What day is it?  Tuesday 13th, and I need to catch up a couple of days. Coach travel does not lend itself to writing, and our days are quite full.

We left Banff on Sunday, travelling East and South  with the snow-capped Rockies fading behind us but remaining on the Western horizon as a slim reminder of their magnificence and that we will be tracking through them again in a few days. We had a brief stop at Calgary. Our driver’s home is here so he was very proud of it, and that it was the home of the 1988 Winter Olympics. I was interested that two places in Calgary boasted having the original bob sled from the Jamaican bob sled team (remember film Cool Runnings) – the Olympic Village, and the pub where the team apparently spent much of their time. Possibly the Olympic Village machine is slightly more authentic.

Canadians, like Americans, seem to appreciate big things.  Their utes are very impressive. Our Hiluxes and Navarras and the like shrink alongside these massive Fords, Chevs, Dodges, and even Toyota have matching sized models. Well fuel is cheap here so I suppose people can afford to run them, and they are probably less than half the price you would pay in Australia. And you need big utes like these to pull the massive fifth-wheelers.

Having just left our new motorhome in Australia, unattended and unused, we have been fascinated by the sheer volume and size of the RVs here in North America.

Anyway, back to our journey… Our first major target was the US border where we have to attempt a crossing. No wall here! In fact it all seemed a bit confusing.  The border officer looked at us, at our passports, and back again. He looked at his computer terminal, spread his hands quizzically at another officer, who instructed him “just let them go”.  Somehow we felt we had been let off for something unknown.

Shelby Montana was our destination for the night. It is a smallish place. It has about 4000 people and half a dozen casinos that we saw.  I think an establishment can call itself a casino if they have some poker machines.

Monday saw us driving on through the rolling plains and wheat fields of Montana. They call it Big Sky Country.  If you recall The Horse Whisperer – that is Montana.

Montana is also home to Head Smashed In Buffalo Jump. We were intrigued and puzzled by this seemingly horrific description of a place.  It is a UNESCO World Heritage site, and we were glad to have the opportunity to visit it. The Blackfoot Indians used a geographical formation to trap buffalo and force them to jump over a cliff to their death. It sounds horrific, but it was a sustainable way of providing the people with food and materials for their living. For the Blackfoot, it is sacred land, and we were moved by being there. The advent of white settlers and adventurers who killed buffalo for hides, as well as sport, just about destroyed the immense buffalo population.

We arrived late Tuesday at Yellowstone, and had a quick trip to Mammoth Hot Springs. From the township of Livingston where we got supplies, to Gardiner, the entrance to Yellowstone where we are staying, the sky turned from blue to black and the temperature changed from 25 to 3. It was a bit of a shock to the system.

I had lost my beanie along the way so invested in a fur cap which is wonderfully warm. Today, Tuesday is expected to have a temp range of -1 to 3. Off to Old Faithful after breakfast. I am sure there will be much more of interest after today’s trip.

With the weather as it is, we are sure that next time, we would do this in summer time…