Day 16: deeper into the guts of mt

Ate some breakfast with Mel at a local bakery before she headed off to work. I guess people have to do that most mornings. We lingered around a little, letting the food settle, then hit a run, Helena being probably one of the last places with good trails until Fargo. There's a super large city park in town, like 680 acres. It's also incredibly hilly. I did maybe two miles before throwing up the white play and heading back to city streets. There's another flatter bike path paralleling railroad tracks in town as well as Carroll college for a little barefoot running. I always love learning something about another town.

Back on the road, we made for great falls. I 15 links up with the Missouri River for a beautiful stretch in between the two.

Next up, we swung east on highway 200, bound for lewistown, mt. A former colleague of ours just moved there and while it's a little out of the way, we figured now was as good a time as any to visit and really not much more driving on the grand scheme of things.

This is a desolate highway. Not a great place for the car to break down. We've already gotten that out of the way for the trip, so we were alright. As well exited the Rockies, I wondered what the heck drew him out here. He's a big trout fisherman and hunter, but it seemed like we were entering the plains. Every so often though, you'd see a small range pop up on horizon. By the turn off for his house, we had three or four surrounding us and the hale fields that 200 cut through.

The nefzgers live 15 minutes off the highway down a gravel road, butting up against the foothills of the big snowing mountains. They are renovating a log cabin on 20 some acres with fantastic views all around. They are a few years out from retirement yet, but they'd been eyeing a move for a while and specifically had lewistown on the list. When a science and facs job popped up this spring, it was their calling to go for it.

They took us into town for dinner at mint. It's a surprisingly good restaurant with everything from steak and ribs to ahi tuna or fresh walleye. Very unexpected in central Montana. We swung by the school and caught up way into the night. I think we're both glad we made the effort to see them.

Part of the town tour included a stop at this bar. A trout stream literally runs underneath it. It was cool, but we all agree they need to run this the length of the bar.