Today we would be bringing the Canada leg of our road trip to an end and returning back to the USA. We rose early, loaded up the car, bade Mum and Ros farewell and set off around 8.30am. The route to Yellowstone was 600 miles so we were in for a long day.
Ninety minutes into the drive we were making good distance so we decided there was enough time to stop off at Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump near Fort MacLeod. The buffalo jump is a cliff over which the Native Americans herded buffalo to their deaths (they weren't just cruel, it was a convenient was to ensure they had enough meat and provisions for the winter). Built next to the cliff is an 'interpretive center' though which unfortunately have to pass through to reach the jump itself. We didn't really want to spend long, but we paid the entry fee anyway and headed on inside.
We were told that we should first watch the video reconstruction in the auditorium, which was 10 minutes long and played on loop with a 4 minute break between each showing. So we checked our watches, did some quick calculations about when we needed to get back on the road and decided we had time...
15 minutes later we were still sat in the auditorium with half a dozen other people waiting for the video to start. Just as we decided to give the video a miss and stood up a tour party began pouring in - evidently the reason for the hold up. They proceeded to take another 10 minutes to arrange themselves, at which point the tour guide got up on stage and started running through the itinerary for the day. He was followed by one of the museum staff who gave a short introductory speech (or at least it would have been short if she could remember her lines) and then tried to teach the audience how to say a greeting in their local indian dialect. From this we learnt three things about American tour groups; they love audience participation, they won't give up until they've got something right and they're very stupid. By the time the video started I was about ready to write something extremely rude in the museum's guest book and Amy rolled her eyes in a way that I expect meant the same thing.
We breathed a sigh of relief as the video started, shortly followed by a sigh of despair. The video appeared to have been recorded some time in the seventies, on a budget of ten dollars, onto a VHS tape which had then been played on loop ever since.... quite possibly it has.
Eventually we left the auditorium, hoping over the tour group members as we went, and charged up the stairs so we could at least get to see the buffalo jump in peace for a few minutes before the wheezing, overweight tour group showed and started relating anecdotes about how their aunt Sandy had been here twice and just loved it.
So, after over an hour we got back on the road and headed for the border... A border which turned out remarkably easy to cross. There was hardly any queue and since we already had our visa waiver forms we were allowed straight though. Result.
Not long after the border we came across a small town called Sunburst, it looked rather basic but Montana is a bit thin on civilisation and we were running low on gas so we decided to stop. First impressions weren't wrong, Sunburst was indeed basic. There was just one tarmac road through the middle and the gas station was off down a gravel track. When we pulled up outside it looked deserted, just a couple of pumps in the middle of a big dirt yard, but we spotted someone else filling up so we figured it was open. Amazingly despite how 'rustic' the place was it had a credit card machine attached to the pump, lucky really as I couldn't see any signs indicating where the attendant might be - clearly we wouldn't be getting a Starbucks here. After a short but bumpy ride back through Sunburst, past the trailers and shacks (there didn't appear to be any more substantial buildings), we were back on the highway headed south.
Montana as it turns out isn't quite how I'd imagined. Not that there aren't the lush green rolling hills that look like a Windows XP backdrop, but there's so much else besides. For a state larger than the whole of the UK I guess I was naive to think otherwise. Northern Montana seems to be pretty much a desert, then you hill the postcard look fields and hills, then beyond that the scenic Highway 89 cuts through deep forests and gorges before finally spitting you out into Wyoming and Yellowstone park.
We stopped in Livingston, the last major town before Yellowstone, to fill up with gas for the second time in a day. Not so good for the environment but thankfully not too hard on the wallet. As I was strolling back from the restroom two hitch-hikers wandered over and asked 'You are going to Yellowstone perhaps yes?' in an eastern European accent. I quickly lied 'No' and got back in the car, hoping that we wouldn't bump into them later at the hotel.
From Livingston it was another hour to the park entrance. We drove under a big stone arch indicating that we had crossed the park boundary, then a hundred yards later we found a barrier and a park ranger indicating that we had to pay the entry fee. Not long later we were at the hotel... but I'll leave that for the next blog entry.
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