The Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman

 We woke up in Bozeman, to another warm and sunny Montana day.

We drove to the nearby Museum of the Rockies near the campus of Montana State University and were the first ones in the door when it opened at 9:00 am.  On the way in Bill talked to an older employee who was originally from Kalamazoo.  (What a small world it is - He went to high school at Kalamazoo Christian.)

Move over Chicago Sue, as Big Mike, another  T-Rex, just might have been one of your boy friends!

Here is a replica of a dinosaur nest. 

And here is an actual fossilized dinosaur nest.

Many of the displays were found in Montana.

Big Mike was not the only T-Rex on display.

The Museum of the Rockies had the best and biggest display of dinosaurs that either of us had ever seen and we will not bore any reader with details.  However, we were not taking notes but instead a few pictures to show you.

This shark-type dinosaur could have been hungry and dangerous.

And this turtle-type creature of long ago was huge and impressive.

The displays of ancient creatures went on and on and were interesting to see. 

After the dinosaur displays the museum showed other Rocky Mountain vehicles like this old stagecoach.

And this 1922 Oldsmobile that was built in Lansing, Michigan.

The Museum of the Rockies was great!  By 11:00 am were were on the road toward home.  The temperature hit 89 degrees as we drove toward Bismark, North Dakota to spend the night.

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The Great Falls C.M Russell Museum then on to Bozeman

 

Charles Marion Russell was the "cowboy artist" who moved from St. Louis Missouri to be a real cowboy and ended up creating spectacular  paintings of the old West.  He did most of his work in Great Falls in the late 1800's.

His paintings of Indians, cowboys  and Western Animals are almost like photographs.  Here are Bison and wolves.

This tepee was beautiful and shows how much detail he could create with a brush.

This is a picture C.M. Russell  showing his buddies how to mold clay into an object.

The displays in the museum are some of the best we have ever seen.  It was worth spending the night in Great Falls, as it was closed on Wednesday.

After the museum we drove south to the town of Bozeman, Montana.  It has a fancy downtown area full of small shops and restaurants so we walked around and bought a couple more tee shirts.  It is the home town of Montana State University.

We thought this sidewalk chalk sign was very timely for today's world.

Bozeman is an old Western town and the downtown still has some of the cowboy/cattle drive feel.

We plan to spend the night here and visit the museum in the morning before heading back to the real world.

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Missoula to Great Falls

 

On Wednesday we drove around the town,  and then left Missoula and the University of Montana behind and headed northeast toward Great Falls on Highway 200.

We saw many more rivers like the Blackfoot River above, as we drove up and over the Rocky Mountains now going to the east.  The ice cold, clear rivers and creeks are wonderful to see, and Bill wished he had brought his fishing pole.

In Great Falls we visited the Lewis & Clark National Historic Trail Interpretive Center that sits on the banks of the Missouri River.

We spent an educational and interesting afternoon looking at hundreds of displays and artifacts about Lewis and Clark and their journey of discovery.  We learned plenty and found the center to be a tourist attraction not to be missed if you come to Montana.

This is a picture of what the falls on the Missouri River looked like when Lewis and Clark had to work their group up and around them in the very early 19th century at the Great Falls location here.

This is what those same water falls look like today.

After Lewis and Clark we drove about 20 miles out of Great Falls to this fascinating small Montana State Park above.  As the name implies, the site is where American Indians drove buffalo over a cliff to kill them.  

Here Karen stands on the cliff where you can see forever, but the buffalo did not see coming.  She was showing off as Bill would not stand that close to the edge for anything!

A look from the side of the cliffs shows you how dangerous it could be to a herd of running animals.

The state park had a small museum and welcome center of its own.  Here Karen poses with a couple of buffalo in the center that also explained more about the buffalo jump site.  We learned that experts believe there were approximately 300 such "jump" sites in North America in past history that were used by primitive people.  We consider it to be the Earth's first example of "fast" food.

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Glacier National Park

 Tuesday, April 27, was a beautiful bright sunny day in Western Montana as we left Shelby and headed further west on Highway 2.

It wasn't long before the snow-covered Rockies started showing up on the horizon.  We drove to the town of Browning then took Hwy 89 north to St. Mary where we entered Glacier National Park on the East side.

