Big Sky Country

Hello friends and family! Here is our adventure of Day 4:

Wyoming:

We awoke in our nice little room, and with practiced efficiency packed up and hit the road. We were on Rt 16 heading.. uh West as always! 

We came across some oil wells, some more cows, and some nice rolling hills... huge relief from the flatlands before!

They land was a bit bare and the shrubs looked like a bunch of metal I kind of wanted to get out and touch them, but time was pushing us on West!

We got back on I-90W (surprise surprise) which we planned to stay on... FOREVER We passed the Yellowstone National Park Entrance- Unfortunately most park roads are closed during the off season and we were on a forward momentum!

I read out loud to the car for a while and made it halfway through the book. Everyone was still unsure if we liked the book, but as we were in the middle we had to stick it out. We caught our first glance of the Rockies in the distance and it was great! 

We made a gas stop towards the end of our hike through Wyoming and there were some great souvenirs in there, including some flasks- Jen and I each got one! Then as we were about to leave the store Jacob noticed a Jack Daniel's sign on the wall and we asked at the counter where they got it and they said it was for sale!! It was $15 so obviously that sign became ours!

Montana:

We finally got into Montana, which we were really excited about since it sounded like we were actually getting closer... yeah and then we looked at a map and um... in case you didn't know Montana is freaking HUGE, so the excitement bubble was popped by reality...

There were also farms all over the place with animals walking around not clearly fenced in. For example we saw these horses just walking on/by a dirt road. No farm or person in sight!

Here's Jacob giving me a weird look in the rear view mirror which was the norm in the truck. I was sitting in what we referred to as 'the cave' aka the back seat for the trip. I think I was trying to record the temperature. We found this weird temperature fluctuation (not weird so much as unknown to us) that when we were climbing altitude it got hotter in the car which makes sense, but it's so hard to keep track of how high you actually are especially when the hills just look gently rolling!

Here are some more pictures of the Rockies! They were steadily getting closer to us, and then we would drive more North and then they would kind of disappear, then get closer and over and over all day.

The houses got better looking as the view improved! I loved all these great log cabins we were passing!

See they were getting closer and closer! 

As a side note I just have to mention at some point in this long Montana day we did stop at another interesting gas station and this one had a full liquor store, a gift store, and a gun shop. I do believe it was the only store in the whole windy town!

It even looked like we were going to drive right into them! Jacob was getting almost frustrated because he was all set to climb them right away in the morning. He even talked about the roads

Then as we neared Bozeman, MT where we were meeting up to have dinner with Jake (my best friend Sarah's brother) who is a freshman at Montana State, we saw this amazing sunset! 

 The colors were so breathtaking and vibrant! I couldn't stop taking pictures! This is only a sample of the best!! We're thinking of framing some for the house we have yet to find! Big ideas!!

 The sunset lasted forever! Seriously the colors started changing and as we kept driving West they changed and again and again it was so great!

Then we finally reached Bozeman and Jake picked out our restaurant for dinner. It was this great little place called Mackenzie River Pizza Co. We had the NICEST waitress ever! They decor was a huge step above some other places we had eaten at! It looked like the inside of a cozy mountain lodge with great painting of local scenery on the walls! She gave us great suggestions for some local brews and pizza choices! It was a great time making it a great day with great views and food!
To top the night off as we were leaving the waitress let us take some glasses (they were nice big heavy glasses printed with their logo and locations) it was fantastic!! (Below me and my buddy Jake!)

Over all we had a great Day 4! It was a great day in Big Sky Country!