Bob & Cindy's 2010 Travel Web Site
Location Links
We enjoyed our stay at North Fork, Idaho .. very relaxing .. caught up on some reading and toured up the Salmon River to check out some future camping spots. When we come back we'll definitely do a white-water trip on the Salmon. As if we didn't have enough alone time we left Idaho and immediately went to a small campground in Montana on a small creek (May Creek). From there we toured the Big Hole Battlefield, then went up to Missoula to restock, pick up our new satellite receiver, get some RV supplies, and clean up the truck and trailer. We also went over to Lolo Pass on the Lewis and Clark trail .. beautiful drive. Then we drove over to Great Falls to tour the Lewis & Clark Center (well done) before driving down to Ennis for 4 days. From Ennis, it was just a short drive up to Mark & Joan Sinnard's ranch (Shadow Mountain Ranch) to visit and maybe have an opportunity for Cindy and Joan to go on a horse ride.
Montana
We always get asked about our camping setup .. not much to it but here we are in North Fork, Idaho. Back in looks out over the Salmon River.
Here we are at May Creek Campground (a National Forest campground, no hookups). The solar panel was moved a lot to pick up as much sun as possible to keep the batteries charged.
Big Hole Battlefield ... where the Federal soldiers were chasing the Nez Perce Indians. This was where the Indians were surprised by the troops but won a battle with heavy casualties on both sides. They escaped and made it to within 40 miles of the Canadian border before being captured and sent to Kansas & Oklahoma.
A short 2 1/2 mile hike up May Creek took us to an old cabin built about 150 years ago. No markers, but there were some old shovel & hatchet blades.
One of the things we did in Missoula was tour the Smokejumpers Center where they train and dispatch the first firefighters to battle forest fires. This was the room where they hang the parachutes before taking them to be packed.
The poor truck finally gets a bath in Missoula, MT. It actually looked a lot worse than this in Idaho but rain and wet roads helped get some of the mud off. The running boards were caked about 2 inches deep for a couple of weeks.
The packing room for parachutes.
The silver coffin they jump from. Also, they jump from very low altitudes to get to their positions. The training time is 3 months, usually with experienced forest firefighters.
A replica for a smokejumper, about 100+ pounds of gear.
Out of the mountains and headed to Great Falls. Wide open country with "big sky" .. beautifully unique. Wheat fields everywhere.
The Lewis & Clark Center .. explains the whole journey from St. Louis to the Pacific and back. We purchased a book by Stephen Ambrose to get all the detail .. fascinating history. These log canoes weighed 2000 pounds and they had to pull them around all the portages, some as long as 18 miles.
There are 5 "great falls of the Missouri". All have dams above them to provide hydroelectricity and one is under a lake. This was (is?) the second highest.
The first of the falls Lewis & Clark came to (90 feet high) and they had to portage their supplies & equipment 18 miles around all 5 of the falls, losing about 3 weeks of time getting around them.
Giant Springs, right beside the Missouri River outside Great Falls, Montana. One of the largest pure springs in America.
From Great Falls we drove down to a small town (Ennis) and used it as a base to do a day tip back to Yellowstone. No hikes, just played tourist (this is at Old Faithful). We are (once again) reminded why we take to the "roads less traveled". This was late in the season and it was packed.
Old Faithful, it may be full of tourists, but it's still a grand sight!!!
Castle Geyser, very impressive.
Earthquake Lake, on the Madison River coming out of Yellowtone. This is where the earthquake of 1959 (a 7.5 quake) created a landslide (visible in the background) that dammed up the river and created this lake. Many campers were killed
Elk along the Madison River in Yellowstone.
Cindy is getting reacquainted with all the horses ... if we get some reasonable weather, hopefully she'll have a chance to ride with Joan while we're here. More on the next update.
Back to Shadow Mountain Ranch ... one of our most favorite places to visit friends in the true Montana ranch lifestyle. The grey looking at the camera was 3 weeks old the last time we were here in 2006.
Here is a link to the Shadow Mountain Ranch web site