just returned from a family road trip through the great plains to glacier national park. even though driving takes longer and can get a tad tiring, what you gain in speed at 35,000 feet in a 737 is more than made up for on the ground. wyoming is just beautiful, antelope, prairie dogs, fields stretching from horizon to horizon along a ridge of mountains. stopped in some small, actually tiny, towns and had a wonderful time with the people there. buffalo, wy, is the home of the guy who wrote the longmire books that the netflix series is based on and we happened to hit on "longmire days", an annual event there where the stars of the show come to town for a three day festival and it was really cool and one of the prettiest towns ever. in montana, we stopped at the site of the battle of the little big horn where custer made his last stand. as an army guy, could have told him, if you are outnumbered by 4 or 5 to one, best have some artillery or air support, which he did not. outstanding park rangers made the visit and the tour exceptional and the battlefield and headstones and graves there makes one stop and show great respect. glacier national park is, like most of the parks, spectacular. a couple of weeks before departing for the park, saw a headline about glacier and said to myself, oh no, thinking the park had been closed or that something had taken place which would ruin our trip but it was all good news. the park in the early 2000s had posted signs, GONE IN 2020, meaning that the glaciers would all be gone, melted by 2020 but they had just taken them down since the glaciers had actually grown, expanded over the past few years, really cool, no pun intended. have to say my fam was not confident in me driving along the "goingtothesun road" along drops offs of thousands of feet without guardrails but we made it. told them i trusted my driving over a bunch of government employees and they agreed with that. to be honest, they have this fleet of red truck/buses, built by ford in about 1937 with removable tops and that is really the way to see the park so take them if you go. we stayed in a bed and breakfast in whitefish, mt and in conversing with the owner, a grad of va tech and a really good guy. whitefish is cute, fun but a little touristy for me. found a couple of towns, cities, where i thought i could live out there, one being kalispell which is a beautiful little town that has both an airport and a krispy kreme and sits on the edge of flathead lake which is huge and gorgeous. the other town, missoula, yep, the home of the griz. the town is so pretty and the people we met there were warm and welcoming. my son climbed the hill behind the stadium, the one with the big M, with three of their football players and they knew the SPIDS. in butte, getting some gas, met a lady hauling some horses and asked her where she was headed, Virginia, she replied, Stewart, VA. told her one of our best friends lives there, small world and a long trip for her. we made it out there and back, TX, NM, CO, OK, WY, MT and back and saw AMERICA, fly over country for sure but a slice of our great country and the people who dare to live there. recommend the book, GREAT PLAINS by ian frazier, an easy read and history of this area of our country. don't really think that is where i would want to live but it does have many amazing vistas and sights worth seeing before you check out. sorry for the length but wanted to share.
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