Wandering Around America One State at a Time – Montana

Posted in Glaciers, Historic Sites, Montana, National Parks, RVing, Tourist Attractions, Wandering around America, WaterfallsTagged , , , ,

State 24:

Welcome to the next post in my series highlighting states we have visited throughout the years. I hope you will enjoy coming along for the ride!

I will be featuring the states alphabetically. The next state is

Montana

Montana became the 41st state on November 8, 1889. The capital is Helena.

We visited Glacier National Park in 2006 on our very first cross country RV trip. The National Park had just opened back up after a wildfire when we arrived at Johnson’s RV Park.  The smell of smoke was heavy in the air and many firefighters were still in the area. Our campsite sat on top of a hill overlooking St. Mary’s Lake.

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St. Mary’s Lake

Driving from the eastern entrance of Glacier National Park to the western entrance in West Glacier on the 55 mile long steep and curvy Going to the Sun Road was the highlight of our visit. After wandering around West Glacier we turned around and returned to St. Mary the same way we came. We also enjoyed exploring the St. Mary side of Glacier.

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Glacier National Park, Montana
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Glacier National Park, Montana
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Glacier National Park, Montana
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Glacier National Park, Montana

The next year we traveled to Montana again, this time to visit the Little Big Horn National Monument near Hardin. While we were in the area we made a day trip to Big Horn Canyon.

Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument, Montana
Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument, Montana
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Little Bighorn Battlefield
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Bighorn Canyon

Earlier in that same trip we had gone through snow storms in Minnesota so we kept an eye out the weather after we left Hardin. We made a quick overnight stop in Garrison, Montana. Everything was fine when we went to sleep that night. The next day we woke up to several inches of snow. We were headed west with more snow moving towards us from the east so we skedaddled out of there as fast as we could and arrived safely at our next destination in Washington.

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After the storm in Garrison, Montana

Several years later we enjoyed spectacular scenery as we traveled through Montana on the way to Alaska. We spent a night at Cardwell Store and Campground and three nights in Great Falls before crossing into Alberta, Canada about 120 miles north of Great Falls.

Mountains in the distance in Cardwell, Montana
Mountains in the distance in Cardwell, Montana
Our Lady of the Rockies overlooking Butte, MT
Our Lady of the Rockies overlooking Butte, MT
Snow on the mountains between Butte and Great Falls
It was snowing over the mountains between Butte and Great Falls

In Great Falls we took care of some business and stocked up on supplies before continuing north to Canada and Alaska. We also got to do a little sightseeing.

Statue honoring Lewis and Clark at the Visitor's Center
Statue honoring Lewis and Clark at the Visitor’s Center
Rainbow Falls
Rainbow Falls and Dam

On our way home from Alaska two and a half months later we spent two more nights in Montana as we traveled east towards Georgia.

A Bear cub with fish in our campsite in St. Regis, Montana
A Bear cub with fish in our campsite in St. Regis, Montana
Montana Sunrise
Montana Sunrise at Camp Three Forks

To read previous posts about the states featured in this series just click on the state name: Alabama      Alaska      Arizona      Arkansas      California      Colorado     Florida      Georgia      Hawaii        Idaho  Illinois      Indiana      Iowa     Kansas     Kentucky     Louisiana     Maine     Maryland     Massachusetts     Michigan     Minnesota    Mississippi     Missouri

29 thoughts on “Wandering Around America One State at a Time – Montana”

  2. Yikes! A surprise snow storm – I can relate 😆 Big sky country … even today it feels vast, open, and lonely. I can’t imagine what it was like 100 years ago riding across on horse back. Interesting history and beautiful country!

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  5. We love Montana, too! The geographical differences between eastern and western Montana are so vast it’s hard to believe it’s one state. Going back this summer!

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      1. On your travels did you find it difficult to achieve that balance of seeing the area but knowing you had to move along too? Sometimes we just want to stay in a place for days but know we need to move on otherwise we would never leave some states, lol. This is why its nice hearing your and others travels and places that touched you. Then we can learn and build our list.

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        1. Yes, there were a few places we did not want to leave. Since we are not full timers we would plan a trip so that we could see as many bucket list things as we could along the way. That’s why we usually never went in a straight line. We never had the luxury of just staying as long as we wanted because we always had some event we had to be home for on a certain date. Also, many of our trips were planned around an event – a wedding, an RV rally, visiting family, or a football game. We never stayed anywhere longer than a week unless we were visiting family. Many places were for only 2 or 3 nights. On some of our longer trips we wouldn’t decide where to go on the return trip until right before we started heading home. Also, when we first started out we wanted to add every state we camped in to our travel map on the camper. We camped one night in a few places just to add the state!

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          1. Thank you for sharing this. This is what we are trying not to do… “add…to our travel map…”. We are wanting to enjoy each place and are beginning to realize we can’t have it all but the places we do visit we need to appreciate them for all they are worth. I guess we are all a work in progress as travelers. We too are zig zagging. When we look at our google timeline (records everywhere we go) we laugh.

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          2. Before we left on a long trip I would use a mapping program to put in the major destinations and then see what there was to see along the way. We found a lot of really cool places that way. Happy travels!

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  8. I’m ready to go back and take the hubby. I went there when I was in 6th grade with my parents to see my brother who was stationed in great Falls. It was so amazingly beautiful. Thanks for the trip down memory lane.

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