Sierra-Cascade Trip: Houghton to Billings, MT

Lake Superior, Superior Wisonsin

 Ann had a conference scheduled for July in Reno and I had a new taste for travel honed during our stay in Pennsylvania. Reno is a perfect gateway to the eastern Sierras and southern Cascade Mountains, so we planned a little sightseeing trip. She would fly out early Saturday and I would start driving. I would arrive in Reno just as her conference ended 3 days later. From there we'd hit 3 national parks in 6 days. Yes!

Flooding on I-94 in North Dakota

I drove 18 hours almost due west the first day. What a great way to experience the central geographic and climatic regions that span the north of our great country - from dawn to dusk in one day.  Beginning with fog and clouds on Lake Superior, through the lakes and forests of Minnesota's north woods, across the flat agricultural plains of eastern North Dakota, to the drier plains and badlands of western North Dakota, then along the Yellowstone River valley across eastern Montana.

North Dakota Badlands

It had been an especially wet spring and summer in the Great Plains and Rockies, to the point that there was flooding across Interstate 94, with heroic efforts including giant water filled tubes as dikes and pumps ablaze keeping traffic flowing.

Yellowstone River Bluff

I've always especially liked the segment of the drive from the North Dakota badlands on the Little Missouri River and Teddy Roosevelt National Park west along the Yellowstone. The banded colored bluffs, rolling sage hills and hay fields are a dramatic counterpoint to the green forests and lakes I left behind just that morning.

Rest Stop above Yellowstone River

I spent the night in the car outside Billings at a rest stop along the Yellowstone River with a view that Lewis and Clark might have taken on their journey west. And woke in the morning to a dead battery. I had assumed that when I turned the car off the night before, the headlights would turn off as they always do after a few minutes. Apparently not when you're sleeping in the car with the remote in your pocket. Luckily as I looked anxiously around the parking lot at 5 am, there were several cars pulled off like me. I ate breakfast and waited. Within a half hour a gentleman stumbled out of his pickup and staggered towards the restrooms. I asked if he had any jumper cables, and he said he'd check, but apparently had an urgent mission in the restrooms. But not a minute later a couple emerged from the sedan with Washington plates and began stretching and talking. I approached them and sure enough they had one. I was parked in an odd spot, couldn't open the trunk without power, and so had to unload the car through the rear passenger door, clamber and pry from the inside to open the rear battery compartment under the floor (now I know there is a jump point in the front fuse box if you ever need to help out a Prius), and run the cables through the window I'd luckily left open for ventilation the night before (I have this cool system of flexible magnet strips and nylon mesh to keep out the bugs). It takes nothing to jump a Prius - all you need is enough current to boot the computer. Then it starts the engine with the big high voltage traction battery (which doesn't run the lights or any accessories and so is hard to run down) and charges everything right up. Fast, as the 12 V battery is very small like motorcycles use. In fact I've heard you can jump a Prius with 8 D cells. I'll have to look more into it. Might be worth carrying instead of jumpers - smaller and lighter.

At the gateway to the Rockies, I was on my way at dawn with a short 6 hour drive to Dillon, MT to spend the afternoon and evening with Ann's brother, Mike and his wife Jackie.