Alaska 2025 – 37

As we were driving down the road, Cathy mentioned that Montana was truly “big sky” country. I had to agree and took this photo.

We passed through Montana’s Missouri River Canyon in the late afternoon and were amazed by the perpendicular rock ridges suddenly surrounding us. The white “dot” you may see in the first slide is the Hardy Bridge crossing the Missouri River, built in the 1930 on the original highway through this canyon.

I stopped at this restaurant in Spotted Horse, the only building in town. I walked around and took this photo as I thought it was closed. A highway worker seemed a little agitated that I took up all the parking spaces with the motorhome/truck so he circled around and parked in front of me, then, to my surprise, he entered the restaurant. It was actually open for business.

This is about as close as we got to the Red Bud Battlefield. The road into the historical battlefield was dirt and we decided that we were not going to drive the motorhome on any more dirt roads on this trip. I made a feeble attempt to cross over or through the fencing but they had installed tie wires between the barbed wire, preventing me from climbing through. I did not feel like getting stuck this early in the morning.

Spending the evening on a wide part of the road, we woke up to a couple of deer quietly grazing across the roadway. I managed to get one photo before they ran off .

We took a bypass through most of Montana to avoid the boredom of the interstate. Silly me, I stopped at the first antelope we saw and took this photo. Little did we know that we would see virtually hundreds before rejoining the interstate.

We stopped when we saw the “roundup” being performed by a couple of bucks. They got frisky and corralled the females into safety groups as we pulled over.

• The first slide is that of a buck directing three of his group to safety.
• The second slide is the two bucks deciding who is in charge of the roundup.
• The third slide is the two bucks running about, separating the females.
• The fourth slide is one of the bucks perusing another group while two females stare me down.
• The fifth slide is one of the bucks staring me down as his group ambles to safety.
• The sixth slide is the other buck chasing down another group of stragglers.
• The seventh (and last) slide is a group photo of part of the herd.

We decided to take the Badlands detour. This guy was crossing the road so I stopped at a turnout a little down the road and I walked back to where he was and took this photo. I did not want to get too close as there was literately nothing to hide behind. (And he was bigger than me)!

Even though we were told to scour the walls for the sheep, I decided to descend into the next canyon and captured this female eating beside the road.

This guy was grazing and did not want me to get much closer. He is collared as the park keeps track of these animals because they are in short number. If I got too close he would become agitated so I kept a good deal back.

The sun was setting in the distance as we entered the park late in the afternoon. It was a pretty good side trip before retiring for the night.

Just a little rain on the homeward bound portion of our trip . . .

Miscellaneous trip details :

• States visited this trip: Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Alaska, Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota, Iowa, Kansas, Arkansas
• Provinces/Territories visited this trip: Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, British Columbia, Yukon Territory
• Miles driven: Motorhome: 12,005
• Miles driven: Pickup: 7,600
• Glaciers viewed to date (30): Harding Icefield: Exit, Bear, Columbia Palmer area: Nelchina, Manatuska, Knik, Colony Valdez area: Worthington, Valdez, Carmica, Bench McCarthy area: Root, Kennicott, Gates Homer/Portage area: Portage, Salmon, Grewingk, Colony, Portlock, Dixon, Bear, Spencer, Byron, Learnard Denali Highway area: West Fork, Black Rapids, Gulkana, Gakona, Maclaren, Eureka Canada: Angel. Post, Athabasca
• Animals spotted this trip: Moose, black bear (including a mama and three cubs and a mama and two cubs), cinnamon colored black bears, grizzly bears, musk oxen, mountain goats, caribou from the Porcupine herd and Fortymile herd, bighorn sheep (both Dall and Rocky Mountain), bison, wood bison, foxes (brown, silver and red), horses (wild), deer, mule deer, Golden Eagles and Bald Eagles, several flocks? of turkeys, dozens of antelope, sea otters and prairie dogs. This includes black, brown and gray squirrels, chipmunks, marmots and ravens, of course!

This is the final posting as we have arrived back in Braselton. It was good to be without news for a prolonged time!