Day 3 started off in lovely Gillette, Wyoming. After a restful night of sleep Sue and I were ready to hit the road and maybe even get home to Seattle by the end of the day or early morning hours. I have to say that it was a beautiful sunrise over snow covered mountains and I think I can truly understand the lyrics "Purple Mountain Majesty". It was truly majestic and I feel lucky to have witnessed this.
This doesn't even do justice to the purple mountains
Just an example of the road conditions...
This will be the end of my love of Wyoming. The roads were still snow packed in the morning and I for one could not WAIT to leave this state. Luckily I didn't have to wait long to leave. We entered state #6 Montana by mid morning. Immediately after entering the state of Big Sky Country I noticed something wonderful... clear roads!!! The folks in Montana sure do know how to properly clear their roads for travelers and I greatly appreciate it!! Montana was also very beautiful with mountains and river valleys. It was cold but clear and big, blue skies in Montana.
At a gas stop in Billings, we noticed that one of the highlights to my car was out. Not a big deal we thought, it was early in the day and it wasn't supposed to snow that night so we would be fine. We got to Missoula (home of my friend Jill Henkel Yacu) around 4pm that afternoon and a little bit of snow was starting. We had about an hour and a half before the first of the two difficult mountain passes (Lookout and Fourth of July, both in Idaho) but with the risk of snow coming for the next day Sue and I both decided better to head over the pass now when the snow was just starting rather than wait and possibly be stuck in Missoula for another day. So away we went, the closer we got to the pass the loss of the headlight earlier in the day started to become a problem. It was very hard to see and with very few other cars of the pass it was hard to see what twists and turns were coming. A semi truck passed us and we used the tail lights to guide our way down the mountain. Once past the snow level it was raining pretty hard but we still thought we would keep going and get home tonight, we could handle some rain. However, just a few miles later two big semis came by and splashed us so severely we were completely unable to see for a few seconds. After the second blinding semi came by Sue and I just had to look at each other and knew we would be staying in lovely Kellogg, Idaho for the night. We were a little nervous at first when the lady at the gas station said there was only one motel in town, but then we drove by a lovely little ski resort Silver Mountain Resort that was pet friendly and oh so nice! We had a great night, a yummy meal, a very comfy bed to sleep in, and even some doggie treats for Roscoe! Tomorrow was a short day home to Seattle! Lights out.
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