Day 23–25 — Great Falls Montana

July 5–7, 2021. I’ve been hanging out in Great Falls Montana for the last few days. My wife Mary Jo (right) and her sister Lisa passed through and spent the night on their way to Minnesota, with the car packed to the gills with all our stuff for living in Minnesota this coming year. I’ll be on a sabbatical for a year and we decided to spend it their close to family.

After they left I shopped for groceries and packed for the next section of the river, packed, and did some maintenance on my bike. The next morning I explored Great Falls by bike. There were five sets of rapids when Lewis and Clark passed through here. They had to do an 18 mile portage around them. The great bike path system in Great Falls allowed me to bike from one end of the Portage to the other seeing the town and surrounding landscape along the way.

I also took a couple detours to see the old railway stations for the Milwaukee Road and Great Northern Railroads, along with some of the public sculpture by one of my second cousins, Mike Hollern.

The rest of the day was devoted to work meetings and projects. My friend and long-time paddling partner Dave Ostergren joins is getting to town tonight. He’ll be joining me for the Missouri Breaks section of the river.