Day 10 - Enter Montana! WooHoo

Fantastic, wonderful, beautiful, breath taking: 

BIG SKY COUNTRY

Almost like they were expecting us

traveled 442 miles (7 1/2 hrs) and enjoyed almost every minute. Norh Dakota I94 to Montana 200 (at Glendive, just inside the Montana line). Would recommend 200 to everyone. Great scenery. Might say "the road less taken?" could be true as we certainly didn't encounter many other vehicles. Again we listened to our book on tape which certainly made the trip move right along. As you can see by the photos, we had interesting roads. Miles and miles and miles of them.

Also saw many many abandoned farmsteads like this dotted all along the route

fuel up in little town of Circle, not much of a town but were we happy to see diesel and a reasonable price to boot. Towns are hundreds of miles apart out here.



Arrived at Mountain Acres mobile home and rv park around 4pm mountain time. http://www.hikercentral.com/campgrounds/107239.html

We are afraid we cannot really recommend it but it is the only park in town. Oh well, the water pressure was good, the elec hook up was fine and the place was pretty quiet so there ya have it. For 24 bucks and a good nights sleep it was okay. In a great town of Lewistown, MT
Huge open field across the way for Petro to run, needed key to use laundry and bathrooms, but no one to check us in or  to give us key. Internet, TV and phone service all good.
The owner/manager came around later in the evening saying we were on a 50 amp site and owed another $5. Carl said that is not the way he understood the note on door and we were only using 30 amps and staying one night. So the guy let it pass.

 Lewistown was a super town. Pretty much what one would expect for a western town except for the little casinos at almost every step.

We were hungry for a burger so headed into town to Ruby's. Had a great burger and chat with an elderly local who filled us in on the local history. He said it is basically now a retirement town as the mining and factory have moved out. He pointed to a large old brick building behind us reporting it used to be the hospital, the one he was born in, and is now being renovated into senior apartments. We were also told that if your not a rancher there isn't much for you in this area. That was no surprise to us as we saw nothing but miles and miles and miles of ranches, mostly cattle or sheep.

This metal work sculpture was quite a few miles east of Lewistown (actually, after research, I found out it is still in ND, I94 exit 72 ) http://www.enchantedhighway.net/ promoting a route, off the beaten path, with reported miles of various metalwork lining the route. Would have liked to have taken the detour, but we were on a mission and not in our plans for the day. Maybe another time. By viewing  the website for the enchanted highway, it will be worth the trip. For those of you planning a trip out west, I would put this one on my list of visits.