A State at a Time: Montana - Day 14

Missouri Headwaters State Park, Three Forks

Sunday, 14 August 2022

today's route

There actually aren't a lot of different ways in Montana to get from one place to another, and today we had to go back down to Helena to reach the southern part of the state. But though I'd been in Helena before, I hadn't gone down this road before, so it was all new.

I've seen a Scheel's sporting goods store in several towns in Montana, including in Great Falls. You may remember Scheel's is the one I visited in Fargo last year because it had a Ferris wheel inside the store.

A sign told me this part of I-15 was designated the "Maureen and Mike Mansfield Memorial Highway." I'd forgotten influential member of Congress Mike Mansfield was from Montana, and I looked it up to be sure. I found a really nice tribute to the pair of them from the University of Montana. It sounds like they were truly a partnership as so few marriages seem to be. https://www.umt.edu/the-mansfields

Twice I saw warnings for Bighorn Sheep, though I never saw any. I crossed and recrossed the Missouri River, which makes sense since it ran through Great Falls and we were on the way to its source.

We stopped at a rest area, where I saw a bumper sticker that said, "Do you follow Jesus this close?" Besides the bumper sticker, there were several informational signs at this rest area.

see enlargements below

This situation shows how truly explorative
this expedition was.

Pres. Jefferson wanted them to find a water route to the Pacific, but he also wanted to know about the flora and fauna in this huge new territory of ours.

enlargements below

And this one is about the topography.

enlargements below

This is my photo from the rest area, which
I took because these seemed to be like the
"nearly perpendicular rocks" they're talking about.

Montana seems to be all about Lewis & Clark, which I suppose makes sense since they spent so much time here.

enlargements below

At Helena, I changed highways because I-15 wanted to take me back to Butte, which wasn't where I was going. Instead, US-287 ran through a wide valley between mountains, as you can see below.

I saw a road named "LF Baum Lane" and wondered if it led to the home of a Wizard of Oz fan.

I saw several wildlife warning signs, including one that said the next 4 miles were a moose crossing.

I passed fields of corn, potatoes and wheat (those are crops I can recognize). I saw several of those long watering devices that roll slowly through crop fields and water them from above - only these had a small sign on them that read, "GPS equipped." I really wished I'd seen a farmer in the area, because I was curious enough to want to stop and ask about those.

I saw what looked like a herd of horses on a hillside, but as I got closer I saw they were metal sculptures.

Then we came to Three Forks, "Montana's favorite small town," they say. From there, it wasn't far to the state park.

I saw lots of signs there, but none of them explained to me just what I was looking for and looking at. This one should have but didn't.

This next one was all about Lewis and Clark figuring out that they'd reached the end (or the beginning) of the Missouri River.

enlargements below

So they named the 3 rivers the Jefferson,
the Madison and the Gallatin.

Once again, I thought this next sign should be giving me some answers, but it didn't.

enlargements below

I thought this claim was fascinating.

This video shows the Madison River first, with the Jefferson River flowing into it, and then it moves downstream where the Gallatin joins it a little farther on.

In desperation, I finally found a park ranger (the first I've seen at any state park) and asked her if she had a map that would show me what I'd been looking at. Sure enough, she did.

I marked the rivers in blue. The Madison comes into the picture from the bottom. The Jefferson joins it from the left side. The Gallatin comes in from the right, flows parallel for a way, and then joins the other 2 near the top. Together, they form the mighty Missouri River.

The park ranger also warned me that moose have recently been sighted early in the mornings along the narrow pathway from the campground to the Madison. Because I was taught that discretion is the better part of valor, I decided not to take Dext that way in the mornings. We tried in the afternoon, but the bugs were so bad - especially mosquitoes - I gave up.

I turned on the generator when we got into our campsite to cool down the RV. It took 3 hours to get the interior temp below 80° because, after all, this is a metal box, the sun was shining brightly, and there was no shade at our spot at all.

They posted a notice that generators aren't allowed between 10 PM and 7 AM, so I may end up going across the road to the information area early tomorrow to run the microwave to heat my coffee.

Late addition:

I forgot about these photos I took that seem interesting enough to amend this for.