Montana bound!

On Thursday, we continued east...

We left Wallace by that strange single-lane bridge in the middle of the road that I had blogged about a couple of days ago (https://journeyinamazinggrace.blogspot.com/2022/08/east-to-idaho.html). There were dump trucks using the single-lane bridge for a construction project near where we were staying - and the single-lane bridge is one way both ways! I was running along behind because we had hooked up in a place where I could not ensure that the towbar was locked into place before we left the parking lot, so I told Carl to drive on a ways and I would catch up with him! I got my exercise in early in the morning!

Entering Montana! Gracie earns another state!

 

A lot of our route was like this -- both directions of traffic on one side of the interstate while construction is going on on the other side. In the northern states there are two seasons: winter and construction!

One of the folks we met in the Wallace RV Park recommended cinnamon rolls from Wheat Bakery. He had told us it was near the campground we were going to... but we found that there are a number of locations of Wheat Bakery, and one was at the fuel stop where we got diesel in Missoula! Carl had wanted to get me Cinnabon for my birthday, but there weren't any places around, so he went in at the fuel stop and got two (!!) cinnamon rolls -- they were each about 8" square and 2" high! One had glazing and the other had cream cheese frosting. Not on our diet, but we managed to eat them both!

Beautiful views as we drove... western part of Montana is very mountainous.

Coming down from the mountains...

... to an area of plains to the east.

A few years ago, Dwayne and I visited the Mississippi headwaters at Itasca State Park in Minnesota (https://trekincartwrights.blogspot.com/2017/08/headwaters-of-mississippi.html). As I was looking at our path east, I noticed that there was a Missouri Headwaters State Park in Three Forks, Montana, so we decided to stop at the campground there. It is a boondocking (no hookup) campground, and it is unfortunately pretty warm in Montana at this time, but... it is a nice place, and we're seeing some of the area while here...

The instructions given to Lewis by Thomas Jefferson

Carl was convinced that the beginning of the Missouri (or of any river) is a garden hose that someone has the responsibility of turning on and making sure it stays on! That was more nearly true for the Mississippi as it started at the outflow from Lake Itasca.

The headwaters of the Missouri, however, is at the convergence of the Jefferson and Madison Rivers. The garden hoses are further away, presumably at the headwaters of the Jefferson and the Madison...

Which raises a question: Why is *this* the headwaters of the Missouri? Couldn't Lewis and Clark have continued following both the Jefferson and the Madison to wherever each of those rivers started and declare one of those places (maybe the one that went the furthest) the headwaters of the Missouri? Should I have listened better in my US History classes?

Regardless, we've visited the headwaters of the Missouri and have the mosquito bites to prove it!