“Cabins imitating the Indian teepee for tourists along highway south of Bardstown, Kentucky.”  Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division

Photographed by Farm Security Administration staff photographer Marion Post Wolcott in July 1940.  The photo is of Wigwam City #2, Cave City, Kentucky.

“The Wigwam Motels, also known as the “Wigwam Villages”, is a motel chain in the United States in which the rooms are built in the form of teepees, hence the name “wigwam”. It originally had seven different locations: two locations in Kentucky, a location in Alabama, another location in Florida, one in Arizona, one in Louisiana, and another one in California. They are very distinctive historic landmarks. Two of the three surviving motels are located on historic U.S. Route 66, in Holbrook, Arizona and on the city boundary between Rialto and San Bernardino, California. Wigwam Motel #2, in Cave City, Kentucky was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on March 16, 1988 under the official designation of Wigwam Village #2.

“Wigwam village #2 was built in 1937 a few miles south of the original wigwam village #1, but on US-31W in Cave City. It was built consisting of 15 wigwams used as guest rooms and a much bigger concrete and steel central structure that originally served as a restaurant. The 15 wigwams are arranged in a semi circle around a common area with playground and recreation area. Each wigwam has a paved pad to accommodate one car.

The diameter at the base of each teepee is 14 feet (4.3 m), they are 32 feet (9.8 m) in height. Behind the main room of each unit is a small bathroom with sink, toilet, and shower. In 2008, the rooms contain the original restored hickory furniture, cable TV and a window mounted air conditioner. There are no telephones to maintain the original atmosphere of the motel, though there is internet access. The restaurant is no longer in operation, but the motel is still open and welcoming guests.

“Wigwam village #2 is close to Mammoth Cave National Park … The motel is located on 601 North Dixie Hwy, Cave City, Kentucky. ” –   Wikipedia

After the Sipapu Natural Bridge hike, we took a drive south on Utah 261 towards Mexican Hat.  A sign not to far from our campground warned “10 % grades – switchbacks – narrow gravel road 23 miles ahead.”  I learned later that part of the route is called the Moki Dugway.

It was actually the shortest route to our next destination when we resumed our drive the next day, so, besides an afternoon excursion, we were also checking the route out to see if we should go the longer route.  The Moki Dugway  is a series of steep switchbacks down a gravel road from the top of Cedar Mesa over less than 3 miles.  It was built in the late ‘50s to for transporting uranium ore from a mine to a processing mill in Mexican Hat.

“The State of Utah recommends that only vehicles less than 28 feet in length and 10,00 pounds in weight attempt to negotiate this steep (10% grade), narrow, and winding road.”

That eliminates us, then, since towing our small car sends us way over that length.  We went the long way round the next day.

We also visited Goosenecks State Park and drove through Mexican Hat that afternoon.

The Colorado and Green Rivers divide Canyonlands National Park into three districts – the Island in the Sky, the Needles, and the Maze, with the rivers themselves listed by the National Park Service as a fourth “district.”  Island in the Sky  is the easiest to visit and, thus, the most popular.  The Maze is more remote and the least accessible of the park’s districts.  The Needles is a 75 mile drive from Moab.  Most of the district’s features are found on its extensive trail system and four-wheel-drive roads.

The road to the Needles district passes through Newspaper Rock Recreational Site, location of a large collection of prehistoric petroglyph rock art.

Most of our September 26, 2011 exploration of the Needles was on the relatively short scenic drive and the 2.4 mile Slickrock Trail (a loop).

Selected Information Resources:

Canyonlands National Park

• National Park Service
• Wikipedia
• Wikitravel
• Discover Moab
• The American Southwest

After 2 weeks in Colorado, we left Grand Junction on a short drive to our next destination, Arches National Park.  It was 131 miles (211 km), mostly on Interstate 70, though the actual straight line distance was 60 miles (96.5 km).

As we traveled west in Colorado several days earlier, the landscape had gradually changed from high mountain forest and tundra to high desert country, with quite a bit of farming in the Grand Valley of the Colorado River (once called the Grand River).  Driving west into Utah, the landscape became more and more desolate with a stark and fascinating beauty.

This was our third visit to Arches National Park.  The previous two were brief, but this time we had three nights reserved in the park at Devils Garden Campground.

Arches National Park is in eastern Utah.  It has over 2000 natural sandstone arches and many other interesting geological formations, such as spires, balanced rocks and sandstone fins.  It was designated a national monument in 1929 and became a national park in 1970.

