Friday, August 28, 2009

Traveling North America: June-August 09

Long time since I was here..cause I was driving from Tennessee to Montana to British Columbia+3 more provinces then to Nashville; home for about 10 days then flew to Newfoundland and did a couple of weeks of driving there!  That is 6,000 mi +1,000mi.  All of this was made more fun because I had my dog, Bonnie, and my travel bud, Kristen with me for the 6,000 then Bonnie had enough of it and only Kristen for the last 1,000.
Rather than a mile by mile description, I am going to resort to highlights only.  I did like Kansas but really it is alot the same--wheat fields--when you are driving east to west.  Montana, however, is a different story.  We had a great week near Wise River(down the road from Wisdom) in SW Montana at Kristen's family cabin.  Bonnie loved that place--comfortable chairs to sleep in, walks, but could have done without those big thunderstorms.  Wise River is near Big Hole--a famous trout fishing area.
Our route then took us north through Helena (beautiful state capital bldg with a huge Charlie Russell painting in the House chamber), then Great Falls and a visit to the fantastic Lewis & Clark Museum right on the Missouri River.  How did they make that expedition??

Thru beautiful West Glacier National Park, across the Canadian border to Yoho National Park and to the little community of Field--our base for great hikes in the Canadian Rockies.  Waterfalls, emerald lakes, rivers, wildflowers, great trails and we loved being based in Field--totally untouristy.  Bonnie was happy here too---she liked Canada--impressed with their health care, too!  The big icefields near Jasper, an elk with a sporting a hugh rack---how can he manage a walk in the woods?.  We headed east across Saskatchawan-Manitoba and miles of wheat fields and the huge yellow fields of canola. At Winapeg we turned south crossed the US border into N. Dakota.  Now there was just Minnesota, Indiana, Kentucky to cover before Nashville.
Driving across the US was a good thing...I don't need to do it again for awhile though...
On to Newfoundland...later..