Tuesday, July 22 – Cypress to Missoula, Montana

We both slept like babies and were up before 6. After packing up our gear and tent and having a bite to eat, we were out of the campground about 7:30. 

As we drove along, Celeste read to me from our 2001 edition of the CAA handbook that I had brought along. OK, some of the information might be a little out of date, but they have not moved any of the towns. She read about Fort Benton and we discussed how it had played a role in opening the Canadian West. As we approached the town we hemmed and hawed whether we should stop in for a look-see. At the last second I finally decided that we could spare ten or fifteen minutes to look around. Two and a half hours later we were back on the road. The town has such an interesting history and it is so well presented. There are several different museums, not all of which we visited, and they have much more than a dozen interpretive panels along a path that follows the shore. If you are interested in the history of the West, I highly recommend it, but plan on spending at least a full day and maybe more.

From there the rest of our day was uneventful except for a few light rain showers and one bigger one. We arrived in Missoula about 6. We went for an exploratory drive and found a Costco where the gas was 5 cents a gallon cheaper than anyone else on the main drag and 3 cents cheaper than the discounters. However, thinking about it just now, we get a similar discount on a litre at home. On a per litre basis, it was probably only 1-1.5 cents and only 60 cents on my twelve gallon fill. Not that big a deal.

The scenery was very pretty leaving the park, but gradually became typically Saskatchewan flat all the way to Havre. It was very pretty through the mountains from Great Falls through Helena to Missoula. They were not the rocky crags of the Canadian Rockies, but lower rounded mountains, more like around Kamloops and Kelowna.