I have loved having Big Sky as a base camp to return "home" to after long days exploring. Big Sky is beautiful, even out-of-season as we are, with all the shops and restaurants closed. I have thoroughly enjoyed watching winter turn to spring on the mountain. We arrived in deep snow, and needed to clear the steps to get to the third floor. More snow fell while we were here. But day by day, the snow evaporated, and melted, and now our time here is over, and spring has undoubtedly arrived. Last night, we slept with the windows open, and the light of a million faraway stars filled our little home.
Leaving Big Sky means that we were entering the final phase of our trip, really heading home. Mixed emotions run high.
We spent a great deal of time in Montana, and our trips into Yellowstone, Grand Teton, and Jackson Hole meant we also spent a good deal of time in Wyoming and Idaho. Like our "Four Corners" stay when we had our base camp in Flagstaff, this has been a "Three Corners" stay.
As we left Big Sky, I snapped a picture of The Soldiers Chapel which sits just off Highway 191, and which had served as our marker for the turnoff to climb up to the resort. Goodbye pretty chapel.
Soon, I would say "goodbye" to Montana. Or so I thought. Montana is big. The hours and miles sped by. One hundred miles. Two hundred miles. We were still in Montana, approaching Billings. Interstate 90 had carried us all the way from Seattle, Washington. It splits here in Billings, and one branch continues due east straight into North Dakota, becoming Interstate 94. The other branch keeps the name I-90, and turns south for a bit before turning east again into South Dakota. We stay on I-90, and in a hundred miles we are FINALLY out of Montana. "Welcome to Wyoming." WYOMING?! That's impossible. Montana is really that big, but Wyoming? I checked the big map of the USA I keep right here on my lap for emergencies. There hasn't been a mistake. We are really in Wyoming, even after 350 miles.
All is good. It has been a beautiful day for a drive. Brilliant blue skies. Light traffic. Those out on the road other than the truckers and cattle haulers are pulling RVs or have roof top carries. Families heading east, and west, north, and south, exploring the country. It is heartwarming.
The land has become greener as we have travelled east, but not without significant assistance from the farmers.
Everywhere, watering wheels are sprinkling, the spray making rainbows if the sun catches the mist just so. The snow is disappearing from the mountains, and the mountains, too, are disappearing. There is the occasional line of wind turbines, here and there a solar field.
We leave I-90 at the tiny town of Moorcroft, and take Montana Highway 16 east to the even tinier town of Newcastle, where we will spend the night. Just before we reach Newcastle, we pass through Upton, population 1102. The water tower declares it "The Best Town on Earth". Did we make a mistake? Should we have stayed here instead? Too late. We blinked, and we were in Newcastle. Waiting for Ron in the parking of the New Castle Lodge & Convention Center was his new pit crew. The pit leader was snorting and hoofing it up a storm - we are not sure what Ron said to set him off, but he is clearly upset about something!
The décor in the lodge assures us that we did NOT make a mistake choosing Newcastle.
We are five miles from the S. Dakota state line. Tomorrow, Mount Rushmore and the Badlands!
Car Talk
Distance: 495 miles
Driving Time: 7 hours, 5 minutes
Mileage: 30.5 mpg
Average speed: 70 mph
Trip Total: 7,933.5 miles
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