The first leg of our trip is to take us to northern Washington to visit family for a couple of days. We didn’t plan on doing or seeing much on the way up except one stop in Wallace, Idaho. So our first day was mainly a driving day. We had a couple of choices for getting to northern Washington, but Sue wanted to visit Wallace and we love the scenery driving through Montana, so decided to go that route, which took us up I-15 in Utah, Idaho, and then to I-90 just west of Butte, Montana (a great place to go visit and spend some more time in one day in the future), and finally to Missoula, Montana where we stayed the night….
Montana
Our 2014 Trip Around The Northwest
Sue and I have never spent much time in the Northwest. We’ve visited a couple of times to see family in northern Washington, but that was about it. And it was time. We’ve heard a lot about the beautiful places to go see and finally decided that we needed to spend some time exploring Washington and Oregon. We won’t see everything, of course, but we hope to visit a lot of places, see some wonderful sights, and have some great adventures. Our plans include Seattle, Butchart Gardens over the border in Victoria, Olympic National Park, a drive down the Oregon coast, and everything else that we can find in between. Follow along and we’ll share with you what we find:…
Giant Springs State Park
Near the Lewis and Clark Interpretive center in great falls, Montana, is Giants Springs State Park. This was discovered by the Lewis and Clark expedition in 1805 and is one of the largest freshwater springs in the country, flowing at 156,000,000 gallons of water each day.
The springs are located right along the edge of the Missouri River. A small river, called the Roe River, is formed where the water flows from the springs to the Missouri River. It has been listed as the shortest river in the world at a whopping length of 200 feet!
What is spectacular about the springs is not only the amount of water that is flowing from them, but that studies have shown that the water takes almost 2900 years to travel from snowmelt from the Little Belt Mountains 60 miles away to this spring where it returns to the surface and empties into the Missouri River.
The springs are incredibly clear with beautiful green plants and is surrounded by a great park. If you are traveling on I-15 and need a break stretch your legs and let the kids run around and play for a bit, this would be a great stop to make. The park includes a fish hatchery, a playground, large shady areas and green grass.
We loved our time walking around the springs, sitting and watching them, looking at the wildlife, and just enjoyed the cool, shady area. It was very relaxing!
If you have a little extra time the Lewis and Clark interpretive center is just down the road and offers a an excellent overview of the Lewis and Clark expedition.
See below for pictures of this beautiful park and a map to show you how to get there.
See the Giant Springs State Park website for more information.
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The Springs, The Rock, and the Mountains : Podcast 10
Episode 10 of the All Around The West Podcast is live! In this episode, Sue and I talk about three different places that we visited in Montana, all of which were visited by Lewis and Clark. They are: Giant Springs State Park, Tower Rock State Park, and Gates of the Mountains.
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