MONTANA - BIG AND BEAUTIFUL

Left Idaho and headed to Missoula, Montana for a few days.

We stayed at the Missoula KOA just outside of town. Beautiful area - lots of green, rolling mountains around us. The Bison National Refuge area is just outside of town. The drive through the reserve is about 19 miles with lots of switchbacks that bring you up 2,000 feet and back down. A challenging drive - on this day you also needed binoculars to see the bison. They were all up on the mountains - a great drive anyway.

Thumper on hunt for bison

part of Rocky Mountains

small dots - are bison

Later we took a ride out to one of the local wineries - Ten Spoons Vineyard and Winery.

  Rain passed so we spent went into Missoula. Skip needed to find a gun shop. Not to hard in these parts of the woods. We stopped for lunch at the Iron Horse Brewery and Pub. There were tables outside. Beautiful day after the past few of rain.  

  

We had planned to go to Glacier National Park but the main scenic road was still closed in parts due to snow. With the crazy weather in the northern states, Skip decided to head to South Dakota. Afterwards, we will head back towards Yellowstone National Park and Grand Tetons. We got on I-90 east and started heading east. Montana is one big state. We went through a thunderstorm which we could see 20 miles away, and areas of gusty winds hitting the motorhome.

leaving Missoula

heading east

heading into thundestorm

back into blue skies and clouds

After 6 hours, we stopped in Billings for a couple of days at Yellowstone River RV Park.