Decision Point - Lewis and Clark's Expedition

We were in Fort Benton 4 years ago, blew on through, but were able to visit a number of museums on a one day visit back then.   This is such a cute town.  Reminds me of growing up in SMALL Olmsted Falls (when it was small and not the big town it is now).  Has everything you may want but would have to run 40 miles to Great Falls for the really big stores if that's what you need.

We want to revisit some of the museums while here but decided yesterday to go to the Upper Missouri River Breaks National Monument's Visitor Center to see if by chance there was a river guide we could hire to take us to the UMRB area.  We saw first hand how low the Missouri River is - and learned that only canoes and kayaks are making this journey right now.  The ranger at the center said she has never seen the river this low.  Too bad.  This was a bucket list of something to do on this trip.  Won't happen for sure.  I got permission to take photos of photos of the area we wanted to see.

The Upper Missouri River Breaks - White Cliff area

Would have loved to see this up close

Missouri River at the Visitor's Center - water very low

We did learn about a 9 mile drive heading north from Fort Benton where a place called Decision Point is located.  This is where Lewis and Clark spent 10 days trying to figure out which river to continue on - the Marias or the Missouri.  The Corp split up and one group followed the Missouri to Great Falls while the other took the Marias.  The Indians did not tell the Corp about this river and it was quite a surprise when they came across it.  They did know about the tremendous falls south of there - (today we call it Great Falls), so when they came back together, the Missouri River won out.

I love these trail markers

Marias and Missouri Rivers meet

Again - how did they do it?  How did they survive? How did they know?  Only one man died during that hole trip (to appendicitis)  Amazing history.  We met a man visiting Decision Point and he was just as amazed as we were.  I felt better - there are other people who have followed the Lewis and Clark Corp of Discovery just like we have!

Plaque commemorating L & C campground at Decision Point

Weather has been very hot - 99 one day, 97 another.  We did get the air conditioner working, needed to put more power out to get the a/c to work.  Thank goodness it is not broken like we originally thought.