Photo by The Joneses Gisela sits atop Beartooth Mountain and, she reports, it sure is cold up there! — — — SLIDE SHOW: Even more beautiful than Yellowstone — — — E-mail Gisela! Got a comment for Gisela about their trip? Sent her an e-mail, giselaontheroad@yahoo.com — — — View Larger Map
ARCHIVES: Leaving Idaho and heading east 08/25/08 Boise sure has changed a lot 08/18/08 With family and spectacular sights in Hailey, Idaho 08/11/08 Idaho is full of natural treasures — and moon-like craters, too 07/30/08 From prairie country to beautiful views to grand 'ol Yellowstone 07/21/08 Escapees Rally in Wyoming 07/11/08 Who knew there was so much to see in South Dakota? 07/02/08 I (heart) Hart Ranch, South Dakota 06/24/08 Thunderstorms, flooding, tornados and a visit with the 'Duke' 06/17/08 Lots to see in the 'Show Me' state 06/06/08 Our final days in Kentucky 06/03/08 Moving days for Greg and his family 05/28/08 Leaving Indiana, but not before taking some of the state's best sites 05/16/08 Rallyin' in Goshen, Indiana 05/09/08 'The RV Capital of the World' 05/02/08 Out of Charleston and off to Indiana 04/25/08 Down in the Lowcountry 04/21/08 Arriving in Charleston 04/15/08 Wouldn't change a thing 04/04/08 Look back, look ahead 03/28/08 It's all about the theme parks 03/21/08 Strawberries, and more strawberries 03/14/08 From Boy Scouts to ‘Stars on Ice’ 03/07/08 The gang's all here! 02/29/08 A day with friends from Frederick 02/22/08 Under the weather 02/15/08 Earning our ears 02/11/08 Training for our jobs at Disney World 02/01/08 A special day 01/25/08 Into the Keys 01/21/08 The holidays in Florida 01/03/08 Arriving in Florida 12/28/07 And so it begins ... 12/17/07

Actually, as I am writing this we are already in Indiana having some final warranty work done at the Elkhart Service Center.

We left Idaho and took the northern route through Montana and North Dakota. In Montana we stopped for a few days in the small town Reed Point from where we drove (in the CRV) to Red Lodge to drive on the Beartooth Scenic Highway. This was one excursion we wanted to do while in Cody Wyoming, but time ran out.

The Beartooth Highway is a National Scenic Highway – there are only 52 other highway that have that designation. It spans 64 miles of countless hairpin curves with one breathtaking panoramic vista after the other. The summit is 11,000 feet, with patches of snow and small frozen glacier lakes. I do not have the vocabulary to describe the incredible scenery — just absolutely fantastic.

We stopped so many times to admire the view and take pictures that the trip took about five hours. Ralph and I both agree that the scenic sights we saw there were much more spectacular than what we saw at Yellowstone Park.

There was a forest fire nearby but fortunately it didn’t reach the highway and only in a few places did it spoil the views. However, we sure could see the smoke and in some areas we could even smell it.

In Red Lodge we talked to some of the firefighters who were on their way to the fire. Their main concern was to contain the fire so it would not reach the town. The town had cancelled an outdoor ethnic festival scheduled for the weekend because of the bad air quality a nearby fire brings to the area.

On the way back we stopped at a restaurant in Columbus where Ralph had the best steak he's ever had — I had trout — but Ralph did let me have a bite. The restaurant owners raise the beef themselves and age the meat for the just the right amount of time before they serve it – nothing is ever frozen. Even the Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse in D.C. doesn’t have steaks as good as this.

Another stop we made in Montana was at Little Bighorn Battlefield, a National Monument commemorating the famous battle of the Little Big Horn, also called “Custer’s Last Stand."

In June 1876 companies of the U.S. Seventh Cavalry were defeated by Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho tribes. The National Park is on the Crow Indian Reservation and most of the people working there are Native Americans.

We took a bus tour through the battlefield and our guide was a young man — a Crow Indian living on the reservation. He was very knowledgeable of the locations of the various battles, as well as the history of the events leading up to this battle.

We found the tour and the guide’s narrative were interesting. It was sort of a culmination of what we had seen and heard in the last few months about Native Americans and Euro-American history. Many of the same events and people were mentioned in the various places we visited, e.g. Crazy Horse Memorial, Buffalo Bill Museum, Deadwood South Dakota. We now have a much better understanding of the struggles and clashes of the two so very different cultures.

While driving through Montana and North Dakota we saw more of the beauty and diversity of the Rocky Mountain area. We would drive for quite a while through some very desolate areas and then come into the most picturesque site – a mall creek running through lush green fields and lots of trees or mountains with dark green pine trees and snow-covered peaks.

Often when we travel I read or do a crossword puzzle but traveling through the western states I didn’t do much of either. I never got tired looking at the scenery and was forever saying, "Ralph look at that!" He, of course, reminded me that when you drive a 40-foot rig with a car in tow you really don’t do a lot of looking at scenery.

In Montana I drove the motor home for a while. It sure is different than the CRV but not as hard as I thought. The difficult part is remembering what buttons to push to be in the right drive or use the right brake — there is so much more to it with a diesel engine.

The size didn’t bother me much, wherever the front goes the back follows. It is a little harder to keep within the lines on the road. I had a tendency to move over to the right to much which can be disastrous when the shoulder is soft ground. But I like driving and it is important that I know how to handle our "condo on wheels."