I had intended to eat breakfast at the Lake McDonald Lodge, but I misjudged how far I was from it and arrived just a little too late. Instead I bought some trail mix from the gift shop and waited a little for the rain to stop.

They have these terrific red touring cars that hold a dozen or so passengers. These drive Going to the Sun Road and maybe other places. They have fabric tops that are probably removed in nice weather, but this is just a guess, since I never saw them in nice weather.

In the park newspaper I read an article about pepper spray as a bear deterrent. Apparently it works pretty well and is the recommended method of stopping a bear attack, but it is not always effective. The article closed by warning people not to spray it around people or camps as a repellent.

In the gift shop they had a large bottle of pepper spray for $40. I mentioned to the boy behind the counter what the article had said and that it must take a really stupid person to confuse a pepper spray with a repellent. This is, after all, the current trendy substitute for Mace.

He said that I'd be surprised, that people do it all the time. He offered two incidents, both unverified and without names or dates.

In the first, a couple sprayed their tent with the stuff. Since cayenne and other peppers are food, attracted bears.

In the second, a woman sprayed her children with it.

Also in the newspaper was an article about how to deal with bears, including a very good reason not to feed them: once a bear gets a taste of human food, he decides he wants more and knows how to find it. They destroy bears that have been fed, since they are no longer safe to have in the park.

Had Yogi lived in Glacier, Ranger Smith would have shot him. It didn't stop raining, so I started along the road.

I have the necessary skills neither to photograph this kind of landscape beauty nor to write about it effectively, but I tried a bit of the former and I will now try a bit of the latter.

Yes, it was raining my whole drive across the park, and at times the fog was so thick that I could barely see anything. This was still one of the most beautiful drives I've taken.

I saw what at first I took to be veins of snow running down the sides of mountains. When I got closer I saw that these were moving water. There were creeks tumbling down the sides of the mountains in dozens and dozens of tiny waterfalls.

At times there were five or six of these in view. I saw dozens, many tumbling right down the faces of rock next to the road, where they disappeared into holes or gratings.

It may be that these waterfalls are always this fast, always this full, always this intense, but I prefer to believe that the rain was making them more spectacular.

Near the pass I started to see snow. Sometimes it was ten to twenty feet tall where the plows had cleared it from the road.

The Logan Pass visitor center isn't good for much unless you need to go to the bathroom or get your national parks souvenir passport stamped. It was cold and snowing and there were feet of snow everywhere not plowed.

There was a lot more snow on the other side of the pass. The road has only been open for two weeks. I wonder how easily this snow could tumble across the road.

My taped notes are pretty worthless for this part of the descent. I sound very enthusiastic, but I'm not providing any information. I saw a lot more of the falling creeks.

At times the short wall beside the road was missing, so that I was within a couple of feet of flying into space.

I passed a turnout for Jackson Glacier, but I didn't see anything and kept moving.

St. Mary's Lake filled the valley to my right for a good part of the rest of the drive. Many people were fishing. The lake is 9.9 miles long and 289 feet deep. The mountains on the far side went straight up from the edge of the water.

It didn't occur to me during this entire three-hour drive to turn on the radio.

Outside the park I stopped at the Snow Goose Grille, part of the huge St. Mary's Resort complex, for lunch. I had a buffalo steak and a beer called "Moose Drool" from some microbrewery in Missoula. It was a brown ale, a bit light in body.

My waiter was named Pete. Before he took this job he worked at a brewpub in Naperville, Illinois. I get to Naperville a few times a year for business. I will stop by there the next chance I get.

At the gift shop I had seen a large collection of huckleberry products, jellies and candies and the like. When the people at the next table got a brownie sundae with some purple ice cream, I assumed it was huckleberry. I was right.

I think this is very similar to the way cactus ice cream and candy is sold in the southwest.

I was only 18 miles from Canada when I turned south.

Shortly the landscape changed drastically. I could still see the Rocky Mountains to my right, but I was now driving through rolling hills (large ones, but not anything like the mountains) through grazing land. I saw a lot of cattle and barbed wire fences.

The rain had stopped, but it was still overcast. I kept the top up.

Twice I saw an odd bird fly across the road. They were black with white at the tips and bases of the wings, and they had very long black tails. In flight they looked about the size and shape of a pheasant. I need to find out what they were.

Browning is the capital of the Blackfeet Indian Reservation. It's a little town, but it is home to the Museum of the Plains Indian.

