Eastern MT...... Blah

Grif and I scheduled ourselves a 3day weekend last weekend so that we could head East to the Terry Badlands in search of the infamous Montana Moss Agate. This is the agate, when cut, can create the picture agate. We read in a Big Sky Journal an article about hunting for agates in the Terry Badlands and surrounding areas of Eastern MT. We decided to check it out.

We stopped on the way in Forsyth and checked out the river access to see what we could find on the gravel bars on the Yellowstone. This is exactly what we do here in the valley. We did find some pretty big pieces of agate. But once we reached the badlands we found..............................

NOTHING!!!!

I mean NOTHING. As the sun went down we found ourselves in GlenDIVE, MT. Great experience. We could not get a room anywhere because of some sports tournament. Well, I take that back. The front desk girl did find us a room at El Centro. The place that was advertising rooms for $29.95 on billboards that we had been mocking as we rolled into town. We were also prepared to set up camp but the only place to set up a tent cost $ and was pretty much in the middle of this shit hole under the river. I did not feel like being killed by the transients who may be living under the bridge so we decided to drive an hour back west and stay in Miles City. But not before we ate dinner. The same front desk girl told us that we hadto go to the Blue Room if we wanted a good meal. 'They have steak and shrimp and stuff' she tells us. Neither of us have ever seen anything so amazing. Lets just say that we were both very grateful that the Blue Room was not our option for a nice place to eat at home. But it was quite the experience. I don't think that either of us will be forgetting that any time soon.

Day 2 we set out for some badlands near Miles City because the rock hounding book that we were using as our guide described large pieces (limbs, trunks, branches) of petrified wood sticking out of the hillsides as well as large beautifully colored agatized petrified wood in the wash beds. We searched all over for hours. Again..............................

NOTHING!

We made our way back to the Forsyth fishing access and checked the river out again and then set our sights on home.

MMMMMMMMMMMMM....Juice box. Fuel for the long ride home. It was very nice to see mountains again. Did I mention that Eastern MT is barren earth.

Monday we enjoyed our day off. Took the 4-wheeler to the shop in Bozo. We got a letter in the mail that there was a recall on an electrical part that sometimes just bursts into flames. Yikes. Needed to get that taken care of. I found myself a great little Carhart hoodie at Murdocks. And they have their chicks. Soon they will be getting the ducklings. We better start cleaning out the duck house so that I can get new baby duckies. Hopefully we can do some renovations to keep them a little more safe from hungry neighbor foxes!!

We also had a nice evening ski. I crashed harder than I ever have before. I told Brooke about it today and hopefully next year she can give me some lessons on the ski hill so that I don't freak out when I start going too fast.

SO GLAD TO BE HOME!