June 11th - Wyoming to Montana

Spot the moose!

Luckily we were awake early this morning because as we were finishing breakfast our campground hosts stopped to tell us that were moose just a couple of miles down the road. So we packed up super quick and drove off to see a moose!! I don’t even think we brushed our teeth!! (hope the moose didn’t mind). We weren’t quite sure where the moose were, but I spotted one as we drove past! It was way down in the trees of the side of the road, so lucky I have trained wildlife spotting eyes! The mother and calf must have gone because there was only one big moosey eating the trees. He looked so cool, even though he was far away. In typical tourist fashion, several other cars stopped to have a look at what we were taking pictures of. A lady said there were more moose back the way we’d come yesterday, but we figured we’d see more in Canada, so we continued on our way.

Random mule deer we saw on the drive. 

We went the ‘scenic byway’ way to Cody, which meant steep hills and lots of hairpin turns. Lucky Betsey was fixed as she wouldn’t have coped well otherwise! A pretty drive through the mountains. When we got to the top we stopped at the overlook and took some pictures. We could see the crazy road we’d driven up and all the snow-covered mountains in the distance. A man asked me to take a picture of him and his family, but then thought his battery was flat which was a shame as the view was awesome. I felt sorry for him, then he realised he’d had the camera on the wrong setting! So they got their happy snap in the end. We chatted to them for a little while. They were going up to Red Canyon (I think) to stay in a cabin for a week – a road which had only opened in the last couple of days. 

Detour to Cody to Buffalo Bill’s hometown. A cute ‘modern’ Western style town, but nothing spectacular. Spent some time at Maccas doing email and trying to work out how our visas work. No luck. And then it started raining and raining. And it got windy. The weather was horrible so instead of a nice walk through town we kept going. We headed north into Montana. We stopped at Billings to find some accommodation, but there was a conference on so a lot of places were booked out or really expensive. Dammit. Just like with a certain flute festival from our past…

Scenic byway = killer steep, windy road. 

Instead we kept driving. We stopped at the Billings visitor centre to try and find somewhere between here and the next town where we could stay. They were really nice and friendly and I stocked up on brochures and maps. I even voted for a name for their stuffed mountain goat. I voted on a name that had ‘Montana’ in it because it’s the state (something like Mary Montana), but the girl there said I should’ve voted for a different one because it was actually their boss’ nickname! Anyway, they couldn’t really help us with accommodation, so we continued on our drive. The girl did say to call in at the state park in Glendive if we made it there, so I kept that in mind. 

Yup, another chippy picture! Summit of scenic byway. 

We ended up in Miles City, tired, hungry and just wanting to stop the driving! The hotels were expensive except for one which was full, but looked so sketchy we said ‘pass.’ So we did what we have been scared of doing for a while. We stayed in a Walmart carpark! There were already heaps of RVs there but it’s hard to tell if they are inside or in the store shopping (the beauty of it I guess). So we went to Little Caesar’s and got a $5 pepperoni pizza (so funny, the guy pulled one out of the heater cupboard thing  and showed us the size and Will said ok, we’ll take one… but I knew that was the instant one we’d be taking haha). It was huge, greasy and delicious. And it lasted about 10 minutes. I hung out in Betsey while Will went to Walmart for a couple of things. He said he checked that it was ok to stay in the carpark and the lady said ‘of course.’ So we did. It was a bit of a noisy night at this 24 hour Walmart, but still, it was a night of free accommodation!!