Quite a lot, as it turns out! In hopes of getting Charlotte's field research season kicked off, we left Laramie late last week for the first of her Montana field sites. Our trip started off rather chilly and damp (and, as it turned out, stayed that way!).
Leaving snowy Wyoming behind, we reached Montana! Montana, as we discovered, is an absolutely gorgeous state, and thanks to exceptionally high speed limits (generally 75!), we were able to see a lot of it in short order.
We adjusted to the openness of the landscape and came to appreciate its beauty. We also found folks in Montana to be exceptionally friendly. All in all, we enjoyed our completely arid surroundings...or at least we would have, if F.D.R. hadn't come through the area in the 1930s.
During the New Deal, F.D.R. took a look at the landscape above, and decided that it would be the perfect place to put an unfathomably huge lake. As a result, when we reached our Day #1 destination (Fort Peck, MT), we were able to spend two nights camping next to the largest earthen embankment dam in the US (and a lake with a coastline longer than California's, or so they claim).
It was huge!
Anyway, we were there to visit much smaller (and sometimes dry) water bodies: wetlands. Although an unbelievable deluge kept us from visiting about half the sites we'd hoped to visit, we were able to see lots of the landscape and visit lots of Charlotte's field sites. Here are some of the very first field sites she visited for her PhD!
Anyway, as you can see, her first field sites fell in an extraordinarily gorgeous (and isolated) landscape. If you have the patience and gas money to reach the area north of Glasgow, MT, we highly recommend it! If not, take our word for it: it's awe-inspiring!
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