The Drive Home

Sorry this last installment has taken me so long to post--I keep getting out and having fun, and just barely have time to download the camera and create the next post!  Poor me!

On Wednesday, Lynn and I drove home, taking our time to see flowers along the way.  Here are our sightings along Highway 89, between St. Mary and Browning.

Mountain Hollyhock

Yellow Locoweed

Lupine

Sticky Geranium

Not sure about this one; it was a big plant and a cross between
Wood's Pussytoes and Pearly Everlasting.

Paintbrush

Northern Bedstraw

Galardia

White Lupine!

These beauties were taken along Highway 2, between Browning and West Glacier.

A beauty in the pea family, like Sweetvetch

Field of Lupine and Cinquefoil

Lynn on the fence, trying to capture this Lupine garden.

We were photographing Lupine between Browning and East Glacier, and a guy in a truck pulls off the highway into the bar-ditch, right up to us.  I thought we were in trouble--we had been standing on his barbwire fence, and we were on the Blackfeet Reservation.  Turns out he thought we were trying to get bison photos since we were near the Blackfeet Bison Range, and he is the herd-manager for the Blackfeet tribe!  He told us he was driving out there to check on some cows and would we like to go with him?  He would get us right up to the bison herd, with the mountains behind them and we could get some really good pictures!  Now I know it sounds crazy that two white women over 50 would just hop in a truck with a stranger (Native with long braids, too) and do this, but we did.  It was amazing!  He was totally above-board, and his kindness in offering to take us out there really touched us.  Here are the best from about 50 photos that I took.  Unfortunately, neither one of us took a photo of Sheldon with his herd!

Nursing calf and cow; the blue across the rolling hill is all Lupine.

Do you recognize these peaks from our Lubec photos?
 Summit Peak on the left and Calf Robe Mountain, center.

As we made our way past East Glacier along Highway 2, we had to check on our Bitterroot spot--and it didn't disappoint.  First we were greeted by a colorful garden: Geranium, Yarrow, Cinquefoil and Buckwheat.

Our next stop was along the Middle Fork, where there was a wet seep.  The hillside and ditch were full of Bog Orchids and Paintbrush.  A stunning way to finish our little wildflower jaunt.