Selected Information Resources:

Arches National Park.

• National Park Service
• Wikipedia
• Wikitravel
• Discover Moab
• GORP
• The American Southwest

Leaving Rocky Mountain National Park on September 16, 2011, our next destination was several thousand feet lower and on the western side of the state – Grand Junction, Colorado.

About nine miles south of Estes Park on Colorado 7, we stopped to take pictures of the Chapel on the Rock – officially St. Catherine of Siena Chapel – on the grounds of Saint Malo Retreat Center.   The chapel  is built on an large piece of granite that the Colorado highway department once planned to dynamite to widen and straighten the adjacent highway.  Dedicated in 1936, the chapel was built from local stone hauled in by mule carts.

In November 2011, a fire heavily damaged portions of the St. Malo Retreat Center.  The chapel, several hundred feet away was not damaged.

Our drive for the day was about 300 miles.  The first part was on mountain 2-lane highways down to Interstate 70.  Traffic was quite light, certainly less than it would have been if we had gone through Boulder and along the foothills of the Front Range as we did in 2009.

I70 meanders up, down, around and through the Colorado mountains between Denver and and Grand Junction.  Our little motorhome did pretty good duty traveling over this road once again, though the CRV it was towing was 6 model years newer than the last time.

“The Eisenhower Tunnel, with a maximum elevation of 11,158 feet (3,401 m) and length of 1.7 miles (2.7 km), is the longest mountain tunnel and highest point along the Interstate Highway System.” (Wikipedia.)

We stopped in Vail for lunch and a stretch break.  Often, when there isn’t a rest area handy, we’ll take a break after an hour or two of driving by stopping at a “big box” store.  Most of them are large enough that we can loosen up by taking a couple of laps walking around inside the store.  In Vail, we stopped at WalMart and, once we were loosened up, went back out to the camper and had lunch in our camper.

Our next stop was a  rest area in Glenwood Canyon, a rugged and scenic canyon on the Colorado River. This area is one of the most scenic natural features along the U.S. Interstate Highway System.  Foot access is available for hiking a four rest areas in the canyon.  The highway through the canyon was one of the final pieces of the system to open to traffic and was one of the most expensive per mile constructed in the United States.  In its 12.5 mile length, there are three tunnels, 40 bridges and viaducts, and miles of retaining walls.  “Through a significant portion of the canyon, the eastbound lanes extend cantilevered over the Colorado River and the westbound lanes are suspended on a viaduct several feet above the canyon floor.” (Wikipedia)

The trip along I 70 was a gradual transition from high mountain forests and tundra west of Denver to the high desert of western Colorado and Utah.

We would be camping in the Grand Junction, 4,593 ft (1,397 m), area for the next 4 nights and would be in desert country for a good portion of the rest of the trip.

We spotted this “cute” car in a parking lot for some popular trails in Rocky Mountain National Park.  It’s a Lotus Elise, certainly a nice looking and sporty car and, at around $50,000, is more than we would want to spend on a car.

There was one other “sporty” car that I caught sight of last summer on the 4th of July weekend.  As we were coming out of the parking lot of the Lake Village Tourist Information Center in Southern Arkansas, I saw an orange car that was shaped much different than most of the other cars on the road, but didn’t have a chance to get a picture of it.  Now, I’m by no means an expert on automobiles and can seldom identify one without the help of the internet.  For some reason, though, Lamborghini came to mind, even though I didn’t get a very good look at it.

A couple of hours later, after crossing a small corner, I spotted the same orange color on a car in a rear view mirror.  We were on I20 east of Vicksburg, Mississippi, heading for Biloxi.  I don’t know if it was the same make and model of the picture on the right (from Wikipedia), but the color was very close to this, if not identical – and, as it passed us, I spotted the logo on the back.

Like I said, I’m no expert on automobiles, but these sure seemed like a couple of hot cars.

On September 10, we headed out to drive to the top of Pikes Peak from Garden of the Gods Campground in Colorado Springs, a driving distance of about 25.6 miles, with an elevation change of almost 8000 feet.

We had attempted to drive to the top in 2004, but were stopped at Glen Cove Inn, at 11, 425 feet, due to high winds higher up.  We were told that the winds will likely lessen later.  After waiting a while, we went back down and, later, decided to try to go up on the Manitou and Pikes Peak Cog Railway.  When we got to the top, we found that it was brisk and chilly at 34°F with great views, and the wind was low enough that there were already cars in the parking lot.  The ride on the railway was a great experience, though.