Better than expected.  The peaks and glacier lakes were terrific in the bright sunshine and clear mountain air.

It is hard to describe how spectacular the mountains looked up close even though we could only go five miles into the park because the road was closed due to snow.

The Park had a roadside memorial for the native Blackfeet Indians who now live on a reservation just outside Glacier National Park.

When peace was reached with the Indians in the late 1800's, each Indian was given 600 acres of land in the reservation, but many sold theirs to the White men.

As we drove around the south side of the Park we stopped at this roadside descriptive sign showing  how snow melt coming off the closest snow-covered mountain peak ran in three directions.  Its water runs to the Pacific, into the Gulf of Mexico, and up to Hudson Bay in Canada.

Amazing!

We stopped for lunch in Whitefish, Montana and walked around this picturesque town in the mountains.

The antique shop downtown had many interesting items including this bicycle table.

And this child's riding tractor.  Bill had seen plenty of John Deere riding tractors before, but this was the first Farmall, and Farmall tractors were what his grandfather farmed with in Cass County.

After time in Whitefish we decided to drive to Missoula for our next destination.  Along the way we stopped to watch this herd of Elk in a field next to the road.  When we got to Missoula the temperature was 72 degrees.  We had an excellent day of sunshine in the Rocky Mountains.

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A Monday Drive Across Montana

 As we entered Montana we could not help but notice that there is very little trash along beautiful US 2.  It is not because the travelers are tidy and conscientious out here,  but instead it is because of the "Adopt A Highway" program in Montana.  We see these signs constantly as we travel along. .  The same is true of the program in Minnesota, as their roadsides are fairly litter free.

These Pronghorn Antelope were close to the road and easy to photograph.  We saw two different groups today.  Pronghorns are second only to a cheetah in speed.  FYI

Small casinos are everywhere in Montana, even at gas stations.  This is Karen's Terrain that we are driving as we left Bill's truck at home.  We are getting 30 MPG.

Any reader of this blog is probably burned out on train pics, but here is your last one.  This Montana train was 1-1/3 miles long and was only transporting petroleum tankers.  Warren Buffet would be proud as he owns most of the Burlington Northern Rail Line.

We pulled into this motel at Shelby, Montana fairly early in the afternoon after driving only about 400 miles today.  As you can read - this Comfort Inn has plenty to offer.

The small RV park next to the motel was nothing special, but it also had three rustic cabins as well as a central bath and shower building.

We took a drive around Shelby to check out the town and found this interesting house and yard above.  This person must have a bicycle fetish or perhaps he is just a hoarder??

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We are now about 90 miles east of Glacier National Park, and will be heading there tomorrow.

A Sunday Drive Across Northern Minnesota and North Dakota

 We left Duluth early and found US 2 West to be in better shape in Minnesota and North Dakota than it was in Michigan and Wisconsin.  Much of it was a smooth divided four-lane with a speed limit of 70.

Acres of the trees along the highway were in swampy areas and reminded us of the dwarf trees we had seen growing on the permafrost in Alaska.

We knew that mining was an important part of the Minnesota economy, but we were still amazed to see this line of empty open-top rail cars that was well over a mile long waiting to be filled with ore.

We are not saying that Northern Minnesota is backward in any way, but we were surprised to see this phone above in a roadside rest area that was still functional!

We crossed the Red River near Grand Forks around noon to enter North Dakota.

So many of the farming fields in Northwest Minnesota and North Dakota had rich black dirt and were miles in length and width.

In less than an hour into North Dakota Bill thought he was having a Deja Vu when he saw this sign above.  He turned the car around to find out that it is a small town in north North Dakota along Us 2.  And besides, everyone knows that the real Michigan was established in 1837!

A bit farther up the road was the town of Rugby, ND that has the distinction of being the geographical center of North America!  It put up this monument to help prove it.

 

We saw one huge grain elevator after another along the highway, so it came as no surprise when we saw another mile long string of rail cars - this group waiting to be filled with grain.

Western North Dakota is the land of the oil well boom and bust.  We had never seen six wells being pumped next to each other, and we saw many groups like that.  We drove into Williston, ND to spend the night and the desk clerk told us that the town had 72,000 residents when it was booming but now is down to around 40,000!

Tomorrow we head into Montana.

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