Congratulations to the Swiss on this anniversary day marking the founding of their confederation!
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At Cobalt Lake this morning, Matthias and I heated up some oatmeal, packed the tent, and were on the trail returning to the trailhead by 7:15. The air was so cool, but we quickly warmed up as we hiked. The trip was a breeze; it was downhill nearly the entire way. We made it back in about 2 hours.
After packing the gear in the car, we bought coffee and a hot chocolate in the general store and headed back to East Glacier for a shower and to enter cyberspace. Just after noon, we said good-bye to Glacier National Park, and set off to the southeast towards Billings. We took Highway 89 to Great Falls where we picked up Highway 87 to Lewistown, where we expected to see a ‘classic’ Montana city frozen in time just the way it was in the 1910s. We parked the car on the main street in town and walked a few blocks up and back to the car. The town was quaint and contained a lot of the original building facades dated during the teens with a few placards here and there describing the architecture and history of certain buildings, but it was nothing extraordinary. We stuck around for only a few minutes.
The entire ride to Billings was what I originally envisioned Montana to look like; dry, flat, tree-less prairies with (of course) ‘Big Sky’. The road just rolled on and on. The terrain changed interestingly in Roundup, where sedimentary sandstone full of coal has been pushed up out of the otherwise flat landscape.
I was hoping to introduce Matthias to Dairy Queen on the road to Billings, but somehow that American staple eluded us. At about 6:30 PM, we arrived in Billings. We proceeded to the KOA campground, selected a tent site amongst the chirping crickets, and then made our way into downtown for a steak, Matthias’ treat. We dined at the Lucky Diamond on the 20th floor in the Sheraton Hotel building; Matthias had the filet mignon and I had the New York strip. The food was quite tasty, but the service was very poor and slow. Our waitress seemed more interested in serving a tourist group than a couple of scruffy-looking dudes at the corner window for some reason. The view of the town and the setting sun were quite nice. We drove around town for a little while and stopped at Albertsons to buy hot chocolate and a few other items. Billing is interesting; on the short stretch of road between the hotel and our campground, we passed a women’s prison, an oil refinery, the interstate, city hall, and the railroad.
Back at camp, we heated up the hot chocolate. Matthias read while I wrote in my journal. Tomorrow we plan to visit Pictograph Cave State Monument and Little Bighorn, site of Custer’s last stand.
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At Cobalt Lake this morning, Matthias and I heated up some oatmeal, packed the tent, and were on the trail returning to the trailhead by 7:15. The air was so cool, but we quickly warmed up as we hiked. The trip was a breeze; it was downhill nearly the entire way. We made it back in about 2 hours.
After packing the gear in the car, we bought coffee and a hot chocolate in the general store and headed back to East Glacier for a shower and to enter cyberspace. Just after noon, we said good-bye to Glacier National Park, and set off to the southeast towards Billings. We took Highway 89 to Great Falls where we picked up Highway 87 to Lewistown, where we expected to see a ‘classic’ Montana city frozen in time just the way it was in the 1910s. We parked the car on the main street in town and walked a few blocks up and back to the car. The town was quaint and contained a lot of the original building facades dated during the teens with a few placards here and there describing the architecture and history of certain buildings, but it was nothing extraordinary. We stuck around for only a few minutes.
The entire ride to Billings was what I originally envisioned Montana to look like; dry, flat, tree-less prairies with (of course) ‘Big Sky’. The road just rolled on and on. The terrain changed interestingly in Roundup, where sedimentary sandstone full of coal has been pushed up out of the otherwise flat landscape.I was hoping to introduce Matthias to Dairy Queen on the road to Billings, but somehow that American staple eluded us. At about 6:30 PM, we arrived in Billings. We proceeded to the KOA campground, selected a tent site amongst the chirping crickets, and then made our way into downtown for a steak, Matthias’ treat. We dined at the Lucky Diamond on the 20th floor in the Sheraton Hotel building; Matthias had the filet mignon and I had the New York strip. The food was quite tasty, but the service was very poor and slow. Our waitress seemed more interested in serving a tourist group than a couple of scruffy-looking dudes at the corner window for some reason. The view of the town and the setting sun were quite nice. We drove around town for a little while and stopped at Albertsons to buy hot chocolate and a few other items. Billing is interesting; on the short stretch of road between the hotel and our campground, we passed a women’s prison, an oil refinery, the interstate, city hall, and the railroad.
Back at camp, we heated up the hot chocolate. Matthias read while I wrote in my journal. Tomorrow we plan to visit Pictograph Cave State Monument and Little Bighorn, site of Custer’s last stand.
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