Butte to Gardiner

This morning, after bidding a fond farewell to Kala's brother, we resumed our eastward journey. We started out by going west. We just couldn't resist the lure of seeing Our Lady of the Rockies, a ninety foot statue of the Virgin Mary that sits atop an eight thousand foot mountain overlooking the city of Butte, Montana. Unfortunately, we missed the last tour of the day, so we were only able to admire her from afar. Anyone familiar with Kala's absurd fear of statues knows that she was not overly disappointed about that. Still, Andy is determined that we will make the trip to the summit the next time we visit Chris, Cate, and Christian.

After several hours of driving through the scenic and sometimes challenging countryside of southwestern Montana, we arrived, road-weary and mosquito-bitten, in Gardiner, at the north entrance of Yellowstone National Park. Once again, we found ourselves scouring the busy resort town for suitable (or even available) accomodations, and once again, we stumbled into the perfect, affordable spot. We landed for the night at a lovely little cottage on the Yellowstone River. We'll be entering the park tomorrow and will have a full report on that in our next edition. See you then!