Taking a Day to Relax in Helena

Thursday, July 19, 2012--Helena, Montana

Last night I studied my guidebooks and my maps and I thought a lot about whether I should try to return to Yellowstone to see more of it.  I decided not to do so.  It is a mess with traffic jams, full campgrounds, etc.  It is better to visit that park during the school year--maybe May or September.  I also decided against going up to Glacier National Park for two reasons:  1)  From what I have read it will be just as overrun with tourists as Yellowstone is at this time of the year.  2)  My car will need servicing in 800 miles, and there are no Lexus dealerships until I get down to Nebraska.  Before planning exactly what I would do, I headed out to enjoy Helena today.

I stopped at the State Capitol and wandered through the building.  It is a pretty one with lots of stained glass--a side window, a curved galleria ceiling, and a ceiling inside the old supreme court portion.  It also seems to be well maintained.  There was no security at the door and no one seemed to pay any attention to me as I wandered through the building.

Across the street, I went to see the Montana Museum.  It was a bit of a disappointment.  There were some nice exhibits, but it seems there could have been so much more.  The best part was the portion showing the progression of the history of the residents of the state.

From there, I explored downtown Helena.  It's much smaller than the downtown I explored in Butte yesterday with only a few big buildings.  But it is clean and attractive.  There seem to be lots of creative people here with many of the downtown buildings housing design offices, architecture offices, advertising agencies, etc.  I visited the Holter Museum of Art, and I searched for the Myrna Loy Center and never found it.  That's fine, though, since I have already seen one of the films showing there and have no interest in seeing the other.

It was hot and I was only a little bit hungry after my large breakfast at the hotel this morning.  I drove out to Costco and bought one of their hand-dipped ice cream bars--like a Dove bar but with a THICK coating of chocolate and LOTS of LARGE CHUNKS of almonds (and 870 calories, unfortunately).  It was my first time to eat a whole one by myself.  In the past, I have always shared them with either Wes or Sue.  It's hard to get more calories for the same amount of money, though--at $1.50, that's almost 6 calories per penny!  I'll have to walk a lot more for the next few days.

I considered going to the swimming pool called Last Chance Splash Waterpark which has a lazy river, water slides, and other features.  I drove by there, but when I walked around the outside of the pool looking to see what was happening, I decided against it.  It was full mostly of children and their mothers.  It would have been awkward for a person alone to have been in there, especially since it was too crowded with the people already there.  I returned to the hotel to do some reading on the computer.

While further researching my tourist literature, I decided to head across Montana tomorrow with short stops in Bozeman, Livingston, and Billings.  I made a reservation for tomorrow night at a hotel in Miles City near the border to North Dakota.  The next day, I will explore the Theodore Roosevelt National Park and continue into the Badlands of South Dakota.  Tomorrow night, I will have to decide whether to make a hotel reservation or to try to camp for a night when I get to the Badlands.

The newspaper had listed an outdoor concert by the State Capital Band at 20:00 in an amphitheater at Memorial Park where the swimming pool is located.  After eating pizza for dinner, I headed to there.  It brought back memories of the many Sundays that friends and I attended concerts in Corpus Christi in the summer at the amphitheater.  The band here may not have sounded as good as the one in Corpus, but the announcer was definitely better!!  They played a variety of marches and show tunes and ended the concert with the state song of Montana entitled Montana.  I had never heard it before, but it was a peppy and nice sounding song.  Here's a video of the tune.  The words are:

Montana, Montana,
Glory of the West
Of all the states from coast to coast,
You're easily the best.
Montana, Montana,
Where skies are always blue
M-O-N-T-A-N-A,
Montana, I love you.

It was nice sitting out in the fresh air with a crowd.  The music was nice, and there were mountains to see in the distance.

Steps Walked:  11,981
Mileage Driven:  Minimal (Will report it with tomorrow's total when I drive all the way across the state)