Missoula, MT to Bismarck, ND

The day started early with breakfast at The Shack Cafe in the university district. Then we hit the road with a plan to make it to Bismarck before we stopped. Not much to tell. It was above 100 pretty much the whole drive. The hottest it got was 107, the coolest were 90 when we left Missoula at 9:00 am and 95 when we made it to Bismarck at 10:15 pm local time. We drove for 12 hours, taking turns behind the wheel and listening to Bad Luck & Trouble by Lee Child. I like the Jack Reacher books, but this one wasn’t my favorite and I didn’t feel like it was up to his usual quality.

Here’s some pics of our stops along the way.

Rufus at the Glendisaurus in Glendive, MT. He wasn’t really that impressed, but I was. The Glendisaurus has an impressive view of a lake and the surrounding farmland. It was 105 degrees and really muggy when we stopped here. We were there just long enough for some photos and then back onto I-90 we went.

This was billed as part of the collection of “World’s Largest Metal Sculptures” somewhere in North Dakota (can’t remember the exit #). Designed and built by a school teacher, the geese were pretty impressive. The drive up to it was lined with smaller geese (about 18″ long) set on posts in very positions of flight and at various heights. There must have been more than 200 of them. It was pretty cool!

Rufus with Salem Sue, the “World’s Largest Holstein Cow” in New Salem, ND. She’s incredibly true to life, including the udder and stomach veins which I personally think could have been left off. We were here at sunset and it was still 100 degrees. Wow! we just couldn’t leave the heat behind.

It was still so hot and humid when we got to Bismarck that we decided to grab a quick dinner and get a hotel room. There weren’t many options open at that time - we didn’t realize that we’d passed into Central Time until too late - so we ended up at Applebee’s. At least the service was good, the food was predictable and the beer was cold. Apparently the heat was a factor for more people than just us as most of the hotels were full and we ended up at a pretty divey Best Western by I-94. The room was $89 inclusive of tax, so our cost was right around $11 per hour for the time we spent there. Could have been worse - at least the air conditioning worked, the bed was clean and the shower hot.

- written Sunday, July 22