Catching our breath

Teddy Roosevelt National Park

We have ascertained the electrical problem is the campsite, not us. We just need to avoid GFI outlets. That said, yesterday was very long but incredibly beautiful. What struck me as I uploaded pictures from yesterday is that the best part of the pictures is the drama in the sky. They don't call it Big Sky country for nothing and we saw a lot of it, starting with this sunrise as we pulled out at 7a.

Our first stop was the South Unit of Theodore Roosevelt National Park and its stunning badlands. We wondered what the cattleguard was for as we drove across it, no cattle in sight. Then we ran into this fellow and a bunch of his cousins crossing the road. Later on, we drove right past a prairie dog town and Ruthie caught

Prairie Dog

this cute fella, one of many, with a camera much better than my phone.

Leaving the park, we stopped by the gift shop and snapped this poster. Ruthie says they should put these labels on a person and send it to Joe Biden. I

could add substantially to that list...

It is impossible to convey in pictures or in words, at least those available to me, the vastness of what we are passing through. I attempted a panorama shot, but we really need

Duane Hall here or an Ansel Adams to do this place justice. Do click on any picture to enlarge it.

Our next stop was Fort Union and the Confluence Interpretive Center. We were skirting the edges of the Central and Mountain time zones and our watches kept doing flips, which added to our disorientation--as if the incredibly vast and changing landscape weren't

Entrance to Ft Union.

enough. Fort Union is a National Historic Site and a reconstruction of a major trading post established, about like Fort Clark, about 30 years after L&C but using their information and the connections they'd created. You can

The most elegant post on the Missouri

Trading Room Ft Union

see from the house, they were very financially successful. The log building near the entrance was the "trade room". Located within the double walls of the fort, trappers and Indians could be allowed inside the outer wall to do commerce but not inside the inner
wall.

We also visited a state site, the Confluence Interpretive Center. It is the place where the Missouri and the Yellowstone Rivers come together. L&C had to make some important decisions

Missouri meets Yellowstone

here about where to go next. Whether it was science, their Indian interpreters or just good luck, they made the right call and continued up the Missouri.

So we asked the young attendant at the desk which of the Google Map alternatives was the best way to get to our last stop, Fort Peck. He said the main road, Route 2, was full of road construction and suggested the gray line, Route 201. Then he laughed and said, "There's NOTHIN' out there, you'll love it!" He was not kidding. There truly was nothin' out there, including pavement for 26 miles. No homes, no businesses, just pasture, hay and wheat fields. We passed occasional clumps of trees

that looked like there might have been a home once, but figured it was all corporate farm land now. Again, the vastness. We caught this picture of the one car that passed us and it pretty much tells the story of that part of our afternoon.

We did see many other things on our travels yesterday, always beneath a vast, ever-changing sky. Take your time and enjoy them as we did.

Blessing at day's end