Missoula to Sheridan

Missoula to Sheridan

We kinda got a late start this morning... We had a hard time waking up. You see, along about 1:50am last night we were woken up with some type of alarm going off somewhere. Tina got up and looked out the room door then came back and told me it was the fire alarm. I shrugged and snuggled back under the covers while Tina through on her clothes and went to the outside door where she saw two or three Fire Trucks, Emergency Vehicles and firemen heading into the building. She quickly came back to the room and excitedly told me what she saw and said, "get out of bed and get dressed!" in her best commanding voice. I quickly (sort of) sprang out of bed, put my clothes on, tied my shoes and headed out of the room. Even though we didn't smell any smoke, it seemed the better choice to vacate. Once out of the building I asked around but no ne knew anything. So we got in the car with the dogs and cranked up the heat for about 20 minutes while watching all the comings and goings of the firemen. Eventually, I went out and asked one of the officers if we could re-enter our room. He told us it was clear. Apparently someone had a small fire on the 2nd floor which was put out quickly. No explanation beyond that. So at 2:30am we went in and went to bed for the second time. Since we only lost a little sleep we figured, "No Harm, No Foul".

Montana has immensley diverse geology

We managed to pack everything and head into town to the only Starbucks within 150 miles for breakfast ad coffee. Accordingly, by the time we got to the freeway it was almost 9 o'clock for the start of our 475 mile drive to Sheridan, WY.

Snow capped mountains were all around us

I can honestly say that we found the scenery on our drive to be extremely impressive. Everywhere we looked were snow covered mountains. In fact we seemed to be surrounded as if we were driving in some sort of bowl. With the blue sky and sun shining off the peaks it made the drive very easy. Not being a true writer it's really hard to describe what we saw but it seemed that with every bend in the highway we were shown some new impressive sight!

High Plateau Country

Leaving Butte and the Continental Divide behind, elevation 5,538 feet, we dropped down to the high plateaus where the wheat fields were being plowed and planted or the pastures full of horses or the fields filled with cattle and young calves, we were still impressed with the beauty of the landscape. This is truly a beautiful land. There's only one serious problem. They have some serious weather in the winter with waist high snow and temperatures near zero. Definitely not our cup of tea!

Cattle Country captured on Tina's iPhone

We made one stop for lunch and gas in Columbus, gave the dogs a walk, then it was back on the road. We manage to average 75mph for almost the entire drive making the trip in a little over 7 hours pulling into the Quality Inn in Sheridan a little after 4pm.

Downtown Sheridan

Inside Sanfords

We got registered and settled in our room for an hour giving the dogs dinner and taking them for a long walk. Then we locked up the room, loaded the dogs in the car and headeded into town to Sanfords Restuarant. We were surprised to find that downtown Sheridan has a thriving, bustling center along Main Street. We parked outside Sanfords and went in for dinner. This place is hard to describe so I stole the photo above because it's impossible to describe. We had a great dinner, I had a Chicken and Ham Sandwich with Jalepeno's and home fries. Delicious. Tina had a salad that would have fed a family of four! Needlerss to say we weren't able to eat everything, heh, heh!

We have been working with daughter Marni and her husband on their future plans, using email and web searches along with texting to talk about their plans. Needless to say, phones quickly go dead. So Marni suggested getting a car phone charger. Driving into town we saw a Verizon store, so on the way home we stopped in and bought one with a double plug so we can keep both phones charged!! After that it was back to our room to watch a little TV, read and head to bed for an early getup!