On this year’s trip, the wind was not a problem.  With stops, we made it to the top in around 2 hours.

The road has recently been improved significantly as a settlement of a Sierra Club lawsuit. (A lot of the online references say that the road is not paved on the upper half.   This is old information.)  Except for a section less than a mile long, the road is paved all the way to the top.  The road is on federal land administered by the U.S. Forest Service, but is leased to the City of Colorado Springs for operation.  The toll is used to maintain and improve the road, thus requiring no general tax revenue for the road.

Note:  The images and video segments are sequenced from the bottom of the mountain to the top, but most of them were actually taken at pullouts on the way back down.

Pikes Peak is about 10 miles west of Colorado Spring, Colorado.  It was originally called “El Capitan” by Spanish settlers, but was renamed after Zebulon Pike, Jr., an explorer who led an expedition to the area in 1806.  It is one of Colorado’s 54 fourteeners, mountains rising over 14,000 above sea level.

Information and Resources:

• Wikipedia
• Manitou and Pikes Peak Cog Railway
• Aramark
• Pikes Peak Country Attractions

…and it’s free to visit.

Until we visited it in 2004, I had no idea that Garden of the Gods was a Colorado Springs city park.  Most large cities have some nice parks, but few have parks with outstanding geologic features like Garden of the Gods.

We visited the park again this year.

Garden of the Gods Park started with a gift from the family of Charles Elliott Perkins, a former president of the Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy Railroad.  Perkins had purchased 480 acres of the current park for a summer home that was never built.  He died in 1907 with his children aware of his wish for the public to be able to enjoy the natural wonder.

A plaque in the park reads, “The Garden of the Gods.  Given to the City of Colorado Springs in 1909 by the children of Charles Elliott Perkins in fulfillment of his wish that it be kept forever free to the public.”

Source of the name “Garden of the Gods” –

The name of the park dates back to August 1859 when two surveyors helping to set up nearby Colorado City were exploring the nearby areas. Upon discovering the site, one of the surveyors, M. S. Beach, suggested that it would be a “capital place for a beer garden.” His companion, the young Rufus Cable, awestruck by the impressive rock formations, exclaimed, “Beer Garden! Why it is a fit place for the gods to assemble. We will call it the Garden of the Gods.” The beer garden never materialized, but the name stuck.  –Wikipedia

Geologic formations –

The outstanding geologic features of the park are the ancient sedimentary beds of red, blue, purple, and white sandstones, conglomerates and limestone that were deposited horizontally, but have now been tilted vertically and faulted by the immense mountain building forces caused by the uplift of the Pikes Peak massif. Evidence of past ages; ancient seas, eroded remains of ancestral mountain ranges, alluvial fans, sandy beaches and great sand dune fields can be read in the rocks. A spectacular shear fault can be observed where the Tower of Babel (Lyons Sandstone) contacts the Fountain Formation. There are many fossils to be seen: marine forms, plant fossils, and some dinosaur fossils.

The hogbacks, so named because they resemble the backs and spines of a pig, are ridges of sandstone whose layers are tilted. Instead of lying horizontally, some layers are even vertically oriented. Each hogback can range up to several hundred feet long, and the tallest (called North Gateway Rock) rises to a height of 320 feet (98 m) tall. A notable rock feature on this hogback, the Kissing Camels, appears to be two very large camels sitting face to face with their lips touching. –Wikipedia

Links:

• Garden of the Gods Visitor and Nature Center
• Wikipedia
• City of Colorado Springs
• Garden of the Gods Trading Post
• Friends of Garden of the Gods

Our travel day was a short one from La Junta, Colorado, to Garden of the Gods Campground, a commercial campground near the Garden of the Gods park.

Leaving Canton Lake, our next destination was La Junta, Colorado.

Most of our trips to and from Colorado have required crossing two or more states to go between Arkansas and Colorado.  Our last two trips traveling to Colorado, though,  have crossed only Oklahoma by going though Oklahoma’s panhandle, a relatively narrow section of land that separates the Texan panhandle from Colorado and Kansas.

From Canton Lake to the Colorado border, we traveled State Highway 3, the longest highway in the Oklahoma road system.  The portion we traveled is officially designated “Governor George Nigh’s Northwest Passage.”

