Morning dawned clear and cold but thank goodness the winds had subsided overnight. It was an easy 326 mile leg into Great Falls.
Beautiful, lonely, empty country as we traveled across Montana on Montana Hwy 200. Small towns dotted the route and ranch entrances were miles apart.
Coyotes are classified as predators in Montana and can be hunted without license year round. As we passed the entrance to one very large ranch, the carcasses of several coyotes were hanging by the entrance gate. A warning to other coyotes perhaps? A little research indicates that sheep and calves are especially at risk to coyote attacks and we saw lots of sheep and cows with calves. There currently is no bounty in Montana but ranchers will protect their herds.
The ride into Great Falls was uneventful. Our plan was to exchange money in Great Falls to have Canadian currency available while traveling through Alberta, British Columbia, and the Yukon Territory. This proved much more difficult than we ever expected.
The first two banks we checked were out of Canadian currency. This was rather strange since Great Falls is a gateway city into Canada. Our next stop was a Wells Fargo bank. Yes, they had some currency available but it is only available to Wells Fargo account holders. Strange but true.
So, with little other option, we opened a Wells Fargo account simply to exchange currency. The folks at the branch we initially stopped at were extremely helpful, fascinated by our trip, and the lady who helped us open the account was even married to an Auburn graduate. I jokingly excused her for that and we got along fine.
About an hour later, we were directed to the downtown branch where the currency actually was. I managed to clean out the one teller who had currency - there was more in the bank but it was in another teller's drawer and inaccessible since she was gone for the day.
It turned out the host hotel was only a block away from the bank so we were quickly checked in and spending time chatting and greeting all the other riders who were already there and waiting for others to arrive.
Dinner that evening was in a 1950's style diner just down the street. Pretty neat little place and delicious food and huge portions.
We linked up with friends who would be our riding companions for the next few days and planned our departure. Riding along with us would be Jim Puckett, Robert Repkopf, and Mike and Jean Donnelly. We would be pretty much constant companions for the remainder of the trip into Hyder, AK.
Tomorrow we cross the border into Canada!
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