We’re on the road meandering toward home. Our first stop was
at the St. Ignatius Mission in St. Ignatius, MT. The mission was founded in
1854 at the request of the Flathead Indians and the current church was built in
1891. The interior of the church contains 58 murals, painted in the early
twentieth century. The artist was Brother Joseph Carignano, and Italian Jesuit
who spent many years as the cook and handyman at the Mission. He had no
professional training and completed his work in between his regular jobs. While
the mission is on the National Register of Historic Places, they are in need of
money to make repairs to the old plaster where the murals are painted. Even so,
there was such a holy feel to the church that it brought tears to my eyes. It
was a very special stop.
A few miles from St. Ignatius is the National Bison Range.
There are supposed to be about 350-500 bison in the range, but we didn’t see
nearly that number. We did see a few up close and quite a lot of other
wildlife, so it was well worth the trip. We saw more big horned sheep than at
any other time, and a magnificent bull elk.
Son-in-law Drew had told us about a place in Hamilton, MT
that made the world’s second best hamburger (in his opinion, the best is
someplace in Virginia). We hadn’t eaten lunch so we headed to Hamilton to find
Naps Grill. It was a cute little place and did make yummy hamburgers and fries.
David’s was so big he had to eat it with a fork! And with breakfast over and us
on the road by 7:30am and us not getting the hamburgers until 4:30pm we
practically inhaled them! It changed our plans a little to get them, but we’d
go out of our way to eat there again.
We’ve ended up about 85 miles further down the road than we
had originally planned, but we found a cute little campground and spent an hour
or more visiting with a couple in their 80’s who travel north from Florida for
about 6 months out of the year. They’ve driven to Alaska 3 times! Needless to
say, they had many travel tips for us and other places that we needed to see.
Here are some pictures from today (that I won’t be able to
post until I have internet service again!)
See that line of black? There were miles of tank cars sitting on the track. There was a break in the cars at each road crossing.
This guy was right by the side of the road. Then we didn't see any more bison for about 14 miles!
Some of the Big Horn Sheep
This is about a third of the flock and there were two flocks that size.
A group of does.
There was a nice herd of Pronghorns
Don't you just love a good 360 ° roll in the dust to get rid of those pesky bugs!
Some elk
And then there was this guy. Even with a wayward antler, he was quite a handsome fellow!
In person, these grilled onions did not resemble earthworms in the least. I have a new respect for food photographers!
A lovely little pond by our campsite.
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