The route lies across a portion of the North American Great Plains, a broad expanse of flat land with few trees, comprised mostly of  prairie, steppe and grassland.

The first night of our 2011 trip was Labor Day – camped at Canton Lake, west of Oklahoma City.  We had a reservation for 1 night at the Sandy Cove campground near the dam on the northeast end.  We had stayed there in August 2009 and liked it well enough to stay again.

It was a good location for photographing the sun setting across the lake and I hoped to be able to do a sunset time lapse.  Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get the sunset in one continuous time sequence, but was able to get two good segments, which are included in the video.

It was obvious that the lake was lower this year than it had been in 2009.

The swimming area buoys were certainly  high and dry.

The video includes photographs from both Karen and me, two time lapse sunset segments and a short “home video” segment of our campsite. I’ve produced the video in three formats 1920 x 1080, 1280 x 720, and  640 x 360.

Canton Lake links and resources:

• US Army Corps of Engineers– The Corps of Engineers operates five multi-use recreation areas which offer a combination of overnight camping and day-use opportunities to the visiting public.  The sites are (links go to Recreation.gov):
  • Big Bend
  • Canadian
  • Fairview
  • Longdale
  • Sandy Cove
• Oklahoma Tourism and Recreation Department
• Wikipedia

Our first day of travel:

On Labor Day morning, we were packed and ready to go – and I had no intention of trying to blog the trip as it happened.  Every time I’ve done that in the past, I would get behind or miss a few days and I’d never get back on track.  So this time, I’m going to blog about the trip after the fact.

The following map shows the route that we traveled with our motorhome – about 3,500 miles total.  It does not show all of the little side trips we made with the car that we tow behind the motorhome.

We left Monday, September 5th and got home Wednesday, October 19 – a trip of 6 weeks and 3 days.  We spent most of our time in Colorado, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico and traveled through parts of Oklahoma and Texas while travel from and back to our home in Arkansas.  A lot of the places we visited were old favorites, but we managed to find plenty of new favorites that we had never been to before.

I’ll be posting more as I work through the photos and videos.

We missed the big dust storm in Lubbock, Texas, on Monday by just a couple of hours. Even though we fought the wind all day, we managed to make it past Lubbock before the storm hit.

We were on the homeward leg of a 6 week trip and had planned to go further south, crossing Texas below Dallas and Fort Worth.  Saturday and Sunday nights, we had been camped near Carlsbad, New Mexico.  We were able to get online Sunday night, barely, and checked the weather forecast for where we were thinking of going – wind and blowing dust, with temperatures in the mid to high 90s.  The forecast for the Lubbock area was cooler and windy, but blowing dust was not mentioned. After talking it over for a bit, we decided to head north instead of east.

I did get a some video from our windy day’s trip and produced a short YouTube video.

On this trip, I decided that I was not going to try to keep up with a travel blog.  My intent was to keep a written journal and take lots of photos and video and to incorporate the journal and images into blog posts after we got home.  I was only partially successful.

While I did take lots of photographs and videos, the written journal fell by the wayside after only a few days.

I did read quite a few books over the last six weeks, though.

Even though we had been to Grand Teton National Park many times before, on this trip we explored some areas we had not been to before in the southeastern part of the park and just outside, in the Gros Ventre and Antelope Flats areas. They which yielded quite few opportunities for photographs from viewpoints different from what I had taken in the past including old log structures and the Mormon Row settlement.

Other photos include a large plane landing at Jackson against Grand Teton as a backdrop, Jackson lake, Signal Mountain, Chapel of the Transfiguration, moose resting along the Snake River near the Moose entrance to the park; Menor’s Ferry, Bill Menor’s cabin and store, and aspen fall colors.

__________

References and Resources:

• National Park Service
• Wikipedia
  • Grand Teton National Park
  • Jackson Hole
  • Jackson, Wyoming
• Wyoming Tourism
• Wikitravel
• Grand Teton Lodge Company

On one of the days we were camped near West Yellowstone, Montana, we decided to take a drive into Idaho.  The high point of the drive was the Mesa Falls Recreation Area.

From Wikipedia:

Upper Mesa Falls is a waterfall on the Henrys Fork in the Caribou-Targhee National Forest. Upstream from Lower Mesa Falls, it is roughly 16 miles away from Ashton, Idaho.

