Miles City, Montana

It's going to be another quick post this morning, as we again find ourselves without electricity. We are staying at one of the Harvest Host sites, which means free parking for us. On the other hand, we certainly made up for it in this purchase of wine from the winery.

It was worth it. The folks here were very friendly and knowledgeable, and we enjoyed spending some time in their tasting room with them.

There are a lot of cats here...here's just one of the many we've seen through our wet windows.

You can be sure we're keeping lookout on them.

It rained hard most of the day, and so I'm hoping the weather will clear enough for me to take some pictures outside this morning. That will have to wait for my next post. As for my next post, I might be away for a few days. From here, we're heading to the North unit of Theodore Roosevelt National Park, and we'll be camping inside the park. Usually, we are without cell phone service while inside a national park. Certainly, we'll be without electricity or internet, and so it's anybody's guess whether I'll be able to communicate with you.

After that, we're heading to another of the Harvest Host sites in Minot, North Dakota, and from there up into Canada, where we won't be able to use our cell phones (steep roaming charges). There, we'll be dependent upon the location to provide wi-fi, and we're not really counting on it.

But let's back up to yesterday's travels. We took a side trip to Pictograph Cave State Park. It sounded interesting and we were trying to kill a little time before arriving at our hosts for the night.

The park was comprised of three caves containing, you guessed it, pictographs. We hiked a short loop trail that led us to two of the caves. The third was accessible only by an unimproved trail. As you can see, we faced many dangers,

and so we decided to stay on the maintained trails. Climbing up the trail to where the caves were located, we found the remains of an ancient dwelling.

The pictographs were hard to see in the dim lighting of the cave, but the informational signs were helpful in identifying what we were seeing. This was a row of rifles, and probably bullets.

Here's how it looked on the wall of the cave.

Here's another we could spot.

Hard to tell what it is, but the informational sign is helpful.

We moved on a little down the trail and saw the Ghost Cave.

There were no visible pictographs, but the cave itself was interesting.

From here, we could see below to where a tee pee is erected in the picnic area.

Here's how it looks on the inside and looking up.

Here's a little more information about the people who inhabited this area and what their lives were like. There's also a map showing the location of the park within the constellation of creeks and rivers.

So that was our visit. Then we went on down the road and arrived at our host winery in the mid-afternoon.

These two are continuing to do well. They seem happy enough, although we have yet to get either of them out of the trailer.

It seems a bad idea here with so many cats around. We're hopeful of better weather and conditions inside the national park.

The only other update I have for you is that we finally got our little sign hung up. We purchased this in Swan Valley, Idaho, last year while visiting my friend Marei.

So, I'm hopeful of being able to get on and tell you what's going on from here, but I'm not very optimistic about it. It may be several days before I'm able to communicate again. I will be back, however, and so we'll see you on the other side, no doubt with lots of news and more pictures to share.