Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Great Falls Montana

Yesterday we drove from the Canadian Rockies in Alberta to the plains of that province. What a change in scenery!  It was was a bit hard at first to accept the difference. One good thing was that we no longer climbing mountains at a snail's pace. At one rest area on that trip a man walked up to me- he was an elderly man wearing shorts held up by suspenders. He squinted at me and said: " going north, deary?"  I replied that we already had been north to Alaska. I knew where he came from by his manner of speech, but asked where he was from. He was from Calgary and going to visit Yellowstone in his small camping trailer. His next comment, so typical Canadian was,: " well, have a good trip now, aye? One nice thing about the traveling we are doing is the opportunity of talking to people and becoming familiar with the traits of their particular ethnicity. This afternoon we dropped our cat off at a kennel called "Happy Tails". They will care for him while we fly east for our niece Rebcca's wedding in Ohio, for which we are leaving tomorrow. I am so afraid that the separation from us will send him into a major depression! He is staying in a cat condo but I am sure that will not be the same as home for him.  Anyway, after dropping him off we drove out of Great Falls to see the falls for which the town is named.
Lewis and Clark saw this area in 1805 and described the falls with these words: " a sublimely grand spectacle". In 1915 a dam and  power plant was built here. That pretty much eliminated a series of other falls which were located near Great Falls. We saw the falls from Ryan Island park, along which the Missouri River flows. The canyon walls rising up from the river's bank are also quite awesome to see.

No comments:

Post a Comment