Billings, Days four, three, two and one

I have wanted to visit my sister Mary for a while now, but kept finding excuses to put it off.  Then a friend wanted a "Pony Express" delivery for three sewing machines from Missoula to Wisconsin.   So Christy, Mary's daughter, brought the machines to Billings and I came to Billings to visit Mary and pick up the sewing machines for delivery to the River Rat Toga in September.

Mary knows I collect old sewing machines and she wanted a machine to sew with.  Since she hasn't moved much of her furniture to the little house in Billings I used that as an excuse.  This little Singer Model 66, previously electric but now a hand crank in a cute little desk, was delivered to Mary.  

Before delivery I cleaned and oiled and greased the machine.  It is not perfectly clean because I am nervous about taking apart things like the Bobbin Winder,  but much of it is shiny and good looking and all the insides are clean and in good order.

Mary took me to a beautiful quilt store in Billings called Fiberworks, her excuse being that she needed some fabric to play on her machine with.  (I needed no excuse) Oh such fun fabrics. I managed to find a few things to bring home.  Mary bought two fat 1/8ths and made this little bag in just a few minutes.  She is all ready to put a ribbon through the top to close it with, once she finds a ribbon, and she still has another 1/8th to play with.

Monday evening we went to the opening game of the 2010 season of the Billings Mustangs.  They have a new ballpark called Dehler Park which is very nice.  They won 11 to 4 over the Great Falls team and we had lots of fun and two lemonades each.  We didn't have any caramel apples.    Such restraint!

This is the fancy new scoreboard showing a picture of the Western Heritage Center which is the original library here in Billings.

After breakfast at Stella's on Monday we went for a walk in a Riverside Park which is affiliated with the Audubon Society here in Billings.  This park has a nice walk along a small river that flows into the Yellowstone River.  This is the Yellowstone River at that point.  Here is proof that we were there.  Jim is standing quite close to the edge isn't he?    The river was running quite fast, probably because of the rain and hail (and tornado) that we had yesterday.

After the storm on Sunday, the clouds cleared away and Mary took me up on the 'Rims' to get a look at the wild flowers and to see this view of mountains hovering over the city.  Cool eh?

Here is the new moon over the city, and then a picture of Mary taking a picture of a Yucca plant.  Evidently this was a highlight of the walk for her.  She has wanted to see a blooming Yucca for some time.   There were some blooms that had been hailed off the plants and we touched them.  They are very strange and waxy feeling.  You could say they feel Yucky.

This last picture was taken on the way into Billings on Saturday.  These horses were up on the range overlooking the freeway.  I was way far away and had to zoom this as far as I could so you could get a glimpse of the horses.  They looked so neat and western up there.

This last morning our plans are to go to the Dude Rancher for Breakfast and then visit Mary at her Library before leaving for home.

It has been a very nice visit and next time I am staying longer.

Thanks Mary for a great time!