Great Falls

We stayed at Malmstrom Air Force Base for five days for the chance to explore the Great Falls, Montana area. A bonus of staying on base was getting to spend a couple days at the pool and the opportunity to rent a fly rod for Asher to try out.

The area near Giant Springs State Park also has a fish hatchery and a national park site, a museum for the Lewis and Clark Historic Trail.

We found info sheets posted by the local Audubon chapter about different birds that can be found here. 

Cedar Waxwing (above), Western Terrestrial Garter Snake with a full belly (below)

Asher tried out fly fishing for the first time! Technically he tried it briefly when he was 4 in the mountains of California, but he was too young to remember. Fly shopping was an interesting experience. Did you know they have flies that look like different insects and even a mouse?! 

Journey decided to get her own rod, so she was able to fish here too!

The fish hatchery is in the park right along the river. Lots of salmon to see!

A short walk from here is a national park site- the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail Interpretive Center. Lewis and Clark's mission was to survey the Louisiana Territory from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean.

It's really amazing to see their entire journey from Illinois to Washington state and back to St. Louis. This treacherous 8,000 mile expedition took nearly two and a half years. 

On May 14, 1804 they set off in a Keel boat (pictured below) with two smaller boats accompanying them, carrying 45 people in all.

When they arrived in Great Falls, the boats could not pass over the five waterfalls. They had to portage (carry the boats and belongings across land) for 18 miles, which took 31 days! Below is an example of how they had to move the boats. It must have been miserable!

They reached the Pacific Ocean by November 1805 and on March 23, 1806 they headed back to St. Louis.  During their trip they made maps and identified 120 animals and 200 plants.

Back on base, the kids enjoyed a couple visits to the fishing pond. They caught SO MANY fish! At sunset they were catching them one after another. It was impressive!

While we were in Great Falls, I spent a half day birding Benton Lake National Wildlife Refuge. I'll write about that in a later post. 

Searching for Sapphires

After the sheep farm, we decided to spend a bit longer in the Helena area. I found a campsite for us at Devil's Elbow on scenic Hauser Lake for $15/night. 

While Asher was fishing I watched swallows feeding nestlings inside the dock railings. 

Asher has always had an interest in rocks, but lately he's developed a desire to try mining. As we traveled he was searching on our phones for locations he could go treasure hunting. I surprised Asher with a trip to the Montana Blue Jewel Mine, known for sapphires. When we arrived, they instructed us to begin filling buckets from the stone pile.

We sifted them thru three screens stacked together from largest to smallest holes.

The large rocks from the top screen we could easily look thru then discard. We kept the rocks from the two smaller screens and then ran them thru the sluice, which fills with water then pushes the lighter rocks down the belt while keeping the heavier gems at the top. The rocks that go down the belt are discarded and the heavier stuff is dumped onto a metal tray for us to pick thru with tweezers.

Once we thought we had found all that was there, we put sections of the rocks on a smaller screen and shook thru a tub of water to again move the heavier gems to the center of the screen. We dumped them again and found even more sapphires! It's a long process, but quite interesting and fun.

Not only did we find a good amount of sapphires, we also found root beer agate, hemitite, quartz, and other agates. After we were finished, the employees gave us a tour of their main mining operation. It's a similar process to what we just did, but on a larger scale and automated. The larger, heavier gemstones end up in the trays and an employee checks them on a regular basis to see what they've uncovered. 

You can't go to Montana without attending a rodeo! Fortunately our timing was perfect for the Helena Rodeo. We really enjoyed the Mutton Busting- children attempting to ride sheep like a bull. None of them lasted more than a few seconds and some changed their minds before the gate swung open. Who could blame them?! 

There were two young girls age 12 and 16 doing trick riding around the arena. Standing on top of the horse or hanging from the side. It was really impressive!