When Billings is a good thing...

Greetings from Billings, MT.

This is actually a decent-sized city in Southeast Montana - and I have to say, as much as I love the National Parks, it also felt good to drive through a little suburban sprawl today. And my sense of discovery and travel means that I can enjoy driving through a new city just as much as driving through the Badlands.

There's not a ton to do in Billings, not for our motley crew anyway...but that's kind of why we're here. Today was day 10, and a day to reset everything is in order. Tomorrow we will clean, do laundry, do some shopping to restock, and that's about it. Tuesday we may do a few touristy, sightseeing things, but for the most part, we're just taking it easy.

Yesterday after walking around Devils Tower, we kicked back at the campground. The girls played for a long time on the playground - a bunch of pics forthcoming. Then, Dad, Steph and I went to the campground's nightly outdoor showing of "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" - for those who don't know, Devils Tower figures prominently in the plot. Now, this movie has never been a favorite of mine. It's frankly dull in spots, it's terribly dated now, and quaint. But it was a really cool experience to watch it outside at night with the shadow of Devils Tower right there. As I said, that KOA really has a fantastic sense of place. We really liked it.

The drive to Billings was uneventful, but almost disastrous. I got greedy. With a chance to stop for gas in Sheridan WY, I decided to plow onward. Problem was, I hadn't studied my map well enough...there's a long distance between towns in Big Sky Country - there are plenty of exits, but they all have this little blue sign that says "No Services". Well, long story short, I almost ran out of gas before pulling into Buffalo, WY. Kind of worrisome there for a while.

We had an early dinner at Mackenzie River Pizza Co. here in Billings - again, nice to have a little gentrified pizza after so many meals of buffalo burger and fries. Everyone LOVED their pizza and we're definitely thinking about visiting the Great Falls location in a few days (so much for keeping secrets).

Big storms here in Billings actually knocked out the power at the Billings KOA for a while. Interesting campground. The first ever KOA...along the Yellowstone River...very slick and clean and polished...but I don't know...seems kind of lifeless to me. Steph disagrees, and we may have a discussion about it later.

Well, gotta run, kids need to go to bed. Will post some pics later.

Matt