Time for me to take the defensive driving class for my school bus job, and the class is in Lewistown – way out in central Montana.  Driving a school van (with A/C and CD player!) I hit the Lewis and Clark trail in Missoula this morning.  Heading east on Highway 200, I drove through Bonner, the location of one of the West’s biggest Superfund sites.  The pair of explorers would be as appalled as the rest of us over the disaster at the confluence of the Blackfoot and Clark Fork rivers, the result of old mine waste that came from upstream.  The dam is gone now and things are improving, at least visually.  (The Blackfoot was made famous by A River Runs Through It, though at the time of movie production it was too polluted to use for filming.)

I followed the river east, the air yellow with summer heat and haze.  After crossing the divide the land and geology actually reminded me of areas in Northeast Arizona.

It was 96 in Great Falls so I thought maybe I was in Arizona!!!  I saw a white pelican – will try to get a picture of one on the way back!