Road Trip

Well, Kyla eventually managed to get rid of us today (Scott had to leave yesterday for work). She must have been worried that we'd change our mind and decide to stay a few more days, as we had done at the weekend. We were all sorry to leave, Sam especially would have liked to stay 'forever'.

We set off on freeway '90' that runs between Missoula and Livingston. It's a long, very straight road but it comes through some stunning country. It's not called "Big Country' for nothing! The mountains are massive, as are the plains. We passed the 'Continental Divide', which Wikipedia explains as 'A continental divide is a line of elevated terrain which forms a border between two watersheds such that water falling on one side of the line eventually travels to one ocean or body of water, and water on the other side travels to another, generally on the opposite side of the continent.'In this case the bodies of water being the Pacific Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean (sorry if you already knew all this, I had to depend on Johnny to explain it to me and as you may expect, his explanation was much longer than the Wikipedia version!)

On the way we stopped off at Deer Lodge to learn more about cowboys. Actually we started off in a 'diner' for lunch, the highpoint of which was drinking huckleberry milkshakes (absolutely delicious, but not helping our waist lines). We then 'did' a group of museums including , The Old Montana Prison (which was really interesting, if a bit spooky in places), The Frontier Museum along with Desert John's Saloon Museum and Cottonwood City which took us back to the era of cowboys and the Old West. We also rushed through the Montana Auto Museum and Yesterday's Playthings as they were included in the admission price (really good value, free for the children and $9 each for Johnny and I) [I'm using the hotel's computer and it doesn't have a pound sign on the keyboard!]

We also managed to get the last 30 minutes of Grant-Kohrs Ranch National Historic Site where the boys had a go at throwing a lasso like a cowboy.

We have now arrived at Livingston as planned. The boys enjoyed a dip in the pool before eating tea in their pyjamas in bed (well it was 9.30!). Tomorrow we're off to Yellowstone Park.

Rachel x