Day 8 - Missoula to Billings

Woke up early again and packed the van and was on the road before 8am. The weather looked like being a repeat of the past few days with a clean blue sky overhead.  

With a few breaks and a stop for a 30 minute nap it was over 7 hours on the road but I got into Billings by mid afternoon. 

The driving was pretty straight forward, using cruise control to sit on 80 for most of the way, except when going up some of the steeper uphill sections where I would take it out of cruise control and drop it back by 10 to 15mph as the overdrive is pretty harsh on the van at that high speed.

As there would be nothing much to write about I decided to grab some photos of the vehicles on the road and of course the scenery.

After arriving in Billings I stopped at Starbucks to use the Wi-Fi and then went for a drive around the city and ended up at the Canyon Creek Brewing Co. In Billings there are about 8 craft breweries with Canyon Creek being the only on in the suburbs. The others are all within 5 blocks of each other in the city centre.

The brewery on a large block in a stand alone buildng. There is two outdoor seating areas and a large indoor area with plenty of tables and chairs. I spoke with the girl behind the bar about the brewery and she was very informative about their beers and also told me about the licencing laws in Montana. It seems that all these craft breweries are classified as tap houses and are only permitted to be open till 8pm at night and they are limited to serving only three pints of beer per patron. She said this is a very strict rule that they must police closely. 

After visiting there I went down town to see the other breweries but saw an Irish bar so stopped in there to see if they had anything I could add to my collection. I spoke with the barmaid and she could not help with anything but I grabbed an orange juice and watched some Olympics on the television.

Afterwards I went to Applebees which is a family style resturant. I ordered a steak and got a salad to go with it. Every time I order a meal the server always ask what else I want with it and are suprised when I do not want anything else to go with it or add a dessert to the order.

After that I drove to the local Walmart and saw 6 RV's parked at the side of the carpark so I slotted the van in alongside them and typed up the days events before setting up the mattress in the back and put up the curtains before going to sleep.