Joe, Diane, & Mallery's Big Adventure - Modern Day Gypsies: Montana

Friday 10/12/2012

On our 2nd day driving east toward Iowa, we left Missoula, Montana.

Our start out elevation in Missoula was 3,209 ft above sea level.

We continued to follow and cross the Clark Fork River.

After about 80 miles we stopped near Opportunity, Montana and at 5000 ft. The climb was very gradual, and we wouldn't know we had climbed 1800 ft, if I didn't have the information on the GPS. We stopped for lunch there, just off of I-90.

After lunch we got back on the road and headed for a mountains of evergreens after driving a long time with a landscape sparse of evergreens.

As we drove past Butte, Montana the evergreens became sparse again.

A view of Butte, as we drove by on I-90.

The mountain before us in this picture is part of the Rockies and the highest point on our drive across Montana.

On the mountain top is the, "Our Lady Of The Rockies" statue

"Our Lady Of The Rockies", is a 90 ft statue dedicated to women, especially mothers. It sits atop of the Continental Divide overlooking Butte. It is the second tallest statue in the USA, with the statue Of Liberty being the tallest. The statue sits 3,500 feet above Butte.

Rockies from I-90 This.

As we climbed the mountain, the landscape became very rocky.

We crossed the Continental Divide at 6,393 ft.

From the top of the Divide it is a 6% down grade for 6 miles. We weigh 30,000 lbs.

View from the top of the Divide.

We followed this over sized semi tractor going 30 MPH for a while, but we started to worry that we could get rear ended on the curves.

Joe decided to pass it and get further below it.

We crossed this Divide on I-90, a few years back, but going west when we went to Glacier National Park.

Glad to be at the bottom of Homestake Pass.

We got down to about 4300 feet,

but slowly got back up to 5,300 ft. This is not Iowa by any means.

Views 40 miles west of Bozeman, Montana.

Gallatin and Absaroka Range beyond Bozeman in the distance.

Just east of Bozeman we came upon this accident on the west bound lane of I-90.

It had just happened as the ambulance went past us and further down I-90 to get turned around.

It looked like some kind of RV that was pulled by a car. The car is on it's side.

Hope no one was hurt in the accident. The RV was definitely totaled.

The semi trucks and cars were going around the accident in the medium. Joe said he would be hesitant to go into to medium in our bus.

West bound traffic was backed up for miles. Joe was glad we were going east.

Views just west of Livingston, Montana.

Miles down the interstate, I-90 west bound lane was closed and the traffic was redirected on the frontage road to the right of us.

Just west of Livingston we took Exit 330 for our next stop.

After 186 miles we stopped at the Yellowstone Truck Stop for the night.

At this stop, we were about 50 north of Yellowstone National Park.

Thursday 10/11/2012

We said goodbye to Lake Coeur d' Alene and headed east on I-90. There was so much we wanted to see in Idaho, but the weather was turning colder, and we needed to get to Iowa before we headed south again.

We crossed the 4th Of July Pass at 3,069 ft with a 5% downgrade for 2 miles.

We entered the Rocky Mountains in Idaho.

As we went through Kellogg, ID we saw these happy faces!

Kellogg is at 2300 ft and in the panhandle or chimney of Idaho.

As we left Kellogg we saw our first fall colors. We knew we were missing fall back in Iowa.

The drive across the panhandle/ chimney of Idaho took a little over a hour.

Just before we cross the border, we climbed again to Lookout Pass in the Coeur d' Alene Mountains of the Bitteroot Range of the Rocky Mountains.

At Lookout Pass we were at 4,710 feet above sea level as we entered into Montana.

What goes up must go down.

And down, down, down we went.

Signs stated trucks were to stay at speeds of 25-30 MPH.

We finally were nearing the end of the long haul down the pass.

Because of the drought the evergreens had lots of color with many greenish yellow colors mixed with darker green.

At the bottom of Lookout Pass is a rest stop.

We stopped for lunch.

I found this flyer inside the rest stop.

It looked like a nice home for the price, but it didn't have a lake view.

We continued on I-90 in Montana.

We finally came to a flat area of the interstate.

The evergreen started to come and go at this point.

We followed the Clark Fork River along I-90. The river runs through Montana and Idaho.

Less evergreens,

more evergreens,

sparse evergreens again.

Clark Fork River

As we got close to Missoula, Montana, the trees were gone. The forest fire haze came and went also along our drive, but Missoula seemed to be pretty thick.