Tuesday, 03 June 2008

• USA Summer Road Trip 2008 - Day 2 - Montana to West Yellowstone - Cows, mines and mountains

  Day 2 - Montana to West Yellowstone
  
  Duration: 15 days (May 9th to 23rd)
  Distance: 9000km/5560miles
  
  
  
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  Started the trip at about 11am after chatting on the phone for hours :)
  
  
  A fairly typical scene from central Montana, vast spaces, lands, skies, mountains. For some reason, I find it hard to be angry when I'm looking at places like this :) Maybe that's why I love being in Calgary so much (this would be a fairly typical scene near Calgary too)
  
   
  The roads are straight 
  The mountains tall
  Conditions are ideal
  Driving with foot to the floor :P
  
   
  Vrooooom, no traffic, no nothing on the road
  
  
  
  Spring is here, and so the spring bird sings
  "New life it brings, time to spread my wings!" :)
  
  
   
  A pretty little town about 1/3 of the way through the day's driving distance. Little towns like this have no restaurants, just bars and pubs. (and dog heads sticking out of car windows :P )
  ps. notice how every car is american made? Montana is very "patriotic" this way, and very white, 95% white
  
   
  I usually avoid driving on the interstates, I like narrow twisty roads (and so does my MINI). But Montana have some rather interesting banked interstate highways, quite fun actually!
  
  From big skies to big mountains
  Into twisty roads and deep canyons
  Feel my pulse rise and quicken
  Fulfilling my twin passions (driving fast on twisty roads and photography :D )
  
   
  And then I reached the half way point, at the town of Butte, Montana. It is a town with a huge open pit mine. Lots of old abandoned buildings from the early 1900s when there was a mining boom. This is one of the older structures, I think now converted to be a community center.
  
  
  Here's the open pit mine called Berkerley Pit right next to the town center. It is just ginormous! Mile and a half wide and 1700 ft deep.

  
  A tunnel at the Berkerley Pit viewpoint

  The golden era had already passed
  Copper and gold, don't forever last
  Now the town is but a shell of its former past
  Left with an ugly scar so deep and vast

  
  Drove up an unmarked gravel road in the little red car just so I could take pictures of the town from high above :P It's a nice looking town, Butte. I wanted to get a postcard there, but couldn't find any, boo!

  
  Things look tiny from high above
  A town so peaceful, it's fit for a dove

  After hanging around the town for a couple hours (mostly driving aimlessly trying to find a place to buy postcards and take pictures), I went on with my trip and headed for West Yellowstone

  
  A tree by the roadside on the way to West Yellowstone

  Awake, arise, for spring is here
  Alert, abloom, for another year
  Alive, awaiting, for a new frontier

  
  Then I found this rusty old car in a field, with a little tree growing out of it :P Someone's got a sense of humor, hehe

  I'm rusty and I'm old
  Many road trips stories forgotten and untold
  Someone once loved me when I was newly sold
  Now I'm just a rusty car left out in the cold

  
  I've always wanted to take a picture like this, a cow in the field with the mountains as the backdrop. It's the classic portrait of the Montana/Alberta beef farms.

  All I do is eat and poo
  And all I know how to say is moo
  moo, ooo, ooooooO
  Mooo00000OOOOOOOO

  And they mooed at me
  .... and Lucas mooed back at them :P

  Yeah, really, hahahaha

  
  Isn't it cute? One day... one day people will be like "oooh man that's good steak!"

  (sorry for the strange humor... lets move on shall we?)

  
  And a beautiful farm with beautiful horses with beautiful mountains. Too bad it was partly cloudy and the lighting really killed this picture. Grr. I waited for 10 minutes for the clouds to change but it didn't...

   
  I <3 my MINI, but I guess you must have figured that out by now :) It's such a joy to go on road trips with it, agile, fun, and I love taking pictures of it. I seriously can't think of another car (that I could afford) which would be as fun as the MINI for driving and photography :D

  
  Probably my favorite picture of the day, I saw this tree while driving. And I doubled back 400 yards just to take pictures of it :)

  Alone, standing, for a hundred years
  Withstanding the elements without a single tear
  This is where I was born, and I'll die right here
  A life graceful without fears

  
  Got to West Yellowstone just around time for sunset. Drove a bunch just so I can get over on this side of the mountains to take pictures... I don't think it was worth it, the landscape looked so uninteresting that I decided to take a picture of myself, that's how bad it was... :P

  (btw, wearing the jacket Sunny gave me for my birthday, thanks Sunny :D A girl at a restaurant commented on the same day on how nice it looked too, hehe :D )

     
  And that's it for day 2!

  Next up: Pictures of Yellowstone National Park :)

  Trip stats for day 2:

  1 non-white person in Walmart @ Butte... me!
  Got angry twice at GPS showing me to non-existant post offices
  Talked to 2 random people during the day... "What mpg does your little car get?"

  Go back to previous road trip entries....
  Day 1: Montana
  Day 2: West Yellowstone
  Day 3: Yellowstone National Park 1
  Day 3: Yellowstone National Park 2
  Day 4: Yellowstone/Salt Lake City
  Day 5: Salt Lake City
  Day 5: Arches National Park
  Day 5: Canyonlands National Park
  Day 6: Capitol Reefs National Park
  Day 6: Bryce Canyon National Park
  Day 7: Cedar Breaks National Monument / Zion National Park
  Day 7: Nevada desert and Death Valley
  Day 8: Central California and Giant Sequoia National Monument
  Day 8: Monterey California sunset
  Day 9: San Francisco Sunrise panoramas and wallpaper
  Day 9: San Francisco downtown Part 1 of 2
  Day 9: San Francisco downtown Part 2 of 2
  Day 10: Alcatraz, San Francisco
  Day 11: California Coastal Redwoods
  Day 11: Northern California Coasts
  Day 12: Oregon and Washington
  Day 12: Wayne's house
  Day 13: Pike Place Market, Seattle
  Day 13: Vancouver sunset and night shots
  Day 14: Interior BC and Squilax Hostel
  Day 15: Suqilax Hostel and Alberta

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