Upper Mesa Falls is roughly 114 feet high and 200 feet wide.[2]

Formation

Mesa Falls Tuff, which is the rock over which Upper Mesa Falls cascades, was formed 1.3 million years ago. A cycle of rhyolitic volcanism from the Henrys Fork caldera deposited a thick layer of rock and ash across the area.[3] This layer compressed and hardened over time.

Between 200,000 and 600,000 years ago, the river eroded a wide canyon which was subsequently partly filled with basalt lava flows. The Henrys Fork of the Snake River then carved the channel through the basalt; which is the inner canyon seen today.

References and Resources:

• Upper and Lower Mesa Falls Interpretive Site – USDA Forest Service
• Henrys Fork – Wikipedia

In all the visit’s we’ve made over the years to Yellowstone National Park, we’ve always seen plenty of wildlife.  Though we’ve seen large mammals in all parts of the park, by far, we’ve seen the most along the eastern section of the Grand Loop Road.

Large numbers of buffalo can be seen from – and, often, on – the road in Hayden Valley, though we’ve seen them all along the route from Yellowstone Lake to where the road starts to climb towards Dunraven Pass.  Bears and wolves can sometimes be seen in the same area, though we’ve yet to see a wolf and it’s been a long time since we’ve seen a bear there. We have seen quite a few of the wolves’ younger cousins, the coyotes.  From Dunraven Pass past Tower Falls, we’ve seen bighorn sheep a number of times.

There is a bit of thermal activity along this route.  The lower potion lies within the bounds of the caldera of the Yellowstone super-volcano.

The lower part of the route follows the Yellowstone River, parting from it at Canyon Village and then returning to it near Tower Falls.  At Canyon, the river tumbles over two falls, the Lower Falls the more spectacular of the two, as it thunders into the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone.

__________

Yellowstone References and Resources:

Yellowstone is one of the most popular destinations in the U.S. and there are a lot of available resources, including books and DVDs as well as internet resources.  I’ve included links to a few reliable resources below and have more on my Yellowstone page at Haw Creek.

• National Park Service
• Wikipedia
• UNESCO World Heritage Site
• National Geographic
• New York Times Travel Guide
• Wikitravel
• Gorp
• PBS

We learned several years ago that it was advisable to make reservations in advance when planning to camp in popular national parks.  This year we made reservations for Rocky Mountain National Park (5 nights), Arches National Park (3 nights) and Grand Canyon National Park (3 nights north rim and 3 nights south rim).

We saw our first snow of the trip on September 15 when we were camped at Rocky Mountain National Park.  It had been kind of cloudy and rainy on the 14th.  We had driven across the park over Trail Ridge Road and had lunch and did a little shopping in Grand Lake.  On the way back, we ran into very heavy fog.  Around 3 pm, we stopped at the Trail Ridge Gift Store – next to the Alpine Visitor Center at 12,000 feet – for a coffee break.  Unfortunately, it had already closed and, where it had been in the 60s in Grand Lake, the temperature was 35°F.  We made it down in plenty of time, but, just a few hours later, Trail Ridge Road was closed due to snow.

Yesterday (Wednesday, October 14) morning I got online to check the weather. We were camped at Grand Canyon North Rim and were planning to travel today to the South Rim today. Unfortunately, the forecast was for rain/snow mix turning to snow with possible 1 to 2 inch accumulations. I knew that that wouldn’t be bad if that’s all that it did. However the forecast for today was for more precipitation and wind. With driving a somewhat boxy motorhome and towing a car, the overall forecast was too iffy, so we canceled our reservation at South Rim and left North Rim yesterday — the drive was still a fight with the wind, but there was no precipitation.

We heard on the evening news earlier that Jacob Lake, at beginning of  the road to North Rim, got 3 inches of snow.  Just as I thought, there was little or no snow sticking to the roads, but I’ve heard of too many surprise significant mountain snow accumulations to risk it with our motorhome.

We’re camped 50 miles south of South Rim and will go to the canyon tomorrow and the next day — it’s going to be cold and bit of a drive, but that’s okay.

West Thumb Geyser Basin is situated on the shore of Yellowstone Lake’s West Thumb, a submerged volcanic caldera within the larger Yellowstone caldera.  It was created about 162,000 years ago when a magma chamber bulged up under the earth’s surface, which it cracked along ring fracture zones, releasing the magma as lava.  Once emptied, the chamber collapsed and, later, the caldera was filled with water, forming an extension of Yellowstone Lake.

