There’s no way around it. You have to drive through many miles of open prairie, fields of wheat and hay, valleys full of grazing cattle peppered with some goats and antelopes, and cross many winding rivers when you’re crossing the state of Montana. So the first half of our second day out of Seattle was spent viewing all of those for several hundred miles. Our destination was Helena, the capital of Montana.

We arrived around four in the afternoon, a bit uncertain whether we’d be able to see the entire capital in just an hour. We were successful. This was one of the rare state capitals were security was at a minimum. I think we surprised the security guard when we approached him. The tour was self-guided. Both House and Senate chambers were locked, so we had to view through the windows the murals that covered the walls.

The most impressive things in the Capitol were two bronze sculptures. The first was Jeannette Pickering Rankin, the first woman in the United States Congress, elected in Montana in 1916 and again in 1940. After being elected in 1916 she said, “I may be the first woman member of Congress but I won’t be the last.”

A lifelong pacifist, she was one of fifty members of Congress who voted against entry into World War I in 1917, and the only member of Congress who voted against declaring war on Japan after the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. Both votes cost her her seat in the next election. The second bronze was of Maureen and Mike Mansfield. Mansfield served in Congress from 1943 to 1977, and afterwards served as ambassador to Japan for 11 years. Their statues stand in a place of honor on the second floor landing facing the rotunda. Beneath the statues is a quote from Mansfield: “IfI do not forget the people of Montana, the people of Montana will not forget me.”

We left the Capitol at 5 o’clock along with many of the Legislative staff. We drove on to White Sulfur Springs, where I discovered we had forgotten to go grocery shopping. Dinner was interesting mishmash of the dregs of my tiny pantry and refrigerator: rice pasta, a half empty jar of spaghetti sauce I’d carried from Virginia, mixed together with some carrots and tomatoes. It’s amazing what you can find yourself eating when you’re camping. But anything tastes good when there’s ice cream at the end.