Summer Vacation to Montana - Day 3

Day Three
After a restless night of sleep and Dave's phone with a 5:45 am reminder that we go to the cabin today, I decided to get up and work on my journal.  I am sitting here listening to the other four people in the room sleeping.  I have decided that I will do everything I can to avoid w Super 8 in the future.

Everyone slowly woke from their slumber.  The extra sleep seemed to help.  Everyone was excited to start our last leg of our westward journey.  Although the boys had complained about the hours in the car yesterday, everyone was happy when we arrived at our first destination of the day in 45 minutes.

The View From Lewis and Clark Cavern State Park


The Lewis and Clark Cavern State Park is about 17 miles off the interstate but is well worth the detour.  We began our journey driving a three mile, twisty road to the top of the rocky hill.  Along the way a large buck jumped in front of us, reminding us that this was his territory and we were only visiting.  Another smaller buck followed behind.  As we reached the top we were greeted with a breath-taking view of the valley below.  Around us was the rocky terrain, spotted with trees, grass, and sagebrush, below was a vast valley of green grass with a slow meandering river cutting through it.



Dave, Josh, and Ryan purchase their cave tour tickets and we all checked out the visitor center and gift shop.  The tour is a one mile hike up the mountain and then a trip down the mountain inside the cave that is one mile long with 600 stairs.  Rosi and I decided that we would prefer to enjoy the air-conditioned cafe.  We enjoyed home brewed ice tea and each others company, while Rosi worked to finish a wedding gift for the wedding we are heading to.

The boys and Dave enjoyed the cave. 

Josh's favorite part was the last room of the cave.  In this room they had special lights that turned the room into a rainbow of rock. 

Ryan's favorite part was the Beaver Slide.  They had to crab walk down this part of the trail.

Dave enjoyed all of the different types of  stalactites and stalagmites.

After the cave we decided to take the scenic road to Butte.  We took Hyw 2 and enjoyed the scenery.  After Butte and some coffee at Starbucks we headed to the Grant-Kohrs Ranch which is part of the National Parks Service.  Even though we had to dart between raindrops and Mosquitos we had a great time.  We were thankful for the bottle of deep woods off.





Everyone enjoyed the blacksmith in the blacksmith shop. 

She made us a tool that is used to clean out horses hooves. 

She also gave each boy a horse made out of pipe cleaners.  At the stable the boys practiced getting Woody with a lasso.











Both boys really liked this.  Then our final stop was a tour of the 1850 ranch house.  After both boys completed their Junior Rancher Programs we were back into the car for the last three hours of our trip.

The drive through Bigfork, Mt, proved to be too much of a draw and we stopped for a quick trip down memory lane.  This is the village that Dave spent the most time living in and where he graduated from   high school.

We drove through the place that his home used to be.  It is now a very nice RV park with very expensive RV's from around the country.  Next we went around to see the rocks and hill that leads to Flathead Lake that served as Dave's childhood playground.  Dave was crushed to see that they are in the process of turning it into a new subdivision.  He took the boys for a walk to the rocks that have not been developed yet.




Finally, we drove through town.  On the single wide bridge to town, people were jumping off to the river below.  Josh and Ryan enjoyed this very much and were fascinated by people jumping off bridges.  I was busy trying to convince my daredevil son that this would be a dangerous idea.  Of course, it did not help when Dave mentioned that he used to jump off the bridge in high school.

After a fun day of adventure, we all crashed into bed around 11:30pm, having arrived at our final destination of Columbia Falls.

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