14. Day 9 – From the railway yard in Shelby, Montana, to the Missouri River and the Great Falls Airport
Tuesday 16 May 2006
After a peaceful night – believe it or not with all the trains passing, we both had hot showers because we had plenty of hot water as Dick had turned on the additional diesel heater which gives the hot water a boost.
We left at 10.30am (a really late start for us) once again on a warm and sunny day. We drove onto highway 15 and headed south.
This is not only farming country with lots of silos and tanks but many farms appear to have their own oil wells.
Huge silos for grain storageOil well in a farmer’s paddock
We pulled up in one of the fields for a hot dog lunch.
We stopped for lunch on the edge of a harvested paddock with huge silos in the background
It was now surprisingly hot outside, over 80 degrees F so we turned on the air conditioner for the first time.
We drove into Great Falls and dropped down into the city and parked beside Missouri River.
Looking across the Missouri River at Great Falls
We couldn’t see any falls, it appears they were around a bend but saw some Canadian Geese.
A family of Canadian geese living on the Missouri River
The temperature was now 83 degrees F and a local told us this was unusually hot for this time of the year. Apparently it had been 32 degrees F last week and snowing!
We drove to the airport and left the Earthroamer at the local FBO (fixed base operator). They kindly drove us around to the airport Terminal and we flew to Denver and onto Wichita where we will look at a new aircraft.
Pip working on this diary while waiting for the flight to Wichita
During the flight we got talking to some young students from Alabama. We talked about the different gun cultures in our own countries. One young girl told us proudly how she owned a shotgun. This reminded us of the notice we had seen on Wilbur O’Brien’s front door in Anchorage.