Next door is the museum I went to, the Bob Scriver Hall of Bronze. It has two large statues out front, Christmas tree lights running over the porch, and antlers stuck everywhere possible.

This is really two museums for the price of one. In one half of the building is a collection of mounted animals, ranging from tiny rodents to moose and elk and bear. There are also many small statues and paintings.

The other half of the museum consists of two rooms packed with bronze statues, some just a foot tall or smaller, some over eight feet in height. You can buy these, too, or reproductions of them.

One room has cowboys and presidents and other general things, divided into these categories: Rodeo Cowboy, Indian, Animal, Early American, and Misc. The other room was all Blackfeet.

The restrooms were labeled Braves and Squaws.

Bob started sculpting in his 40s and hasn't stopped over 40 years later. At least I think he hasn't stopped. I didn't see anything that said he had died, and I heard some banging coming from the back.

It was about a quarter to two when I left the museum, so I wanted to find the Blackfoot Indian Writing Company, following a lead in Road Trip USA. They make pencils.

Unfortunately, I got sucked into some nasty road construction. The road was down to one lane for a few miles, and I spent fifteen minutes waiting for my turn. Even after it was our turn, I had to wait for a couple towing an Airstream to stop and ask every worker some question.

Everyone but the Airstream and I took US 2 straight ahead. We turned onto 89 south, but soon I had an opening to reasonably and prudently pass them.

A line of a bright cyan sky appeared. I think it was over the Rockies, but I'm not sure. Everywhere else was still overcast.

I saw some little animal in lying near the middle of the road. I thought I saw it move a little, just a little twitch, but it definitely looked dead as I drove past. I continued to watch it in my rear view mirror. It stayed in place, then suddenly ran off the road.

Twice more I saw little animals stand in the road, then run off, but neither did this trick.

I saw some fields planted with some unidentified crop, but most of the land still had grazing cattle.

I got stuck for a while behind a camper from Saskatchewan. I think they needed a new engine, since, on one climb, they slowed to about 25 miles per hour. I didn't stay behind him longer than necessary.

I stopped at the Old Trail Museum in Choteau (SHOW-tow), drawn unavoidably by three dinosaur statues.

The first statue, a ten-foot T Rex, had a connector for wiring and several air hose connections under his tail, but they weren't hooked to anything. I asked the woman in the museum if he did anything. She said he used to, but he developed a leak somewhere inside. His arms and mouth used to move.

There were several tiny buildings, all made with the same architecture, that made up this little "Old Trail" complex. There was an ice cream shop, an antique store, and a few other things.

One building was an unattended grizzly bear display. There was a stuffed bear, some photographs of animals killed by bears, and an interactive touch screen wildlife management "game". I thought I recognized the screen font used by the game, so I looked behind the display and saw an Amiga 500.

The museum was nice. There were some fossils and dinosaur exhibits and a discussion of archaeology in the back room.

The front room held the kind of collection one often finds in small town museums: old things that people have saved. There was an old one-piece post office (boxes, counter, etc.), some old tools, a few lanterns, a model train, and other assorted artifacts.

South of Choteau, on the side of a small mountain, was a large white letter C. Inside the C were the number 98 and the phrase "KIX…". I guess each year the graduating seniors have to climb up there and modify the display.

The sky looks pretty big here. Finally the sky above me cleared, although I could see rain in the distance. I pulled over and put the top down. I got about fifteen minutes of sunlight, but I left the top down.

I hit Interstate 15 about five miles south of Craig, Montana, so I had to go back north a bit. Craig is a very tiny town. It has a bar and a gas station and an outfitter. I photographed the railroad sign, by itself with the digital camera, but with me with the real camera.

I put the top back up before leaving Craig, and it started to rain as soon as I got on I 15 south. Lucky me.

I stopped in Helena for gas and just to see what a state capital looks like when it's population is less that 25,000.

I pulled into an Exxon station and accidentally went to the Full Service pumps. I just said, "fill it up." He asked if he could check under the hood, so I said sure and popped it.

I got the key to the restroom. When I returned there was someone vacuuming my car, someone else washing the windows, and a third checking the tires. I went inside.

The walls inside the office of Tim's Exxon are covered with old gas station memorabilia. Most of it is Esso/Exxon, but I saw Texaco and some other stations.

All of the attendants were dressed in traditional service station uniform, they were all very busy and very professional, and they all spoke to me very formally.

I got my bill, which included a checklist of everything checked, and a verbal rundown.

