Luke had ordered a new hydration pack from REI so we went to pick that up, drove around to see what's new, and stayed at the (free) Battle Ridge campground again. They've had to cut down a few trees but it was still great--especially when a couple of owls hung out in the neighbouring tree and hooted back and forth as we were going to sleep.
The next day we biked the Emerald Lake Trail in the Hyalite Canyon. There were quite a few people on the trail, hiking, running and biking. It's such a beautiful area!
That night we stayed in the Walmart parking lot. It had a nice view:
However, it was much more active during the night than I had hoped. This included a guy doing unbelievably shitty rap to music that had a repetitive high-pitched ding. All. Night. Long. This annoyed other people besides me, but whenever someone would yell at him to be quiet it would just encourage him to be louder and use more swears. Awesome.
The next day we learned that a large part of the Yellowstone River (not the part of the river in Yellowstone Park though) was completely closed to any use at all. A parasite was killing large amounts of trout and the river was closed until they had it under control. How awful.
I also learned about a local area called Beaver Chew. Back when Lewis and Clark were doing their famous voyage through the area, Lewis had left a message for Clark on one of the trees at the fork of the river to tell him which way to go. Then a beaver chewed the tree down before Clark could get the message. So Clark went the wrong way and almost died. Lesson learned: don't leave messages for your friends on trees.
We went to Leverage Canyon, which is also a popular trail destination with lots of bikers. It's a bit of a climb, but there's some great views at the top. Then we left for Helena.
Helena has the biggest city park in the US, with quite a number of trails...so we went for a fun bike ride! We then walked around the downtown for a bit to see what's changed since the last time we were there too. There were a few more stores for rent than I remembered, but it's still very lovely.
We grabbed some groceries and as I was walking through the parking lot I noticed a large yellow truck running with no one inside (that seems to be a thing there. how hard is it to turn your vehicle off?). It was also parked diagonally across two parking spots, parked illegally in (two) handicap spots, and had "TRUMP Make America Great Again" plastered all across the back of it. I think their idea of 'great' and my idea of 'great' must be very very different.
The next day we went to Grizzly Gulch, another fun trail area, for a bike ride. There were a few old limestone ovens used to make mortar for brick and stone buildings in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
Luke very nicely found us a place for a swim, and there was a bonus very friendly dog who came over to hang out with us as we swam.
We decided to move on to Missoula and got to do the gorgeous drive through the Helena National Forest.
Much to my absolute delight, there was a mountain spring water fountain along the road!!! We filled up our water containers and I drank as much water as I could to maximize the spring water experience. The water tasted soooo amazing.
Luke filling our water container
There was a fellow also getting water, so we chatted with him a little bit. He was quite soft spoken, but unbelievably nice. He was making lemonade--the bag of squeezed lemons was right there, so it was as fresh as it gets--and he kindly offered us some. It was also so delicious. I'm smiling hard just thinking about it.
What we've seen of Montana makes a lot of sense to me. People seem to care about community and the quality of their society. There are co-ops and thriving arts scenes. And they make mountain water springs just because they can.
Our next blog stop will be Missoula and then the Flathead Valley/Glacier National Park area, my new favourite place!
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