7/25 ~ Big Sky Montana

1995 USAIDS 5,000
(20th Anniversary Pictorial Tour)
Post #44:
Welcome to Montana. (Notes accompany each photo.)

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Picture #093

I had been to Montana, once before, in the 1970s, while visiting an aunt and uncle. They lived in Billings. Therefore, I must have driven this same route. Rolling hills, and wheat fields in the plains; that is what I remembered, and that is what we are able to see from this hilltop. (Picture from July, 1995)

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Picture #094

And this is why they call it "Big Sky" Montana. I had to look to see if Katharine Lee Bates, lyrics author of America the Beautiful, was born or grew up in Montana. It seems not, but she must have been there:

"O beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!"

This is the America I found on a bicycle, thanks to Carl Lebman! (Picture from late July, 1995)

Lebman Carl Sorry
Jim Petretta Couldn't have done it without you, buddy! Huge thanks! Will be posting Missoula, next. We met some wonderful people, there.