Jefferson, Madison, and Gallatin

Headed north from Henry's Lake and had all country roads to reach Three Forks, MT.  This town is part of Lewis and Clarke's expedition to discover the west and I read somewhere in town that it was where Sacagawea recognized and was reunited with her brother during the negotiations with the natives in the area for food and horses.

Three Forks is named for the three rivers that converge just northeast of the town to form the Missouri River.  They are the Jefferson, Madison, and Gallatin Rivers, named by Lewis and Clark after two presidents and a treasury secretary.  From Three Forks the Missouri River flows north and after traveling 2,565 miles reaches the Mississippi River.  The Missouri River is the longest single river in North American and drains about 1/6 of the North American Continent.

So, pretty cool to be surrounded by all of that history and knowledge, but there is not much going on in Three Forks :)

We found enough things to explore to keep us busy that week, but we had to look pretty hard.

We arrived to our campsite to discover lots of awesome shade trees and pretty nice park.  We were greeted by a grouchy group, but turns out they were volunteers and they became less grouchy as the week went on.

The first day we knew that Diego was going to be using a lot of internet with video meetings so in order to conserve his data we decided to go about 30 minutes east of Three Forks to the city of Bozeman, MT and found a coffee shop.  When we arrived we couldn't believe how excited we were to see a Target and to have music that we could sing along with on the radio.  It's been a while.  After Diego was settled, we rolled the windows down and turned up the radio.  Yahoo!!!

We spent our time is Bozeman stocking up on household supplies and I was able to spend my REI birthday gift cards....... :)  Luna was able to spend use some of her birthday money and cash in on her birthday cupcake, courtesy of Barnes and Nobles.  It was like the hillbillies went to the city :)

Happy Birthday from Barnes and Noble :)

Durning the week we spent an afternoon at Lewis and Clark Caverns SP.

Entrance to Lewis and Clark Caverns State Park

I had said that we were gonna take a break from caves, because we've done so many, but this one had a shoot that you slide through and a couple other cool features.  Plus there wasn't that much going on in Three Forks, so off we went.  It was quite a hike to the entrance and in the hot sun, so when we reached the cave entrance we welcomed the 45 degree coolness.

View while hiking up the cave entrance.

Hiking to the cave entrance.

Draperies and stalactites.

We had a great guide and he reinforced a lot of the info we have learned about caves and I'm sure taught us something new.  We were very impressed with the Montana State Park system.  Very nice facilities and friendly rangers.

Wheat Montana is a company that has been growing wheat in Montana for 3 generations.  They mill it, dough it, and bake it into delicious breads and goodies.  They have several locations now, but Three Forks is the original so we hopped over for a morning of cinnamon rolls and some other goodies to take home.

Cinnamon Rolls here we come :)

I wish I had taken a picture of that cinnamon roll because it was huge and delicious.

We made a stop in the visitors center, which is an old caboose and got some info from the sweet lady inside. 

There is a bike system that is pretty long that we took one day through the city, around the golf course, lakes, and then out over one of the rivers.  It was a hot day so Sofia was not a happy camper, but she made it through and we stopped for a cool treat on our way back through the downtown area.

There is a great statue of Sacajawea downtown and it sits directly across the street from the Sacajawea Hotel that has a history all of it's own.  It reminds me of the Gage Hotel in Marathon, TX, where it's this tiny little, no-traffic-light, town and there's this super fancy hotel with a big history. Not sure how they keep them going, but it's nice that they do.

Luna and Sacajawea

We caught the tail end of the youth rodeo competition going on over the weekend.  It was the some of the same events that we saw in the rodeo in West Yellowstone, but this time all kids and not in a show format.  Just "come on in and watch" format.  It was fun to see the skills of those kiddos.

The girls had a fun time hanging out at the campsite some too.  There was a kids park and they made lots of friends, played and worked on the puzzle that was in the office/meeting room.  I found them a few times working on the puzzle while watching the history channel with the workers.

Traveling has made it tough for us to keep up with our fitness on a regular basis, so this week we started running. Outside of our campsite we found a country road that passed by some horses and headed straight towards the west so the sunsets were awesome.





The horses ran with us up and down their fence a few times.  It was so cool to see them galloping right beside us.  They were like big dogs chasing us.

On Sunday we packed up and were excited to realize there was no set "check-out" time at this park, so we took our time and were on the road by 1:00.  We had a fairly long drive for what we are used to, so we decided to make a pit stop about halfway and visit the Grant Kohrs Ranch and it turned out to be super cool.



Managed by the NPS, it was full of very cool activities for kids and adults.  Different stations with rangers and volunteers all around with lots of information about the ranch and it's history.  We watched hay being bailed by work horses, learned how to rope a cow, about the chuck wagon and why it was so important to the cowboy, the job of the blacksmith on the ranch, and had a tour of the ranch house to learn the story about the people who lived there.  Very neat place and very well managed by the park service.

Horse and buggy ride around the ranch.

Some of the cattle on the ranch, with the baby in front.

We all learned how to rope a cow......Well almost all of us :)

The blacksmith making a surprise for the girls.