Great Falls, Montana

Love Montana. Montana is a place of differences. We go from mountainous scenery with beautiful creeks, to mesas and buttes, then miles and miles of wheat coloured grassland and stubble, dotted with black cattle. Temperatures also vary - we've gone from -10C min. to -2 maximum one day, the next day it was +14C. Today, it rained this morning, then snowed, now is bright sunshine - albiet with the ever-present freezing winds. +3 C. We've done touristy things today - been to the Great Spring which bubbles up beside and flows into the Missouri River via Roe River, the shortest river in the world; went to Charles Russell's museum - he's an artist who lived at the turn of the 20th Century - and really, a museum of life in the west - very interesting. Better still, we went on the one day it was free. Had breakfast at a diner (see photo) which began operation in 1938. Yesterday we went to Fort Benton on the Missouri River. I went to a thrift shop to buy some books - cost me 20cents for two. met a really interesting older lady who was born in Fort Benton and had a chat to her for a while. Then one of the other older ladies in the shop said Aus-tray-lia - that's below the EEE-quay-torrrr, ain't it. Keep forgetting how enormous the food portions here are and the choices - do you want white, wheat, rye; do you want tabasco, ketchup; how do you want your eggs...any way of 10 choices; and it goes on. The service is excellent but I get a bit tired or the wait person saying "Are you folks right here" for the fifth time in 15 minutes, and refilling the water glass after you take two sips. And the tippping. Yourrr're very welllllcome, is starting to grate a little as well. Still, I'd be whineing if the service was bad, and we do get to chat with a lot of fun people. We're off to Essex at the edge of Glacier National Park tomorrow, to stay in our luxurious railway engine. Don't know if they will have wi-fi. Hope there's some snow because I want to snowmobile but I have my doubts. They're predicting +3C.