From Gardiner, we set out on the westward drive across Montana to our last but one stop. According to the Apple map app, it's a relatively short drive today but after our bad map app experience of the previous evening, I did ask Google maps for a second opinion! Much of the route across the state is pretty uninteresting even compared to the featureless prairies of Wyoming. So we thought let's take a look at the state capital, Helena as it wasn't too much of a diversion and we had the time. A big mistake!! Apple which had told us less than 24 hours earlier of a closed road that wasn't closed, failed to disclose that a very lengthy section of a main highway to the state capital now barely existed! The four-lane road had been dug up in both directions leaving a poorly maintained two-lane dirt road to accommodate a fairly large volume of traffic including many large trucks and RV's. We crawled along this for the best part of an hour before finally reaching a stretch that hadn't been ripped up. That only lasted for a short distance before we're back on the dirt. This time though there wasn't anything in front of us and I have to admit to not taking the speed signs too seriously...the next big mistake! Back on a proper road and not too far short of Helena, I spotted the flashing lights in the rear vision mirror - we're pulled over by the county sheriff! I sheepishly confessed to going 54 in a 35 zone! After confirming we had no weapons in the vehicle, he checked drivers license and rental papers and I was let off with a warning! All very polite and correct - but being an old white guy with an English accent probably helped!!

And there was nothing much to see in Helena anyway!!

We thought that we'd booked a "dude ranch" but Paws Up, our home for a couple of nights is more upscale holiday camp than dude ranch. Scattered over several thousand acres of Montana countryside, Paws Up is still partly a working ranch but mostly caters to families, corporate gatherings and team building groups. The resort (as it terms itself) offers a variety of different style accommodations - we went for a bit of "glamping" in a three-bedroom tent complete with a luxury bathroom with a heated floor on the banks of the Blackfoot River - and a generous range of outdoor activities.

We passed on the shooting and fishing offerings or tearing up the countryside on ATV's or electric bikes and plumped instead for the more "sedate" whitewater rafting and horseback riding!

Every day of our near three week road trip has been hot and sunny: 80-110 F (27-43 C), except that is the day we're booked to go rafting through the Alberton Gorge on the Clark Fork River. As we headed over to Paws Up's Wilderness Outpost to meet our fellow rafters, the temperature is a balmy 45 F (8 C) and it's raining. The good news I guess is that the other 15 "happy campers" who had signed up for the day's rafting had, to a man (and woman), cancelled!! So it was just us two and two of the most delightful people you could chose to spend a cold and dreary day being thrown about on a churning river with - our guides, Molly and Taylan. Other than they would have lost a day's pay had we cancelled, they probably couldn't have imagined anything worse than spending the day with an elderly couple not exactly dressed for a cold day's rafting in the rain. What a surprise they (and we) had!! Molly managed to find wet suits, boots and fleeces that we could squeeze in to and the rafting stretch of the river was deserted except for us and a few eagles. We all had a blast of a day, including lunch floating on a quiet stretch of river and at their suggestion ended the day drinking in a boutique gin distillery in Montana's nearby college town, Missoula

Buoyed by our rafting experience and the return of hot sunshine, the following morning we persuaded two rather dozy horses that taking us on a trail ride for a couple of hours was better than standing in a paddock flicking away flies. At least we could feel as if we were in the wild west even if our two mounts decided that perhaps the paddock was a better option after all...

Day 16: Gardiner, Montana-Greenough, Montana: 240 miles