the wireless has managed to drop me off. You can check out the other blog sight: glaciers2geyser.blogspot.com for the past 2 days.

Today, we caravaned westward to Deer Lodge to tour the Grant-Kohrs Ranch National Historic Site. This ranch was acquired by the Park Service in 1977 and is just the way it used to be in 1862.

The land was just beautiful. Some of the surrounding mountains were covered with snow they received while we received all that rain yesterday.

Our team group #1 prepared us a wonderful lunch in the dairy barn (no longer in use). After that we drove down the road to tour the Old Montana Prison Museum and several smaller museums in the area. The sun and wind are trying very hard to clear the clouds from the area for a better day tomorrow.

Tuesday, Sept. 7th

Today started with us leaving the campground at 7am to travel to a restaurant in the country. The food was yummy and atmosphere equally as good. After we were all feed, we traveled up the mountain via some very rough road to a Ghost Town in Garnet, Mt. It was truly a step back in time and made me very thankful that I was born when I was. You could very definitely visualize Ms. Kitty in the tavern.

When we left Garnet, we traveled to the Bayern Brewery in Missoula. After tasting and some lunch, we were given a tour. As you can see Jack took a few minutes to partake in his favorite pastime - snoozing. We then returned to the campground for some free time. We took a ride downtown and I was able to ride the carousel. We also drove around town and the University of Montana.

The other picture is some of our members trying to locate a geocache!!!!

Monday, Sept. 6th - Labor Day

The day started with a cold temp of 38 this morning and a layer of fog in the valley where our campground is. By the time we left for our first outing the sun had done her job of burning off the fog and warming things up.

We traveled to the Skyjumpers Visitors Center. This was an extremely interesting place to see what all the training is about and exactly what it entails. Since the weather service predicted no fires for today, they were given the day off. These people undergo extensive training for jumping into an area with a fire and then battle the fire.

After leaving the visitors center, we went to a restaurant for our lunch and then on to the Ft. Missoula Museum. After touring the museum some of us did several geocaches before returning to the campground.

After Happy Hour, we enjoyed a Labor Day picnic of chicken, brats, watermelon and all the trimmings. The evening ended with a birthday cake and ice cream for one of our rally masters.

Sunday, Sept. 5th

Oh what a fun and glorious day we've been having.

First of all, the elk picture was from a sighting in Banff, Canada.

We started our day with a caravan of 6 cars to the National Bison Range. Took a 2 hour car tour during which we saw, buffalo, white tail deer, panghorn dear, an elk, and yuk. The antler tree was at the visitors center.

After touring the range, we went to the St. Ignatius Mission that was found 125 years ago to christianize the Indians. The church was just beautiful with it's many paintings.

Tonight we are off to a restaurant in downtown Missoula and looking around the community.

Friday, Sept. 3rd

Another picture perfect day at Glacier. After a wonderful breakfast, we car-pooled to the McDonald Lodge followed by a boat ride on McDonald Lake. It was a gorgeous day to be on the lake. Afterwards, we all lunched at Jammer Joe's followed by a walk through the Cedar Forest. The variety of trees was wonderful and to consider the age of so many and how they survive is incredible. Pictures are of one of the many streams and also the water coming from the glacier that keeps the valley moist. It is our understanding that wifi will not be available for the next few days. We are moving on in the morning to the Missoula area and the Missoula Jellystone Park.

Thursday, Sept. 2nd

Yesterday was a washout literally with rain most of the day. We did have a wonderful opening dinner of steak at the campground that was fabulous. Today we left the campground for a guided tour of Glacier National Park. The group took the Red Bus to the Road to the Sun. We started out with cold, fog, and clouds, but promises of clearing. Before we got to the pass, we could see the sun starting to shine through and burn off all the clouds. The day turned about to be spectacular. We got to see the most beautiful scenery in this area. Mountain tops with newly dusted snow, waterfalls gushing, beautiful green foliage, big horn sheep and a baby bear cub stocking up on berries. Viewing the glaciers and where avalanches have occurred were just a few of the wonderful vistas. All in all, the day couldn't have been any better. God's majestic beauty was much to behold.