Tiff vs Montana: Sweet Grass Hills

Today I finally went around town to take pictures of small town USA of Shelby, MT. I had time to kill until I went hopping around the Sweet Grass Hills with Victoria and Greg. I posted them on facebook, so I'm sure if you follow me on here, then you are probably on there too! If not, e-mail me and I can send some pics to you. It was cool driving around town today, going places I've never been.

The Sweet Grass Hills are to the North of Shelby, near the Canadian border. You can see them starting just outside of Great Falls. That's one thing I've noticed about North Central Montana. It's very flat in most places where you can see landmarks for miles and miles. The Rockies are easy to see to the West due to the massiveness of them, even though they are 100 miles away!

Now, I didn't go up the mountain, but I got really close to the base in my car. Victoria was sitting beside me in the passenger seat underneath my parka (it was warm in Shelby, so she didn't bring a coat and it was chilly up near the mountain), while Greg was taking pictures with his awesome Nokia professional camera, bending in awkward positions to get the best pictures. I was a little sad and whistful that my OLD digital camera doesn't have a zoom. I'm seriously thinking of buying a nice new one!

We saw many of God's lovely creatures on this ride through the mountains. Many mule deer, antelope, black angus cows, birds, sheep, and geese. We even saw two bald eagles just sitting on top of a hill together.

I now see why my friend Jeremy calls us Flatlanders. The ride past the mountains and back down toward US Highway 2, was FLAT. Shelby has lots of hills around it and is set in a Coulee (a term I just learned today!), while the surrounding area to the east and just north is very flat. This makes it easy to see windfarms that are 30-40 miles away.

I can't wait for my next adventure!

Some pics:

The bustling town of Shelby, MT looking North form atop the hill with West Butte way in the background.