Montana

Christiana has wanted to go to Montana ever since she was randomly assigned to do a project on it in the 5th grade.  I'm told there was a pretty sweet diorama of a mountain and a glacier but I digress.  It's a massive state (the 4th largest) but I think we hit some of the best parts.  I believe it lived up to the 20 years of hype created.

Missoula was a really fun place.  Big enough to have stuff going on, but still a relatively small town feel.  As you can see they have a carousel which was awesome in it's own right but also because as far as carousels go it hauled.  We also enjoyed Downtown Tonight which is a fair every Thursday in the summer with lots of local food and beer.

This is the ghost town of Garnet which we reached via an 11 mile dirt road.  It was a mining boomtown but completely dried up once the gold was gone.  It's one of the better preserved old mining ghost towns.   The old three story hotel is still preserved which was cool, but other than that it's mostly just small log buildings.

Bison art at the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center in Great Falls.  The center gives a real nice overview of their journey.  In Great Falls they had to portage their boats 18 miles past five waterfalls.  It added about two weeks to their trip unexpectedly.

This monument signifies where Custer's last stand took place at the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument.  Of course this was the only major victory for Native Americans in the Sioux War.  The visitor center does a good job summarizing the events.

Of course probably the coolest part of Montana is Glacier National Park which we'll get to next.