Drive South To Helena
I woke to fishermen dropping boats into the Missouri River near me. The school bus that had been beside me the night before had moved. It hadn’t been parked in one of the marked campsites, and by morning the fishermen were occupying those spots. Within about thirty minutes, eight boats had been launched into the river. I downed a bowl of cereal, took a few photos, and was on my way.
I was close to I-15 heading south toward Helena, but I set Google to avoid interstates. That kept me on a road running between I-15 and the Missouri River. It was a beautiful, sunny end-of-summer day, and for miles there were fishermen along the river. Some appeared to have already caught their limit and were wading back toward their trucks. I saw people casting from shore and others standing in the river fly fishing. There were so many flat bottom fishing boats. Some looked like they had the whole family on board.
I’m not sure how far I had driven when I spotted a small coffee hut and pulled over for a latté. I talked with the owner for a while. Her family was from what she called “The Wolf Creek Valley,” and she had spent most of her life in the area. She gave me a few pointers on roads I could take to get farther into the mountains and farm country.
Once I turned west out of Wolf Creek, the landscape opened into a broad ranching valley surrounded by mountains. The hills were already wearing their late-summer colors—mostly pale gold and brown—with only pockets of green remaining along the creeks and low ground. In the distance, successive ridgelines faded into the haze, while closer to the road there were long fences, scattered cattle, old barns and ranch buildings. The country felt enormous, with very little between me and the mountains except grassland.
Water changed the landscape wherever it appeared. One creek wound through a dense strip of willows that was almost shockingly green compared with the surrounding hills. I could see what looked like a beaver dam across one section, with a small pool backed up behind it. Farther along was an old narrow metal bridge or trestle crossing the creek, rusting quietly in the middle of the valley. A larger steel truss bridge carried the road across another drainage, its hard geometry standing out against the rounded hills.
What kept catching my attention were the shapes and colors scattered through all that open country. A cluster of bright red barns sat at the bottom of one hillside, almost unnaturally vivid against miles of muted grass. The road curved through the valley, sometimes disappearing behind a hill and then opening onto another long view toward the mountains. It was the kind of drive where I kept seeing something ahead, pulling over, taking a few photographs, and then finding another reason to stop a few miles later.
At that point, I redirected Google onto a side road that took me further into farming territory. I wanted to see some of the backcountry. Before long, the pavement disappeared and I was driving through farm country past a surprising number of abandoned properties. Old houses, barns and outbuildings sat alone beside the road, and I kept wondering what stories were behind them and why they had been left behind.
Eventually Google began trying to steer me back toward Helena, but every suggested turn seemed to have a No Trespassing or Do Not Enter sign. After several of those, I finally got the message and simply turned around and headed back to the paved junction.
By then I was somewhere near Craig and realized I had managed to head in almost exactly the wrong direction. I found another road through a narrow valley with tight turns that had me moving at about 15 mph. Near the top was a pull-off for viewing the valley with a camper van parked overlooking the valley. I pulled in to get a look and take some photos.
Tom from Colorado and Barbara from Texas were sitting outside. They said hello, and then Barbara said, “We were wondering what happened to you.” Apparently they had been watching me make my way slowly up the mountain and had been timing how long it took drivers to get from point A below to where they were on top. I was evidently the slowest vehicle they had seen so far. I told them I wasn’t in any hurry.
Tom had two dogs and warned me not to pet one of them until it got used to me. About five minutes later, the dog wandered over and stood looking at me. I bent down, and it turned around and presented its head for a rub. Apparently I had passed the test.
I stayed for about an hour. We talked about traveling in vans, and eventually the conversation somehow reached toilets. Tom liked his setup, which was much simpler than mine. I told them that I basically hate all toilets, regardless of the system.
A younger couple eventually pulled in as well. Angie was a manager at Costco in Helena, although I never caught her boyfriend’s name. They both wanted to see the inside of my van, so I gave them a tour. Angie wanted a van to be able to travel and camp. Before everyone left, I grabbed a group photo, and then we all headed back down the road in different directions.
I finally made it to Helena around 4 p.m. and stopped at Discount Tire. They confirmed that I needed new tires and said the uneven wear on the fronts probably meant I also needed an alignment. As we were getting everything set up, the salesperson told me they didn’t do alignments. That surprised me because several other Discount Tire locations I had used did. Apparently none of the Montana locations offered alignment services.
One reason I use Discount Tire is that they are spread across much of the country. If I have a problem while traveling, I can usually find another store and have them deal with it. I’ve already had two tire issues on this trip that they handled without charging me anything, so there is some value in staying with the same company.
I found the Montana Heritage Center parking lot in Helena and took a twenty-minute nap before dealing with laundry. The first laundromat I found downtown looked pretty rough and sat next to a bar. The entire block wasn’t somewhere I particularly wanted to spend an hour, so I kept looking. Eventually I found another laundromat a few blocks from Discount Tire. It wasn’t great, but it was much better and there were more people around. About an hour later, everything was washed, folded and back in the van.
I returned to the Heritage Center parking lot, made dinner and processed some of the photographs I had taken during the day. The Capitol was only a few blocks away, and I still had some energy, so I walked up the hill, tripod in hand.
The copper dome was covered as part of a renovation project I learned, with work underway on both the dome and parts of the interior. Even with the construction, it was a beautiful evening. A light, warm breeze was moving through the grounds, and I had the place almost entirely to myself. For me it was unusual that there were no security vehicles circling the grounds or guards nearby.
Near the end of my photo session, I was standing in front of the “In the Line of Duty” memorial when two total idiots came racing up Montana Avenue. At the stop sign, one of them was yelling and swearing at the driver in front of him. Then both cars took off, squealing their tires all the way to the next stop sign. The first car slammed on its brakes, both drivers started laying on their horns, and then they turned left and raced off into the distance. A few minutes later, everything was peaceful again.
I took a few more photographs of the Capitol’s front facade before walking back toward the Heritage Center. The lights along the curved sidewalks there were apparently supposed to come on as you approached. At least I think that was the idea. Sometimes one would come on after I had already passed it, while another two lights away would suddenly illuminate for no obvious reason. I’m not sure why they didn’t simply turn the entire walkway on for a few minutes whenever they detected movement.
It had been an interesting day and another chance to see a part of Montana I probably would have missed if I had stayed on the interstate. By the time I returned to the van, the Heritage Center parking lot was completely quiet. I hadn’t seen any signs prohibiting overnight parking, and when I checked online I couldn’t find anything suggesting Helena had a general restriction against sleeping overnight in a vehicle on the street. It looked like I had found my spot for the night.