Montana/Yellowstone

Driving east from Missoula we were reminded again of how large, how desolate, and how basically beautiful Montana is. It's really something special. We almost literally cannot imagine living here - everything is insanely far away from everything else, and ignoring that, there's just not much here except natural beauty - but we lust after the beauty that is here.

Butte has a 90 foot statue of the Virgin Mary way way way up on a ridgeline over the city. It was built and erected by volunteers. Volunteers who, among other things, blasted a road up the mountain. Another volunteer donated engineering, as the statue is evidently in a pretty exciting spot in terms of wind. Only in a mining town. Most places, volunteers serve soup or on a good day apply paint.

Now we are in Wyoming, about 15 miles west of the west entrance to Yellowstone. Tomorrow, we tour some Geothermal Wonders.