Gates of the Mountain

Yesterday, Ammon was able to get off work at a decent hour, so we went to be touristy. We have heard a lot of talk about the Gates of the Mountain and decided to take a tour. We bought our tickets, boarded a boat, and headed down the Missouri River to see the sights. It was beautiful and informative.

When Louis and Clark came through this area Louis described this particular canyon as foreboding because of the large limestone cliffs on either side of the river. Above you can see some rock jutting out on the left side of the photo. When you come down the river it appears that this rock is stopping up the river so that nothing passes, but as you continue toward it the landscape changes. And as you can see it opens up. Thus the name: Gates of the Mountain.

We were able to stop at a little camp site on our way. It was truly a beautiful day. We found a friendly person to take our picture. I was hoping to get more of the mountain and less of my belly, but beggars can't be choosers. For the record I'm 27 weeks here (the blog is an easy way to keep track of these things).

This was our attempt to get a picture with some canyon in the background. As most of these attempts go, it was less than successful. But don't we look cute?

They figure that the petroglyphs in this picture date over 1000 years old. I can't remember the exact number, but these have been here longer than the horse has been used by the Native Americans on this side of the country.

Although it is hard to tell from this picture, this is a cliff face that goes straight up from the river. There were a lot of impressive things to see in the rock, like this arch.

This is the monster in the mountain. The guide said that most of the kids these days are less than impressed by the monster, and that the general public feels that the monster looks more like a bull frog.

Here is the canyon. It was really the most beautiful day for this. 

The spot up in the dead tree is a bald eagle. I can't say that I've ever seen one outside of a zoo. We also learned that the bald eagle has officially made it's way off of the endangered species list. Hooray!

Here is some folding in the limestone cliff. It is interesting to see the formations that the rocks take. I find the whole idea of the plates moving and the rock shifting very fascinating.

Just a view of the mountain side. I know that when it comes to looking at someone else's pictures, one picture of a limestone cliff is enough, but the trip was a lot of fun and so beautiful that I had to share more. Besides, I write this blog more for me than for any other reason (isn't that the way with bloggers?). We live in a very beautiful world. I'm glad we got to explore a little of it yesterday. Next weekend...Canada.