#9 DOWN TIME and BUFFALO

After leaving our idyllic overnight side of the road campsite, we travelled northwest across the big sky country of Montana. Again cattle ranches that stretch to the horizon with a lot of steaks and hamburgers waiting to be processed.

We are amazed at the amount of water being used for irrigation across the west, huge irrigation wheels covering hundreds of acres pumping millions of gallons of water are continually pumping to keep grass growing. Yet it seems that on many of those ranches most of that grassland is not being used.

We have been on the road for three weeks and seen so much nearly non stop so we found a nice campground in Missoula MT and settled in for the weekend.

Monday we are back on the road on a scenic drive towards Glacier National Park. we stop at a old mission built in 1890 and marvel at the artwork. The painter was a cook who had no training in painting but completed all the murals and frescoes in the church in just 13 months. There were about 50 of them and they were quite beautiful.

Further along the road we find the Nation Bison Range a 18,500 acre preserve for wildlife.

Before settlers moved west in the mid 1800's there were a estimated 20-30 million buffalo across the great plains, in just 20 years they were near extinction. There are now about 1/2 million in the U.S. and nearly the same in Canada. The drive through the preserve is a 19 mile dusty gravel road with some grades of over 10%. We were rewarded with close up encounters with elk, pronghorn antelope, bald eagle and lots of buffalo. On 2-3 occasions we waited while the buffalo took their own sweet time crossing the road. We decided not to try to hurry them.

We stopped early and planned for our day tomorrow (Tuesday) into Glacier National Park.

On arriving at the GNP visitor centre we learn that the Going to the Sun road through the park is still not opened yet but expect it to be soon, as of July 6 there was still over 30 feet of snow on the roadway. We explore the trails and falls in the lower park and find a campground for the night.