Great Falls, Montana is a great time

We have spent the last ~30 days in Great Falls, Montana. We were there primarily to spend some time with our friend Mike and to use as a base camp for day excursions to some of the beauty that surrounds this extraordinary state. The park we stayed at was right in Great Falls and 10′ from the freeway. Getting used to the noise of the traffic took some doing after being in much quieter places, although the ability to have a cocktail and enjoy the daily turnover of the campers was always fun. We had never seen such HUGE trailers come into a location and they are used for the harvesters from out of state. Not even sure how you can really tow those down the road and make some of the curves through the mountain passes. 70′ of travel trailer is a lot no matter where it’s located.

One of the great things about Great Falls – NO BUGS. Not sure where they were, but the only thing biting in the area were a few gnats and those were random at best. Of course, they still found me, but to have so few bugs was a highlight for me, personally. If you’ve seen my legs and the number of mosquito bites that get me each year at the cabin, you can understand my happiness.

The wild fires in the area did bring us some haze and smoke depending on the day and if there was any wind. And while it was hot every day, 95+, the humidity was low which made it nice to actually be outside.

Our first foray into the area was a visit to Choteau, Montana. The area right outside of Choteau houses FreezeOut lake. It is actually a natural lake and not only boasts fishing but is the migratory home to 300,000 snow geese and 10,000 tundra swans. They weren’t there when we went through, but the pictures that have been captured are amazing.

Freezout Lake Wildlife Management Area (arcgis.com)

Another stop in the area is Egg Mountain. There was a discovery of dinosaur eggs that were fossilized and they now believe is one of the largest dinosaur discoveries to be found. You can even go on a dig yourself to find some fossils. Check it out

Egg Mountain, the Two Medicine, and the Caring Mother Dinosaur (U.S. National Park Service) (nps.gov)

Mike took us on a day trip to his cabin in Dearborn, Montana. It’s a stunning trip through the mountains to get there and is actually what you see in our featured picture at the top of the page. There is a ~7 mile trip into his cabin that is the most god awful road I have ever experienced. Mike tells us it’s dirt thrown over some granite and you can believe it. You can’t go more than about 5 miles an hour as the pits, rocks, holes, and just overall bumpiness of the road ensures you can’t go any faster. It is beautiful once you get there although knowing you have to drive that road on the way out, is enough to make your kidneys clench in horror!

Gibson Reservoir – We packed a picnic lunch, saw cow 732 hold open the fence with his head to let another cow out of the gate and watched a brush wolf run across the open grazing land in the area. It’s 22 miles of dirt road to get there and once you are in the park, it’s all tar and beauty. The sun river runs from the reservoir and is some of the clearest water we have ever seen.

Glacier National Park – We were about 3 hours from Glacier and had to take the opportunity to see it. There is a new reservation system they use to get into the park and you have the “opportunity” to try and get a $2.00 ticket every other day at 8 am. Dave tried for 3 weeks to get us a ticket with no luck. As time was running out, we learned if you go into the park before 7 am, you don’t need that $2.00 ticket. We got up before 3 am and headed that way. The great thing about getting to the park that early is seeing the sun rise over the mountains. SPECTACULAR!!!!!!!! The bad thing about getting there that early, is we didn’t see even one animal. There may have been a squirrel sighting by Rocky but we also learned that it’s not necessarily pet friendly either. Most trails don’t allow pets just because they can disturb the hikers and draw in any animals that may want to eat them. Makes sense although it definitely limited what we could walk to while we were there. The road to the sun was gorgeous and I’m sure most of you have seen the pics from other visitors. Too bad. I have to add just a few of our own.

On one of our last evenings in town, Mike had a barbecue at his new house and invited the new friends we had made while in Montana. Wonderful people, wonderful food and of course at no time do we consider saying good-bye, more like see you later. I can see we will come back to Great Falls in the future

Our next trip is to Ririe, Idaho. There’s some hot springs calling our name and who knows what else we may find. That’s been a really wonderful benefit to this new lifestyle. No real plans, just see what’s around you and go experience it.

See you on the road,

Dave and Theresa