I know, I'm a slacker

I am writing you from a top secret location.  Let's just say it's a mere miles from where I started this great road trip way back in April.  Yup.  I'm home.  Here's what happened between my last post and now.

[Thanks to a 90 km/hr speed limit in Jasper, Banff, and Kootenay National Parks, I stretched a half tank of gas (about 6.5 gallons) nearly 300 miles!]

[Glacier National Park's Lake McDonald]

I crossed the border back into the US just west of Glacier National Park.  I spent a glorious night at a lovely private campground outside of the park.  It was the first night in a long time when I didn't have to wear wool long underwear to bed.  What a treat.  The next day, I drove through the park and took a nice hike toward Huckleberry Mt... until I came across some fresh bear scat (about 5 miles in) and turned around before reaching the end of the trail.

[From the Huckleberry Mt trail]

[Before the hike and the close encounter with bear scat.]

I drove out of Glacier NP and headed for Billings, MT where I was to spend the night.  About 50 miles from Billings, I started to see and hear raindrops on my windshield,so I turned on my wipers.... but I couldn't get the wipers to wipe off the raindrops.  And then I realized that the little specks on my windshield were actually little, tiny bugs.  Ewww.  My bumper had about a quarter of an inch of bugs on it by the time I pulled into Billings.  Yucky!

After Billings, I raced towards Rapid City, South Dakota and the warm, generous company of my friend Mary Beth and her lovely beau.  I took in TWO (yes, two) country music shows and enjoyed the generally chill atmosphere of this cow town.

[In the Black Hills of South Dakota]

From Rapid City, I made the long and boring drive across South Dakota and into Minnesota, where I was greeted with open arms by Per and Melissa.  Per loves me.  I love him back.



[Isn't he just lovely?]



Oh yeah.  There's Per's mommy, Melissa.  She's pretty great too.  We went to a Twin's game and sat in the 12th row.  That was pretty fabulous.