Day 21 - St. Mary's, MT

We left Fort Benton and got diesel and went to Wal-Mart for groceries in Great Falls, MT. We tried to get some Canadian money, but the banks did not have any, or so they told us. After trying 5 different banks, we decided to get out of town and use our credit card in Canada. Our next stop was St. Mary's, MT, just south of the Canadian border at Waterton Lakes National Park in Alberta. We crossed over into Canada (Alberta) at Babb, MT and got to use our passports for the first time. It was a very smooth crossing with very few questions. The area around St. Mary's is very spectacular and beautiful. You are looking straight at the Rocky Mountains. You can cross over to the westside of the Rocky Mountains through Glacier National Park at St. Mary's. We stay at the St. Mary's KOA and had a great campsite. One thing that you can always count on at a KOA, is a hot shower!

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Day 20 - Fort Benton, MT

We had a long haul from Medora, ND to Fort Benton, MT. Fort Benton is considered to be the "birthplace" of Montana. It was founded in 1846 by the American Fur Company at the head of navigation on the Missouri River. It was the premier Blackfoot trading post in the Northwest. Steam stern wheelers would travel to Fort Benton to bring new settlers into the area, plus take furs back down stream. Lewis and Clark put their canoes into the Missouri River at the Fort Benton site on their return trip from discovering the Pacific Northwest route. It is a very beautiful historic town with only about 1,500 people living there today.

CLICK HERE to view our picture slideshow. If you would like to read the picture captions, then change the viewing time from 3 to 6 seconds. When you have finished viewing the slideshow, click the BACK ARROW icon in the upper left corner of the page and it will take you back to our blog page - enjoy!

Day 18-19 (Medora, ND - Teddy Roosevelt Grasslands)

Medora, ND is a very small community nestled at the southern most end of the Teddy Roosevelt Grasslands, commonly called North Dakota Badlands. It is where Teddy Roosevelt built a cabin and hunted. He had such a fondness for this area that he later proclaimed this area as a National Park, along with many others. It is a very fertile wild and rugged landscape with plentiful wildlife, reptiles, and birds. The southern unit of the park has a herd of wild buffalo and horses, of which we took some pictures. The many brillant colors were especially enjoyable at dawn and dusk.

The town was named after the wife of a French nobleman, who raised cattle, built the first slaughter house, and was responsible for bringing the railroad into this area. He became very weathly by shipping beef to the east coast. The town is famous today, not only for it's history, but for the musical performances throughout the summer months that attract people from many different countries.

CLICK HERE to view our picture slideshow. If you would like to read the picture captions, then change the viewing time from 3 to 6 seconds. When you have finished viewing the slideshow, click the BACK ARROW icon in the upper left corner of the page and it will take you back to our blog page - enjoy!

Day 14-17 (Rapid City, SD)

We arrived in Rapid City, SD on Friday (May 22nd). This was of course Memorial Day weekend. Our engine indicator light came on again and would not go out at all. So we decided to check this problem out with the local Dodge dealership in Rapid City. We found Dodge Town and needed to see a diesel mechanic. Just our luck, their only one, was on vacation until Tuesday (May 26th). We decided to stay and get our oil changed at the sametime. Not knowing where to stay for four days, we decided to join KOA which had a campground about 1/2 mile from the dealership. As it turned out, we had a great time.

First of all, they had a breakfast at the campground every morning where you could eat all of the pancakes you wanted for $1.00. We got to meet John Horton, who had been cooking pancakes at this campground for over 20 years. He had flipped over 1 million pancakes since he started cooking breakfast each morning at the Rapid City KOA. John is also a retired professional cowboy rodeo rider, and currently writes poetry and sings cowboy songs. He is very humble, but exceptionally talented and loves to entertain people. We got to know John and became very fond of him.

We also weathered 3 inches of rain in less than 3 hours with lots of high winds, thunder, and a spectcular lighting show. We took in the Memorial Day bike race in Rapid City, visited Art Alley, and did the President's Cache Walk through town. Rapid City is known as "The City of Presidents". There is a bronze statue of 35 American presidents located on different corners in the historic downtown area.

We visited a very amazing Native American gallery of arts and artifacts, then went to the local micro-brewery and had drumettes and a couple of home brews. We eventually got TREK back in running order and headed up the road to Medora, ND and the Teddy Roosevelt Grasslands.

CLICK HERE to view our picture slideshow. If you would like to read the picture captions, then change the viewing time from 3 to 6 seconds. When you have finished viewing the slideshow, click the BACK ARROW icon in the upper left corner of the page and it will take you back to our blog page - enjoy!