Helena – RDZ Photography

A flight to Kalispell, Montana was quickly followed up with a 3 1/2 hour road trip down to Helena, taking Montana Highway 83 along Swan Lake.

There is debate if the lake is named after actual swans or an early resident whose sir name happened to be Swan.

The mountains are also known as the Swan Range.

Due to some quirky laws there are a plethora of small casinos throughout the state, seemingly always attached to a gas station.

This particular one has a lot of bull, and a little dinosaur.

The return trip provided this excellent view of MacDonald Pass

Much of Montana looks like this, cows and small mountains, backed by larger mountains.

The route north on U.S. 93 provided these great views of the Mission Mountains.

The road up the west side of Flathead Lake was scenic, bringing this round trip to an end back in Kalispell.

Time to ride on out of here.

Our trip’s northernmost stops were in Montana, Idaho and Washington. In Montana we spent the night in Helena.

When we first arrived we saw the state capitol on a hill as we entered town. To our amazement we just drove right up, parked on the street just outside and walked in!

As we wandered around we looked down a hall to a room that had a sign above that said ‘Office of the Governor’. A lady was standing in the doorway, and she encouraged us to come on in.

She told us the capitol is the ‘People’s Building’, and during business hours is always open to just come on in, no security checks whatsoever. She showed us around the office a bit, including the room that is used for the governor to greet people. It contained a set of flags for the state of Montana, as well as the 8 tribes that reside in the state.