The western third of Montana contains numerous mountain ranges, the other two thirds support vast ranches and wheat farms. The most visited sites are Glacier National Park and the Battle of Little Bighorn plus three of five entrances to Yellowstone National Park. The Capital of Montana is Helena, but the most populous is Billings. Montana stretches 630 miles from north to south.
Montana is in my mind certainly, one of the real cowboy States, now, having been there I know it still is. As you drive along roads that are straight right to the horizon you can see nothing but flat grazing land, a few black cattle and the odd shed for keeping feed in. At this time of year the grazing appears to be all dried up, could it have been a long hot, dry summer, who knows
I can see why one of the names for this State is ”The Big Sky Country” the view in any direction is of flat grazing land, no mountains, no trees just a never-ending skyline.
Although everywhere is flat ranch land, we are still at an altitude of around 6000 feet, this is one huge plateau.
Snow is being mentioned on every weather channel for my area, even down as low as 5000 feet, as I say, I am at 6000 feet at the moment and with a few more weeks at this kind of altitude in Montana, Wyoming and Utah before I drop down to lower levels I have to keep a weather eye open. With snow now visible on distant mountains in the direction I am heading I shall keep pressing on, I am heading for one of the most important places on my whole trip, Yellowstone National Park
I have decided to book ahead to be sure I have a space in an RV site, while I am now well “off” season, places like this are busy all year round so no risks here.
On arriving at the pre booked KOA site I discover it is some 5 miles from West Yellowstone town, this is not quite what I had pictured, each day I took my bus into town, parked it and went walk about.
While wandering around I came across a little RV site right in town, just off the main street, it is called “The Brandin Iron” I at once enquired if they expected to have space for me the following day, I was delighted they said yes, so next day I rolled up and parked in one of the four spaces.
West Yellowstone is a rather nice sort of town, mostly log cabin type of buildings, obviously it is here only for tourists coming to see the park, as I planned to go into the park on a number of days I thought I would enquire about a “golden card”, this card gives me free admission to any National Park in the US for life, well worth having.
Although the west entrance to Yellowstone is in Montana, the park itself is in Wyoming, only half a mile down the road.
Before I moved into West Yellowstone, I decided to find out just what the park was like and had to offer, I had read there were RV parking sites within the park, so in order to discover all there was, I booked a day long mini bus tour, this was very helpful, parking for me was not going to be an option.
Once I moved to the “Brandin Iron” I hired a car for four days, this I thought was the answer for me, it certainly was, I quickly discovered as you drive around you come across something you want to see, pull onto the grass at the side of the road and take your photograph or whatever, trying to do this in a 35 foot bus would not work.
I enjoyed my stay in West Yellowstone, it had a lovely feel to it, and it was my front door to the park, one of my all-time best places in America.
I must by now be past the half way point in my circular tour, I am in a slightly strange position, how far do I have to go to get back to Temecula? How long will it take me to drive through Wyoming, Utah Arizona and Nevada? How do I judge it to be back in time to catch a flight home for Xmas? Will I get caught up in heavy snow?
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