Lewis & Clark Caverns State Park

May 15   Dillon, Montana to Lewis & Clark Caverns State Park   72 miles  1hr 50mins

Our campsite at Lewis & Clark Caverns State Park

We've spent the last 6 days in Dillon and now it's time to move on. Judy, Lindsey, Kawika, and Alika left yesterday to fly back to Hawaii. Kawika seemed pretty sad...I think he'll miss Dillon, Montana.

 Bryce spent last night with us, today we need to take him to Bozeman airport. He's flying to visit Sheri in Seattle, then on Friday, off to Alaska. We decided kind of last minute to make this move today to Lewis & Clark Caverns State Park. It's located between Butte and Bozeman. We arrived at the park at about 2pm and had to hurry and park the RV and unhook the car to get Bryce to Bozeman for a flight at 3:50pm. We got him to the airport at 3:10pm. Lucky this airport is small, he checked in and made his flight. That was a close call.

I forgot to mention earlier....while we were in Dillon, it was getting pretty cold. At night it would get down to the low 40's. We went to Arco and found an electric blanket that was on sale. What a lifesaver....I don't know why we didn't think of buying an electric blanket earlier. Between our portable heater and electric blanket, we're sleeping real good. 

May 16   Lewis & Clark Caverns State Park to Helena, Montana   107miles   2hrs 15mins

This morning we went on a tour of the caverns which is one of the largest limestone caverns in the Northwest. These spectacular caverns lined with stalactites, stalagmites, columns, and helictites are naturally air-conditioned. From the campsite, we drove 3 miles up the mountain.

Joe on the trail

This is where the tour started with a 1/2 mile hike up to the mouth of the caverns. This hike was long and steep, the elevation was pretty high and Joe & I felt so out of shape. There were 8 people in our group and we were the youngest so was kind of "make ass" to be breathing so hard next to all these seniors. Once we got into the cave it was pretty dark and cold.

Ready to go in

Our tour guide gave us the history about this cavern and all the formations. Then we had to go down 600 steps to the first room, and let me tell you...what we saw was incredible. For the next mile we hiked from room to room. It wasn't an easy hike. We had to stoop down a lot, the path twisted and turned all kinds of ways,  and there were steps up and down. There was a short slide that we had to go on, and Joe said his ass was too big for the slide so he couldn't slide smoothly like the rest of us. Lucky he was last. All in all, we enjoyed ourselves. The caverns are amazing and breathtaking.

When we came out of the caverns, there was another 1/2 mile hike back to the visitor's center where our car was parked. When we were driving back to the campsite Joe told me his back was sore. When we got back to camp I made us some lunch and could tell that he was in a lot of pain so I gave him some 800 ibuprofen. I was a little worried about him but I think the meds helped. After lunch he felt okay so we made the drive to Helena. We're staying at the Lincoln Road RV Park. We're staying for 2 nites so Joe can take it easy and rest his back. The rate for 2 nites here is $77. It gives me some time to plan our next few days. It's pretty chilly here...the temperature ranges from high 30's to mid 60's.