Butte, MT (pre-Yellowstone)

Ok, so technically there is no Yellowstone National Park (YNP) involvement for a few days because this is a working trip also for JD but we have been referring to it as our Yellowstone trip so I will continue to do so. The first day we flew in to Salt Lake City, UT, whose airport gives a pretty amazing view of the Great Salt Lake. I think, anyway - I haven't exactly confirmed that fact with a map - but it looked great and salty even from the plane.

SLC's airport view

From there, we took a commuter plane to Idaho Falls, ID. This was the smallest plane I'd ever been on. Seriously, we walked directly out on the runway area and climbed a ramp into the plane. And when we landed, the baggage claim, car rental, and exit were all in one big room together. Finally, an airport I can navigate!

Next we drove for 3 hours to our destination of Butte, MT. The drive was straight, flat, and lonely. But, with views like this, it was worth it.

Butte is a cute little western town that once was bustling from all the copper mining. There is still mining in the area, but the downtown stores are mostly deserted and starting to fall apart. There are still plenty of four-wheelers (saw one in every yard), bars, liquor stores, and casinos (saw one of these on every corner).

Butte overlook

We ate dinner at the Montana Club (kinda like an upscale Denny's with a little of everything), which also had a casino, as pretty much every restaurant here claims to have.

After dinner, we drove around exploring the town and saw the most intense and beautiful double rainbow I have ever seen. We did have some pretty heavy rain on the drive up and after dinner, the sun came out which must have been the perfect rainbow combo. I took way too many photos because I couldn't get the pictures to do it justice. It was just so bright and the full arch shown - I was mesmerized!

Day 2
Jimmy had to go to work, so I set off exploring wherever I could without a car. Luckily, there were some shopping centers within walking distance that had a Goodwill and consignment shops. (So pay no attention when you're souvenir t-shirt says Butte '84!) I also had just began to read Gone With The Wind, which as a proud southerner I am ashamed I have never seen :(. But, all 1024 pages gave me plenty to do in my downtime.

Found our YNP guide here for $1 that made our trip (and yes, there was a casino next door)

For dinner, we tried Fred's Mesquite Grill which I highly would recommend. My steak and veggie kabobs were delicious as were JD's ribs and porkchop. I normally eat about half of my meals and take the rest to-go but JD and I were both members of the clean plate club here.

The view from the restaurant was great, also, and "Our Lady of the Rockies" could be seen in the distance. "Our Lady" is a statue of the Virgin Mary built in 1985. It sits atop the continental divide and is an honor to mothers everywhere. It takes a 2 hour bus ride to get to the statue so I settled for the zoom on my camera. We'll have to come back when the 5 minute tram ride that is being built is up and running.