There Lies The Port

Went through Bozeman again after cancelling a reservation in Billings, MT.

I had stopped in Billings to change the oil in the car, which I did, but Billings wasn’t great and decided to push all the way to Bozeman.

Sorry for lack of pics. Will be posting more soon.

Headed back west after leaving Fargo. I guess I wasn’t quite done with the trip. Plan on doing more in Montana.

Ok ok, will update here more. I ended up staying in Fargo for a couple days, leaving on Aug 21. Found a decent hotel and decided to recharge my batteries.

I made my way over to Fargo and I guess I have to post this.

But its summer and Fargo is far nicer at this point than the Movie.

I have had a couple conversations with close friends about what I really feel about these travels and the what I am experiencing. Its hard to put into words.

This drive was off the highway on state roads and was basically a straight due north to Pierre, SD through virtually nothing but grasslands.

I find the prairie grasslands to be so interesting to watch. There wasn’t enough stream/river/lakes to pump for farming, so it is almost exclusively cattle country.

I really do find it pretty. Savannah observed through our drives that the landscape changed every hour or so from grass, to rocks to canyons etc. This was purely oceans of grassland.

Pierre is South Dakotas capital, with a population of maybe 15,000.

I had intended on riding here today (Aug 11) but it is 95F, with 22+ MPH winds. Maybe tomorrow.

Drove over to Ogallala, NE for a little bit of a change.

Ended up taking a ride near Lake McConaughy, which was quite nice. I rode across the high damn that separates Lake McConaughy from Lake Ogallala and rode on the north side.

It was quite windy and just a little hilly.

The lake was interesting and because the water was low, there were campers lined up all on the beaches. The sand was almost ocean like i guess due to the sandstone in the landscape around. Lots of people swimming, kayaking, paddleboarding, jetskying. There were actually a fair number of sailboats about too. It was quite breezy.

The locals appear to use their tractor/combines to tow their trailers to the lake. See picture below.

Dropped Savannah off at the airport then headed up to Cheyenne where I stayed for a few days.

It was great having Savannah here, she was great company and seemed to really enjoy the sights and time.

Canyonlands, Arches and Deadhorse, all in the area of Moab, were awesome.

Spectacular views of canyons and colors. Savannah mentioned that this was the area that “127 Hours” was filmed.

We both thought it would be great to go down into some of the valleys and camp. Maybe in the spring or fall when its less hot.

This was a long day in the car, with a stop for lunch in Park City, UT to see Larry. We skirted down through SLC, Park City and then down through Utah to Moab. The highlights were, as Larry said, every 10 miles was a different geologic and temperate type area. We stayed in Green River, UT which was a tiny little town.

We got in around 8pm but then went back out into the desert to turn the lights off and check out the Milky Way.

We spent the day in Yellowstone before heading to Idaho Falls through the West Entrance. To be honest, I think that you need at least three days to do all of Yellowstone. There is just a lot to see and do.

Savannah took a dip in Jackson Lake, which i remember as being particularly cold when I swam there as a kid. However, I think I was swimming in mid June, not early August.

We were seated to see Old Faithful, but it was too long a wait and decided to drive the park. Below are some pictures which obviously dont do it justice.