Day 35 Butte, Montana

Hi. I'm in the Library at Butte. I have tried to get on the internet from two libraries before this and could not, so I am happy to be on again. Have not been able to get or send email either, as computers were not available, due to school being in session and students needing them.

After a very long hot drive in South Dakota, I arrived at Wall and took a motel because it said there was internet access but I could not get connected. I thought for a while that it was my adapter that was on the fritz but the next morning I tried again and the adapter was working fine. So I've just been chugging along. It's been a whole week, I think, since I wrote last and I can't possibly fill you in on the whole week so here are some snapshots:

South Dakota: left the corn and soybeans and entered cow country; rumbled across my first cattle guard; many towns are small and dusty and do not have libraries, as opposed to Iowa where every little town has one; (Pierre, on the other hand had a new and modern state archive building); hundreds of acres of hay bales, the 3x3x8 ones, not the huge ones of NYS; large trucks hauling 20-30 of those bales somewhere; DeSmet, Laura Ingalls Wilder town, touristy but nicely done; fields of cultivated sunflowers; Wall Drug Store is still there, more junky souvenirs than I remember along with its boots, hats and belts.

Wyoming: more rugged; the conifers that self seeded on the land gave it a park like appearance; not as many deep gulches as in SD; climbing in altitude after Buffalo into Sheridan; Widener's Double W Ranch setting with all those beautiful angus on green (irrigated) pasture a pretty picture; after Ranchester, the Big Horn Mountains loom up like a wall -it must have caused a few hearts to falter when faced by that scene 150 years ago. I could not avoid a sense of awe. Over the mountain to Cody was a hard drive; no wonder I remember a slightly panicky feeling when we did it in '71; add to that we did all those curves and switchbacks in the dark. But once over the mountain which was really a beautiful drive, the rest of the way into Cody was a breeze.

I knew that I could likely be faced with a dead Labor Day weekend. Libraries and offices would be closed. I'm glad I took time in Gillette to get the oil changed on the car because nothing I wanted to see was open when I arrived in Sheridan about 4:30. But they had a lovely city park with a series of water jets that came on every 20 minutes in a random pattern of on/off and height of spray which made a great place for the youngsters to play so I walked around and sat in the park and read for a while and watched. It really did not get cold that evening in spite of the altitude. I did not want to stay the whole weekend there, seemed like no big doings -they had their last rodeo the weekend before - Drat! - so next morning I kept pushing on. I called Darry in Cody and she was so happy I was coming. They were having a birthday cook-out for her the next day and all her family was there. I was elated.

So the weekend was not a bust. I had a good time with Darry and her family, stayed overnight there, and went on to Yellowstone park on Labor Day, yesterday. That was very hard driving going over the Divide in the park and my leg began to bother, so I stopped when I could to give it a rest. Came on a bull buffalo walking along the side of the road and pulled around him and parked. He came sauntering by my car window so close I could have reached out and touched him, but I didn't. Got a great picture though. Also saw several elk; did not see bear, but the driving required attention all the time, not much chance for looking around. Then after driving all day through the Park I got a campsite just before the West exit last night. It got COLD! When I woke this a.m. there was frost on my windshield and it was 32 degrees out, and that was after the sun was up. It never did warm up above 70 today. I visited Bonnie Schilling (descendant of Frank Lee of Ellisburg) in Whitehall this afternoon and that brings me up to date. Tomorrow I am here in Butte; the next day I hope to see Shirley Schottelkorb. Hoping for better connections from here on out.