Short day, beautiful mountains

June 13 -  There was a truck parked in front of us this morning, allowing only a one space gap.  What a jerk!  Once we had breakfast and put things away it was time to hit the road while it was slow at Wal-mart.  Bill went out front to watch me get out and it went totally smooth!  Thank goodness!

Kinda oloks like us but it's not!

After a short trek to I-90, we hopped on for the continued trail west.  We hadn’t gone far with the first snow capped mountains came into view.  With every curve in the road the scenery changed but the snow caps kept on coming from different angles.  And next came the uphill roads

Have to take the bad with the good

and the downhill sides, and of course they were curvy as well.  It spends the nerves a bit. 

We stopped in Bozeman today at a rest area on the edge of town and had our lunch break.  Actually, we stopped a little early because the next rest area was 143 miles.  Geez!  We took the last open spot but vehicles were coming and going continually.  Some had to just circle and keep going as it wasn’t a really big rest area.

It was a relatively short day as we arrived at Indian Creek Campground in Deer Lodge, MT at 2:30.  We had a nice pull thru full hook up.  It’s a very nice campground just off I-90 with flat gravel packed sites and grassy areas.  Once we got set up I started on laundry. 

The front of the original section

We’ve attempted to visit Grant-Kohrs Ranch once before and got here too late.  It’s a National Park that is still a working ranch.  It’s a long story but the grandson of Kohrs sold the homestead area and about 1,200 acres to the National Park Service in 1977.  His requirement was that it remain a working ranch.  He wanted to preserve and

The addition creating 12 bedrooms

continue his grandfather’s legacy, so the rangers have to also be cowboys to work here.  We took the tour of the house which has a large percent of original pieces, including wool carpets.  It was left with the dishes, décor, and furniture.  They currently don’t show the upstairs as the roof had an issue and water did a lot of damage to the upstairs.

View from the yard

We could walk the grounds and talk to and watch the blacksmith, and also the chuck wagon cook who would go out on the range during cattle drives, etc.  We visited the bunkhouse and carriage house.  It had a beautiful view of the mountains and they currently have snow on them.

After our exercise for the day we drove into “town” where

the territorial prison still stands but is now a museum.  We dropped mail at the post office and stopped to take photos of the giant last rail spike and the trains with it.

Time for wine, well that is really any time in my book!  Then I made chicken medallions with an orange sauce served over wild rice with steamed zucchini.  Bill did the dishes and I did more laundry since we have a full hook up.  Later we had our huckleberry ice cream sandwiches.  That makes up for eating a healthy dinner!