Yes, the gas was $1.679 a gallon, but it was worth every penny. I wish I could visit Tim's Exxon more often.

I drove through Helena, which has its ugly areas, but is very pretty downtown. For a while I was on U.S. 12, which, further east, goes through Darwin, Minnesota, a block from the twine ball, Minneapolis, the Wisconsin Dells, Madison, Whitewater (past a very nice abandoned motel), Wauconda, Illinois, and on into Chicago.

Before I left Helena I called and made reservations at a motel in Bozeman.

By this time I had decided against going to Anaconda to see the giant smokestack. The notation on the map says "Anaconda Smelter Stack State Park (undeveloped)", which was almost enough to make me go. But not quite.

There are several radon health mines north of Butte. These are spent uranium mines. The government warns people that radon exposure can cause lung cancer. Some people, however, are convinced that the radioactive gas is good for curing a variety of ills, so they pay to go down in these mines.

At least they do in theory. I saw no signs of customers in either of the mines I visited.

The first was the High Ore Health Mine. The road leading to it was dirt, but a sign assured me that it was a good road.

After what seemed like forever, past some very poor looking homes, I arrived at the mine. As I pulled up, a man in a truck backed up, glared at me, and drove off. The entrance to the mine is in a cement wall in the side of a hill. The sign said that they were currently under construction, that the rate was $3 an hour, and that no one could enter the mine without signing a release. Pregnant women and children under 18 are not permitted in the mine, and the last one out should turn off the lights.

A friendly little dog approached me when I got out of the car. I scratched his head. It was hard to tell, but I think he may have been blind in one eye.

Nobody came out of any of the three trailers while I was at the High Ore Health Mine, so I beat a hasty retreat, then went to the Sunshine Health Mine.

This one was up a dirt road, too, but the entrance looked like a mine is supposed to look, with wooden supports and crosspieces. Behind the gift shop were some cabins. A sign in the shop window said that the office was in the double wide.

A little dog approached me here, too, but it wasn't friendly. It stood about ten feet away and barked.

A sign in the gift shop window said that postcards were available, so I drove up to the office (which also turned out to be the residence of the owners).

The woman said she didn't have postcards, but she did have some photos. She had been putting backs on them to make postcards, but she was having trouble finding postcard backs. She invited me into the kitchen to see.

None of the photos she showed me had anything to do with the mines. I bought four for a quarter each: two of deer eating from a bird feeder outside her kitchen window, and two of moose running up her driveway.

She told me I could go to where the moose lived, over near the beaver dam, but, on second thought, maybe I shouldn't go there in my car.

The Sunshine Mine was in an area called Galena Gulch. I wonder if lead was discovered here before uranium.

I drove back to Boulder, where I saw signs for two more radon mines, the Lone Tree Health Mine and the Free Enterprise Health Mine, and two hot springs. From there it was a reasonable and prudent drive down to I-90, the same interstate that runs within a few miles of home.

I missed the correct Three Forks exit and got a little lost finding my way back. It was getting dark, and I had to make a decision.

Should I visit the headwaters of the Missouri River, or should I visit the Ox Statue that Pees? I think you know the answer.

As I stood taking pictures of the ox, the kid running the café/convenience store turned on the water. I thanked him when I went inside.

He asked how I knew about the ox and knew that it peed. When I told him that it was Roadside America, he said I was the third one in the last week to tell him that. Most people, he told me, don't know that it happens, and that he even had some Japanese tourists run away once.

He mentioned the speed limit, and he thought that the legislature would change it to 75 when they were next in session.

In Bozeman I checked into the motel, then drove into town to have dinner at the Spanish Peaks Brewing Company, home of Black Dog Ale. I had their Nut Brown Ale, which was similar to the Moose Drool. I got a laugh from the bartender when I called it "Moose Piss".

For dinner I had a very nice pasta dish with grilled salmon, diced Roma tomatoes, wild mushrooms, and cashews. I added a Yellowstone Pale Ale, which was a little better in body and hoppiness.

A couple was sitting next to me at the bar, and, while the guy was gone, the girl spotted me talking into my tape recorder (I was trying to be discreet) and commented that she should start doing that. I explained why I was taking notes, and we talked about travel and US parks and the like for a few minutes.

I got back to the motel and didn't feel like writing, so I put it off. I've done it now.

In the Weather Channel's recap of national weather, they said there would be more flooding in the east, with delays at Atlanta's airport, 100+ temperatures in Texas, and snow in Yellowstone. Nice.