Montana

We stopped in Montana to visit my Sister, Joyce, my Niece Julie, and Great Niece and Nephew, Jane and Aaron, respectively. It has been 3 long years, and it was so good to visit for a couple days.

The trip into Montana displayed incredible expanse of mountains and forests. From this point on, the trip will get increasingly panoramic and beautiful as we head through the mountains into northern Idaho. Some pix of the Montana landscape ...

One of the great things we did while visiting was drive up to Red Lodge, one of the gateways to Yellowstone. This place is awesome, like Nevada City, CA but times 10, with an interesting history. We found the best breakfast served up yet on the trip at Cafe Regis, where we sat outside on the shaded lawn area, in perfect harmony with nature and the adjacent greenhouses where some of the food we were eating was grown, fresh! This place was 5-star plus, and each of us enjoyed our breakfast and peaceful surroundings.

The Regis was a grocery store back in the 30's, and today it is converted into a 5-star breakfast and lunch restaurant. It's located two blocks off main street ... you would never know it's there unless you looked for it on the web. Louise and Joyce had a wonderful combination of eggs, and Chili Verde on polenta, and I had Huevos Rancheros topped with Chili Verde ... OMG! The best breakfast of the trip!!!

After breakfast, we meandered through a couple excellent antique stores and other stores with the most interesting items for sale. You could spend a day here just browsing. Of course, I couldn't leave the candy store without a handful of Dad's Root Beer hard candy and a few other treats, sold by the pound!

A few other sights on the way out of town ... Lake Elmo State Park, very close to Joyce and Julie, and another fine example of the quality and pace of life in Montana.

Tonight we are camped in beautiful Cardwell, MT, located between Butte and Bozeman in the Jefferson Valley. Central to the RV park is a little country store with just about everything anyone living here could want for, including an espresso bar and ice cream parlor, serving up huckleberry shakes. Yum!!!

Also, we found out that Lewis and Clark camped here on their expedition of 1804 to 1806 across the country, possibly camping in the exact spot we are presently parked in. Okay, maybe it was in space number 5 instead of 4 ... who knows? They probably opted for full hookups!