Big Sky Country

We've been happily back home in the USA for two days now, in Big Sky Montana.

We stayed outside Shelby last night, and big-sky, windswept prairie it was.

Surprisingly, we experienced the worst mosquitoes we've ever experienced there.  The prairie has some crazy mosquitoes.  The wind just whips, and literally blows the mosquitoes into you.  Subsequently, they seem to instantly attach like velcro.  I actually watched as an entire insect was blowing in the wind while attached to my forearm by its needle.  It would not let go.  Vicious little buggers they are, and so incredibly fast!

Much of the country we've driven through has been prairie.  Today we really got into the spirit and listened to the audio of Little House On the Prairie.  So much of what we were listening to we could look out our windows and experience--the sweeping span of grasses, the winds, the large circle of sky, the field hawks, the fact that trees mean water in this country.  We saw lots of deer and antelope and prairie dogs, and lots of dilapidated yet charming homesteads which harken back to the Little House days.

We also found ourselves feeling akin to the Ingalls Family, who also left all they loved and what was familiar to them, with hopes of finding a better and more suitable life.

Montana is interesting, in that while so much of it is prairie, you will suddenly find yourself in mountain majesty...such as when driving through Lewis & Clark National Forest.  Wow.  The Belt Creek area was phenomenal. 

Tonight we are just outside Yellowstone.

We ate our supper next to the Yellowstone River, and the boys played with their trucks at water's edge....

 ...which necessitated them to scrub up near water's edge.

We're planning on getting an early start in the morning, to experience all the wonders of Yellowstone that we can fit into the day.  Treasuring each day of this journey.