Day 13: Northbound through Big Sky Country

After a marvellous day, with loads of pictures taken stored on the hard drive, we left Yellowstone through the north entrance into Montana. Also known as big sky country.

Before getting that far we had a few smaller things left in Yellowstone. We saw a petrified tree (from ages far in the past, then buried in ash and hot soil and transformed in time into stone). Yet another proof that we were in a very volcanic active area (there were actually 77 small earthquakes in the park during June 2009, even increasing in July 2009. It might be that the global killer volcano is waking up ... puha as the Danes put it.). Luckily we did not get petrified during our short visit.

We also saw more travertine formations, said to be the biggest ones in the world. They were quite dry though, although some parts of it showed life as the hot water allowed thermophiles (heat loving bacterias) to thrive. They produce brilliant colours for humans to watch.

After the park and some lunch we headed for the state capitol of Montana, Helena. It's not the biggest state capital, but it's on the Missouri River and had a cosy vibe to the historic downtown. Someone needed their caffeine supplement of the afternoon, so we had a coffee and something sweet in a cosy bakery (selling Danish rye bread and Norwegian farm bread).

The last part of the day, we drove up to Great Falls and settled down at a camping site up there, preparing ourselves for Glacier National Park the following day. The reminder of the day were spent next to a nice camp fire Jan fixed (after all he is an old scout) to provide some western moods under the clear Montana sky.