Our Central Montana Adventures

Saturday, August 24, 2013

We were not in any hurry this morning, planning to make a lazy day of it, but we were up and at it fairly early for us.

Just out of Havre we turned southwest on 87 heading for Fort Benton. All along the central plains in Montana the rest areas are small city parks in various small towns. It is a little different than the normal freeway rest area, but it works, unless you want to use this picnic table!

So this morning we pulled into a rest area and some guy drives up in a pickup and stops to talk to Wilma. Are you enjoying the rest area? Uh, yeah. I’m the one that suggested it to the town, and suggested the signs be a mile out. Okay. The other John, from the store, got credit for it, but it was really my idea. – and on and on. Luckily, someone else pulled in and he had to move on to his next entrapment. We do get some interesting characters from time to time.

We turned off the main highway to the town of Fort Benton, and found the interpretive center that had the stamp. Except the lady only had one stamp, and it wasn’t the one we were looking for. We got what she had, and listened to her a while about everything the town had to offer, then went to the other end of town to see if we could find the correct stamp. At Old Fort Benton Fred and Barney spoke to a “mountain man” and asked about the stamp.  He said “If you can’t find it , come on back and I will draw one by hand for you.”  All evidence said our first stop was the right one so we went back to ask again. This time the other staff member said sure, it’s right here along side the other one! So after chasing all over town, we were happy to stop and check out the old pedestrian bridge across the Missouri river, then have lunch in the park along the riverfront. The town has probably 3/4 mile or more along the river front all developed into park. It was really nice. And there was a penny smasher at the Chamber of Commerce!

We then went on to Great Falls to the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center. We had heard that was one of the better Lewis and Clark centers, and it was very nice. One of the great things about it was our Golden Age cards let us in for free!  The movie was just going to start, so we quickly went in and enjoyed it, then went through the exhibits. Very nice interpretive center, and it is the best one we have seen, and we even learned a few things.

As we were leaving town we stopped to see a couple of the falls that give the town the name. There are five different ones in close proximity. Lewis and Clark had to portage all their wood dugouts and gear about 18 miles around the falls. One exhibit had a rope you could tug to see how many miles you could pull the load in a day, and Fred could go 10. Betty made 2, Barney 7, and Wilma didn’t even try!

That was all we had planned for the day, so we started looking for a place to stay. The places suggested in Great Falls weren’t all that great, and it was still a little early, so we continued southbound. It wasn’t too long before we turned off and found a fishing access that had maybe 6 spots marked for camping. We got as level as we could and had burritos and salad at the tipsy picnic table. On the other side of the main road there was a turn off that went down to a recreation area at a lake, and about 8:30 we saw a couple of emergency vehicles go that way. Then more and more about every 5 minutes. Sheriff vehicles, tankers, fire trucks of various sizes, a power company bucket truck, and more rescue and fire vehicles. Probably about two dozen different ones. At first we thought maybe a boating accident, but then it became obvious it was fire related. Then we started seeing a lot a lightning in the hills south of us, and we got some very light rain. We didn’t settle down early, wondering if we would be evacuated, but about 11 pm we started seeing some of the emergency vehicles coming back out and leaving. So then we could get some good sleep.

It seems like we get into a lot of scenarios when we travel. You just never know what excitement we’ll find next.

The adventure continues tomorrow!