Day 15

Last night, we got back to the campsite and Kati lit a campfire. It will be our last one for awhile since we are heading up to Montana where campfires are banned due the heat and lack of rain. There are enough wildfires raging out west. We certainly don’t need more. But we will miss our campfires.

While I wrote in G3’s journal, G3 and Kati played Spit. There were so many annoying bugs (perhaps gnats) flying around and harassing us that not only did G3 spray on a heavy layer of bug spray, he put on his swimming goggles to keep the bugs out of his eyes.

This morning we headed north. Western Montana is beautiful. The mountains and streams make for a pleasant landscape to drive through. But everything is so dry. There is hardly any green. The fields are all yellow. It is easy to see why the west is plagued by wildfires. I’m thirsty just looking out the car window.

We found a campsite east of Butte but it is so far removed from civilization that it is only accessible via a dirt road. Our site overlooks Delmoe Lake and it is one of the more scenic spots we have pitched our tent.

Today’s excursion was a trip to Lewis and Clark Caverns State Park — the first state park in Montana. It was 89 degrees so Kati stayed behind while G3 and I took a hike. The earth was so parch that each time G3 took a step a cloud of dust rose up behind him. I enjoyed the hike. I enjoyed G3’s company more. But he thinks we’ve done too much hiking on this trip.

After our hike we took a tour of the caverns. It was by far the best cave we’ve seen on this trip. And our tour guide was fantastic. The stalactites and stalagmites — hundreds of them — were extremely impressive. I could have spent the entire day exploring but the tour was only two hours — half of which was in the cavern.