Great Falls and some old western towns

Leaving Glacier, we headed east toward the town of Great Falls.  Primarily we considered this to be a repair and maintenance stop, one where we could get the RV worked on and catch up on our bills and maintenance chores.  But we wound up staying there over a week, with some visits to neighboring places and some nice interludes in the town itself.

As we left Glacier, we were really struck by the transition to the Great Plains environment. We had been traveling almost entirely in the western mountains, and now we were headed off across relatively flat country.  From now on, until our return to the West, we would be learning to appreciate the vast expanses of the Plains and the relatively modest mountains in the East.  It was a lot of fun to travel in straight lines a lot of the time, and not to have to worry about big grades, up or down.

But it turned out that we were not through with the mountains yet.  Over the Labor Day weekend, while we were waiting for awning parts to be delivered, we had a chance to visit with a friend who has a house in Ennis, Montana, about 200 miles south of  Great Falls.  We drove down there in our little Hyundai and  it was a lovely scenic drive.  We stopped off to see the Missouri Headwaters State Park, a famous Lewis and Clark spot where the Missouri splits into three different rivers, the Madison, the Jefferson, and the Gallatin.  Lewis and Clark were faced with some tough decisions at that point - which of the three rivers to follow up into the mountains?  It's quite an intricate network near the town of Three Forks, with rivers running in all directions and no clear guidance as to where they are going to go.  We met some plein air painters there and Ivy had some good discussions with them.

Then on for a visit with our friend Judy and her lovely cat Jake.  Judy is a birder and also loves to fish, and the town of Ennis is famous for the fishing.  In fact, there was a fly fishing festival going on in Ennis over the weekend, and we wandered around a bit at that.  We toured the river and lake areas around Ennis, and saw birds and wildlife in abundance.  The deer really seem to like the farmers' fields around Ennis, but I'm not sure that it's mutual.

We also had a very pleasant trip to the old western towns near Ennis.  My favorite was Nevada City, an old gold mining town that has been preserved and turned into a tourist destination.  It was a lot less pretentious than some similar places, and staffed entirely by volunteers, some of whom drive for three hundred miles to spend time in costumes there staffing the town and putting on performances of historical events for their guests to watch.  An entire period town has been re-created there with all of its old buildings and streets, all lovingly preserved by the organization that runs it.  Well worth our visit.

Nearby is Virginia City, a very different type of old western town.  Here the buildings and look and feel of the old town have been preserved, but the town is entirely adapted to modern use.  There are stores and rides, all kinds of tourist services.  So we had hot chocolates there - it was kind of cool - and visited some of the stores.  There are a couple of theater companies there that put on shows for the folks - we tried for tickets but were too late.  So we headed back to Ennis.   

The next day we made our way back to Great Falls, traveling through a very picturesque canyon that the Missouri River has carved.  We stopped at Tower Rock State Park,  a high point that Lewis and Clark climbed to try and figure out how to get further up the Missouri.  The canyon is dramatic, and we stopped briefly by the river to enjoy the feel of it.  It was a great afternoon stop, very relaxing.

On our return to Great Falls, we were able to get our repairs completed and prepared ourselves to go on the road once again.  This time, we're aiming for the  Charles M Russell Wildlife Refuge, in a remote part of Montana.  There won't be much in the way of RV parks out there, but we look forward to exploring this famous part of the Missouri Breaks.  More from there.