Wednesday 12th July

Today was an amazing day. We did things that happened organically and we changed our plans based on ideas and suggestions from people we spoke to. First, we had breakfast with friends.

Then we stopped at the postal office to send the postcards. Seems pretty straight forward right? Well, Elliott runs out and says “you need to come in and see this, it’s amazing” we walk in and through a back door.

The lady on the desk has 20 newborn chicks, that someone has tried to send across Montana. Nate is straight into the action and picks up the chicks to hold.

Turns out the lady has chicks of her own at home and trades the eggs for bananas. One of the truck drivers wife works in a banana factory. Complicated supply chain in Gardiner.

We wanted a snap at the Roosevelt Arch which was only a few minutes from our hotel.

We decided to drive off the highway and through tiny towns to see what the back country of Montana really looked like. Some of the towns we passed were Pray and Chico.

We stopped at LuLu Montana Market to check out the local products. We spoke with a heavily pregnant woman who told us to visit the Livingston Farmers Market in between making a grilled cheese sandwich. We asked if she lived in Gardner? Oh no, can you imagine how many deer, elk and bison I would run into! She told us we needed to try Snow Cones at the Farmers Market as her top tip.

We spent the afternoon in the Yellowstone Gateway Museum. We were all surprised how much there was to see and how much we were able to touch the exhibits. Everything had been donated from the local Montana community.

They had a fantastic array of WW2 memories and exhibits.

Livingston was a major part of the railroad, we saw an entire replica of a train experience from 1900.

We played cowboy dress-up – yeehaw!

We saw another bison!

Daddy said to Nate there is a bison behind him. Nate said “I know he is my pet” what’s his name? Neilson.

We walked to the outside part of the museum which had a fire truck, tractors and a complete blacksmith shop.

The highlight of the outside space was the Urbach School that had been preserved in tact.

The school was fun, but what blew our minds was the book shelf on the side.

All of these books were original first editions from 1900 onwards. We could pick the books up and read through them, we couldn’t believe they allowed people to do that. If you know anything about second hand books, some of these books can go for thousands of pounds!

Daddy went through every book and tried to take some photos of the contents.

We made a quick stop in Albertsons, fancy race car trolley and large USA watermelons!

We made it to the Livingston Farmers Market which was in the gorgeous Sacajawea Park. We eat our lunch in the park, one lady mentioned to Daddy that the boys are very polite and she could listen to them talk all day.

We spoke to a lady who had been in Livingston all her life, she said you can’t beat it here we are blessed with the mountains, rivers and people. It’s sounding tempting compared to Southend-on-Sea…

We tried a Snow Cone $6 for a large icy slice of heaven. Huge array of flavours, and relatively quick and cheap to make. Daddy was considering opening a franchise back in England.

The Farmers Market was busy, live music lots of organic stalls and not just an excuse to drink beer and get drunk. Our English brains couldn’t work that out, folks could have one beer and enjoy the sunshine.

The amount of random positive energy made us decide that’s today was one of our favourite days. Tomorrow we are river tubing in Madison!

Thursday 13th July

Today was Team Hunter vs the Madison River. Two hours of floating down a peaceful river in inflatable tubes strapped together.

We started the day as we always do, with a request to go swimming. As it was 8am and no sane person is going to the hotel pool At that time, we had it to ourselves!

We jumped in the car and headed away from civilisation, to California Corner – a remote fishing/boating location for some Madison River Tubing!

We paid extra to hire a cooler, who got his own tube and was strapped in. This meant the boys could request non-stop snacks and drinks for the entire trip. Both a good thing and a bad thing!

We arrived early to the scheduled appointment, which gave the boys enough time to ask poor 17yr old Reilly all the questions. After a short safety briefing that consisted of “Don’t get out and if you do, don’t get out on the highway.” We grabbed our tubes and cooler and got strapped them together.

The water was pretty shallow, but fast moving. We had a few rocky bumps and had to pull ourselves across the river a couple of times.

As we started to float, we settled into a calm rhythm, the sun was shining and we were only marginally cold from the water underneath us. Nate looked like he had fished the lake for the last 20 years.

The first request for snacks was interesting. Mummy has to leave the safety of her tube and lean over to the cooler tube and open him up. This happened at the same time as passing a rock filled with birds. They were eyeing up the cream cheese sandwiches.

Thus we move to the highlight of the day. After a few goes getting in and out the tube, to move us away from the rocks. Mummy stated very proudly “If I hold onto this rope, I’ll never fall in!” Three seconds later, we arrive at this scene.

The boys took a lot of enjoyment in saying “If I hold this rope…” then looking at Mummy!

The river gives you time to reflect and enjoy each movement, animal and sound. Reflection pose.

Then we move onto the butterfly incident. As we were floating along, an enormous butterfly flew close to our tubes. The butterfly took a liking to Nate and flew over his head, swooping down several times. This is an accurate photo of Nate’s reaction.

We lost our second pair of sunglasses of the trip, as Nate turned sideways and a fine pair was lost to the Madison River.

Elliott began to get confident and started to move outside of the tubes. Ell spent the end of the trip running and jumping onto the tube.

We all didn’t want the ride to end. Something as simple as floating along a river was so enjoyable. We joked, talked, ate and swam along the Madison River.

As it was a Thursday afternoon, there were only two other groups with us. One was an English lady over to visit her daughter who lives in Montana. We can’t get away from English people!

We hit the road across some of the most remote parts of Montana. We drove through Harrison and saw more cows than cars, and more crop sprayers than letterboxes.

We saw a “Trump 2024 – No more bull****” flag flying high on a red barn. We passed a high school that had “Wildcats Pride” in purple flowers across the front of the school.