Western Trip 2020, Sept. 21

 September 21, 2020 

Driving Chief Joseph Hwy and the Bear Tooth Hwy.

A few years ago when we traveled cross country with Autumn and Charity with us, we drove part of the Bear Tooth Highway, known to be one of the most scenic highways in America.  That was in June of that year, and there was still so much snow on the road that we had to turn around at Vista Point and go back down.  This year, we wanted to try it again, and we only saw minimal snow.  

We left our campground (seen in the picture below) early when the sun was once again peeking over the mountaintop.  This is about a 200 mile side trip for today, and we'll return to Buffalo Bill State Park for another two nights.

Every time I see cattle on a hill I think of Psalm 50 in which God says 

He owns all the cattle on a thousand hills.

This is open range country so it was very common to see cows this close to the road.

We had to wait about 30 minutes for the traffic to pass by on this stretch of road construction.  The picture below shows just how close to the edge this heavy machinery and these workers are.  And also how close WE were.

The Bear Tooth Highway runs through both Wyoming and Montana.

This is as far as we got on our first trip on the 

Bear Tooth Hwy.

These two pictures are from our June, 2011 trip with Autumn and Charity.  What a huge difference between then and now!

                                                 Red Lodge, Montana

An old abandoned mining camp.

This was our lunch spot for today, with beehives on one side of us and beautiful old trees on the other.  This was about the only "turnout" we could find with some shade.  It was very quiet and peaceful here. (Belfry Cemetery) lol  It was a very beautiful cemetery, though.

Back in Wyoming.

The smoke from the west coast fires are back this afternoon.  It's clearly visible in these photos.

Back "home" for an afternoon of rest and relaxation.

We are so blessed to be able to enjoy all this beauty surrounding us.