Farmers market and Bear tooth Highway

We said our good-byes to Ken and Judy. They are headed back to Alabama by way of North Dakota.

We drove to downtown Billings to see their Farmers Market on the streets. It was full of people with their kids and dogs. Lots of good food and plants were for sale. Allan found a rhubarb pie that has his name on it. On each corner they had different musicians of all ages. While there I made a stop at the health food store. We dropped our purchases off at the trailer and headed for Bear tooth Highway.

Fortunately the fires that had plagued the Red Lodge area the week before, had been brought under control and the town had been saved from going up in flames. We took several pictures of houses that were of interest.

As we started up the mountains, the roads quickly got steep and winding with many switch-backs of different configurations. Jeanne was more than just a little anxious as she sat in the passenger seat looking down to see the drop off hundreds of feet below. She was leaning toward the center of the truck in hopes that would keep the truck from falling down the mountain. Some stretches didn't even have guard rails. The scenery was breathtaking and indescribable. The pictures really don't do justice to the scenery. We stopped several times at overlooks to take pictures and even got out to check the snow near the top. Unfortunately we did not see any mountain goats. Others from our group had seen some last week on the same road. There were many beautiful lakes near the top caused from the melting snow. We were not tempted to go swimming. Our truck performed well. We were glad we were not pulling our trailer as we could not have kept it on our side of the road with the switchbacks. There were several areas on the road that apparently had problems with rocks slides. The sign warned of the dangerous areas but also said to stay on the road. One side was the mountain going straight up and the other side was straight down. Now just where did they think your were going?

Down at the foothills, we drove through the National Forest campgrounds. It is set up for small campers but not for our size trailer. No hookups, but nice area. Coming out of the mountains we ran into some rain. Allan decided we need to buy new windshield wipers. These have nearly dry rotted from lack of use.

We have one more week here in Billings.