The boardwalk trails at West Thumb provide easy walks that let visitors take in the beauty of the deep thermal pools and Yellowstone Lake.

While we’ve visited West Thumb Geyser Basin over the years, before 2007 we had not looked at the Yellowstone Lake Hotel, a few miles to the northeast.  The hotel is one of three hotels in the park constructed by the Northern Pacific Railroad.  Originally built in 1891, it was re-designed, expanded, and remodeled in 1903, 1922-23, 1928 and 1894 to 1990.  The building is a “relatively plain clapboarded Colonial Revival structure with two large Ionic porticoes facing Yellowstone Lake.¹”

Yellowstone References and Resources:

Yellowstone is one of the most popular destinations in the U.S. and there are a lot of available resources, including books and DVDs as well as internet resources.  I’ve included links to a few reliable resources below and have more on my Yellowstone page at Haw Creek.

• National Park Service
• Wikipedia
• UNESCO World Heritage Site
• National Geographic
• New York Times Travel Guide
• Wikitravel
• Gorp
• PBS

__________

¹ Lake Hotel – Wikipedia

We probably visited the Old Faithful part of the park more often this trip than any place else.  We saw Old Faithful erupt at least four times that I can think of.  We also made dinner reservations for one evening.  Another day we hiked up to an overlook where you can view the eruption.  Unfortunately the eruption occurred before we got all the way to the overlook, but we were able to get a good view of it.

Old Faithful is, without a doubt, the most popular location in the park.

The Old Faithful Inn is a fascinating hotel over a hundred years old.  We stayed there one time back in the late 70s in the fall.

Reservations for lodging and camping – for those campgrounds where  reservations can be made – should be made as far as possible in advance.  In 2011, we waited too long to decide on our travel plans and campsites were not available in the campgrounds we preferred.  We had to settle for something else.

Yellowstone References and Resources:

Yellowstone is one of the most popular destinations in the U.S. and there are a lot of available resources, including books and DVDs as well as internet resources.  I’ve included links to a few reliable resources below and have more on my Yellowstone page at Haw Creek.

• National Park Service
• Wikipedia
• UNESCO World Heritage Site
• National Geographic
• New York Times Travel Guide
• Wikitravel
• Gorp
• PBS

Since we were camped near West Yellowstone, we traversed this part of the park several times.  There are a lot of thermal features here, but we didn’t make it to all of them.

Some of the more popular destinations in the park get very crowded as the day goes by, even in September when the season is starting to wind down.  One secret to getting in at those places without having to fight traffic and/or search for a parking spot is to get there early.  It seems as though a lot a folks are late risers when on vacation – or they are just taking their time.

In Yellowstone, like many other places, early morning is a good time for photos, especially on chilly mornings in areas that abound in thermal features.

Yellowstone References and Resources:

Yellowstone is one of the most popular destinations in the U.S. and there are a lot of available resources, including books and DVDs as well as internet resources.  I’ve included links to a few reliable resources below and have more on my Yellowstone page at Haw Creek.

• National Park Service
• Wikipedia
• UNESCO World Heritage Site
• National Geographic
• New York Times Travel Guide
• Wikitravel
• Gorp
• PBS

While in Montana in September 2007, we had plans to stop in Lewistown to get set up with a satellite internet system.  The installer, Ron, had an extra RV spot at his home for friends, complete with hookups and invited us to stay there for a few days.  The satellite system was a new model and there were a few wrinkles in getting it set up right.

Ron was a member of an on-line RV forum I participated in.  Retired, Ron did satellite system installs for other forum members at one price no matter how long it took.

While there, we shared supper with Ron and his wife several times in their house and once at the Black Bull Saloon and Steakhouse in Hobson.  We also took in the 2007 Lewistown Chokecherry Festival and the What the Hay “hay art” contest that stretched over 21 miles in Judith Basin County between the towns of Hobson and Windham.  As, well they took us on a couple of other drives out into the Montana countryside.

“What the Hay” is now also called  the “Montana Bale Trail.”

__________

Lewistown, Chokecherry Festival, and Montana Bale Trail information:

• Lewistown Chamber of Commerce
• Lewistown Chokecherry Festival
• Lewistown in Wikipedia
• Montana’s Russell Country
• Bureau of Land Management
• Montana Bale Trail