I am behind the eight ball as the saying goes. We arrived in Columbia Falls for the birthday party. What a great time we had. As I said we saw a few of the relatives that we had not seen for quite a while. It was really good to catch up on old and new times.

We visited Hungry Horse Dam. This is one of the hydro-electric dams producing electricty that feeds the Bonneville Power Grid to the northwest. I found it interesting that Pat, my cousin the birthday party was for, started the first generator that was put on line at the dam.

We spent about 6 days with family before most of them had to return to Alaska where they live. At this time we moved a few miles south to Salmon Lake State Park where we spent 4th of July weekend. The fireworks at Seeley Lake just a few miles north of us was quite an exciting event. There is lots of money spent on the display. People come frome many miles just to see the fireworks. This is a nice small campground. They do quite a bit of fishing and some waterskiing.

We are on the move again heading south and east towards the capital of Montana, Helena.

The capitol building here in Helena was the first to have electricity from what we were told. This is a very old mining city. The old building are quite interesting.
One of the things we have done here is take a boat trip on the Missouri River through a limestone canyon. This was a 2 hour trip. One of these days I hope to get some pictures to this blog. (You will have to scrolle back and enjoy.) The beauty of this canyon is impossible to describe. It is very steep with lots of different shapes to the limestone. Osprey and eagles were nesting.

One of the other steep draws was called Mann Creek. This is where several smokejumpers lost there lives fighting a wild mountain fire. The sides are so steep it seems almost impossible to move up or down them. Many of the new techniques used in fighting forest fires today were developed because of this one fire.

I took my computer to Staples for a tune-up. This is a free service they do nation wide. Not sure what all they do but I got it back and it seems the same old computer to me. Oh well you can't expect mericles when you play with on old computer.

Tomorrow we head across state to Miles City. This is a very large state and the way we travel it may take a couple or more days. More later