The day before yesterday was a very l-o-n-g day - about 180 miles through wide open prairie grasslands.  When the scenery looks about the same all day it just seems to make the day longer and the 180 miles we traveled was, in fact, one of our longer days.  This was the first day that we really didn't need jackets most of the day. By afternoon it was in the mid-eighties and the breeze coming through the open car was just right. By the end of the day we just wanted a shower and a good night's sleep. We spent the night in Wolf Point which is located on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation, home to the Dakota-Lokota-Nakota (Sioux) and Dakota (Assiniboine) nations.  Wolf Point is the home of Montana's oldest rodeo, the Wild Horse Stampede held every July.

Yesterday we traveled through more open grassland prairie.  The prairie out here goes on forever!  Part of the land is cultivated, part is dedicated to cattle ranching and part is just raw prairie.  Cultivated land is measured in really b-i-i-g-g--g fields of hundreds of acres.  I saw wheat fields that went as far as the eye could see and that was a long way.  They say Montana is "Big Sky" country and on the prairie, from horizon to horizon, it is just grass til it meets the sky.

A hay field cut and ready to be baled.

At the side of the roads are beautiful wildflowers in shades of blue, purple and yellow.

More wildflowers.

In the prairie you can see modern homes and farms and also old homesteads.  What is interesting to me is that you can see the transportation and farm machinery history of a family right in their backyard.  It seems like every car, truck, tractor, thresher, and other farm implement is kept from day one.  It is quite a social history.

We saw a lot of ducks and other birds as the area through which we traveled was dotted with wildlife refuges.  Again, the birds were too quick for me to photograph. Also we have seen deer and pheasant.  The deer have been too far from the road and the pheasants, so visible as they cross the road, can dart into the tall grass before you can raise your camera.  I keep the camera in my hands literally all day so that I can have the least chance of catching wildlife on camera.

    
Check out the snake on the pavement between the tires.  It was about 5 1/2 feet long and very thankfully, D-E-A-D!!  Joe picked it up and laid it out by the car and I had to hop over it to get into the car.  I DID NOT LIKE IT!!  I don't know what kind of snake it was, but it was big and a snake, and that was enough for me.

Today was more prairie, but we did eventually see, far off in the distance, the faint outline of a mountain range.  I did also see my first view of cactus, very small, very sparsely scattered and in bloom (yellow).  It is beginning to feel like the West.

   
Our first glimpse of the mountains far in the distance.  The trees are following the course of a creek.

We had planned to look up an HCCA (antique car) fellow in Havre, Montana.  We called Wally Duchscher and there was no answer.  Disappointed, we continued on. We were a ways out of town when a car passed us and pulled over.  Later the same car tried to flag us down and kept pointing toward the side of the road.  Being way between towns on a road that just went on forever, we were a little concerned about just pulling over.  On the third pass, I told Joe that the fellow in the car looked harmless.  The car pulled off the road and we followed.  It turned out to be Wally Duchscher, the fellow we had tried to call in Havre.  He was on his way to an appointment and hadn't expected to see us until Friday, 2 days from now (we are a little ahead of schedule).  After a short conversation, we made arrangements to meet him in the little town of Runyon, about 20 miles up the road after he had taken care of his appointment.

Runyon has an interesting vintage car museum which is a private collection housed in an interesting old stone building owned by a German car enthusiast who visited the town some years back.  

   
Vintage Car Museum in Runyon.

Only one of many interesting cars in the collection.  Note the high wheel bike on the balcony.  Behind the 50's car is a 20's Roosevelt car ( I'd never heard of one before) and one of Wally's cars, a 1926 Dodge.  It was a real privilege to get to see this collection and we thoroughly enjoyed our time visiting with Wally.  Hope to see him again "down the road"!