Dinosaurs Were Here

I was surprised to find out that Glendive is the location of the dinosaur/young earth creationist museum. And actually just a stone's throw from our room at the Day's Inn. (If I could open our window). But then didn't Jesus say something about throwing stones?

We extended our stay in Glendive to two nights, it is a nice room, and there are things to see here. The "Glendive Dinosaur and Fossil Museum" is the "museum" run by Bible literalists, I need to refer to it as the GDFM, just to save typing, and to avoid having to put the word museum in quotes every time.  There are two other dinosaur museums, the Makoshika Dinosaur Museum, and the Makoshika State Park interpretive center.

We started this morning at the state park, because the heat would be a problem in the afternoon. The interpretive center is at the edge of the park, and a road goes into the park, so we went on my bike, as it is a difficult road, partly gravel, with 15% grades and switchbacks. But the scenery was worth the risk.

The Makoshika Dinosaur Museum was our next stop. It is a combination museum, music store, and comic book store. But the mix does not detract from the interest, any more than the Frisbee golf course detracted from the state park. It was begun ten years ago by the store owner's daughter, and with his help and enthusiasm, has become a worth while stop on the dinosaur trail. Many original fossils, and at Mary Ann's request, he took us to a back room, where he showed us a couple of real fossils he was working on. That means removing the" matrix", or surrounding material to expose the actual fossil.

The GDFM is closed today, so we will stop there on our way out of town. Can't miss that, because of its widespread press coverage.

Pictures: a few I took today.

Glendive, Montana

Billings was actually quite nice. The KOA tent site was not very private, but sometimes that can be more interesting.

I noticed the site next to us had four Indian teenagers, with no adult supervision. I was a bit worried that they might not be well behaved, but they appeared quiet enough, and a few minutes later the mom and dad appeared. We spent about an hour, and had a chat with the father, who recommended that we go to Glendive, as they have a dinosaur park and a badlands viewing area. Mary Ann believes in recommendations, and so here we are. He also told us he is from a reserve in north central Montana, and Mary Ann was interested in finding out what life was like. Some of it is like our lives, for example languages. He and his wife are from different tribes, and although each can speak their native language, they speak to each other in English. And their kids speak English, but only very little of the mom's language. He is a school custodian/bus driver, but also does a lot of hunting. I asked if his teenage kids went hunting with him, and he said yes, even the girl liked it. They would go by truck, with a trailer for the horses, taking riding and pack horse for the meat. He used bow and arrow, or guns depending on the regulations. He cleaned and cut up the meat, used the pack horse to haul it back to the road, then went to get the truck. Then he butchered most of the meat as hamburgers, because that's what his kids like.  Maybe all this is normal for all hunters, but neither Mary Ann nor I know anything about  hunting, so it was quite interesting.

Picture: in front of a drive in restaurant along the road, a metal statue.

Billings, Montana

We made it over the Beartooth Pass and as far as Billings, where we decided to camp again. We are at a KOA, not just any KOA, but the first KOA, established in 1962. I was immediately impressed by the signage. You literally can't miss this KOA. You're never out of sight of a sign, a big sign, telling you to turn or to keep going straight, and how far to the next turn. All the way to the camp office.  This is so much better than the usually one sign, then figure it out for yourself. OK, rant about signage concluded.

Both Mary Ann and I were a little nervous about the Beartooth Pass, but it was fine. I guess all the previous mountain curves and grades from Jasper on have gotten us used to this type of road. In fact, we both admired not only the view, but the well designed lookouts, especially Rocky Creek Point. I imagine it would be so much more shocking going west, to hit this pass after a thousand kilometers of straight flat road.

Dealing with Big Animals

Yellowstone park has big animals like Grizzly bears, elk, and bison. The bigger animals are dangerous, particularly to motorcycles. We watched a movie at one of the visitors centres, that helped explain the danger by showing a collection of videos of elk ramming cars, and a bison attacking a young girl. We missed the beginning of the show, so I didn't know if they also had some bear footage. But the facts are that about 100 large animals a year are killed in collisions, and a number of visitors are hurt from trying to approach too close.

Just before we left the park, we encountered bison herds. The cars in front of us stopped in both directions, entirely blocking the narrow, shoulderless road. Then the herd began to slowly cross the road, and I mean really slow, like stopping in the middle of the road, you could only tell they were crossing by waiting ten minutes to see the numbers of bison had increased on one side compared to the other. We were close to the crossing point on our bikes, and having seen videos of what bison can do, we decided to turn back and wait a safe distance away, at a scenic pullout. After about ten minutes, traffic started to flow, so we tried again. The lineup of cars had disappeared, but one bison walked back to the road to nibble on some grass right beside the road. Immediately, two cars stopped, right in front of us, again totally blocking the road, as one was going in each direction. And the bison was right beside them. This time I attempted to force my way through between the stopped cars. The car facing me pulled to the side a little, giving me just enough space to squeeze through. But the car driver going my way had not seen me and started to move forward. So I continued on, keeping the moving car between me and the bison until I got past it, then fell back and resumed following that car. In the end I don't know which is more dangerous, the animals or the other cars that don't follow instructions, as it was clearly marked as a no stopping zone. I understand if there were animals on the road, but not for animals near the road.

Picture: Paul is showing me his gun collection in Victoria BC. This vintage Russian gun might have been handy to clear the animal-related road blocks in Yellowstone.

Out of Yellowstone

In this picture, I can't remember which one of the hundreds of geysers hot springs, fumaroles, and mud pots at the park Mary Ann was looking at. But I do remember her talking to that young couple in the background, who told her they were moving from Ohio to Alaska, on the theory that at least it wasn't Ohio.

That was yesterday, and we found a campsite in the park for $12. It must have been one of the least popular places, 17 km from the nearest store or restaurant, at Lewis lake. Just outside the park are abundant accommodations, but a little pricey, e.g. the KOA at $49, priciest campsite yet, and still no decent Wi-Fi. Lewis lake is run by the Department of the Interior, and has no fancy pretences. Pit latrines, no shower, no Wi-Fi, no laundry, no pool. But there was a raised flat pad for the tent, which we didn't use. And it was dark at night which was great for seeing the stars but bad for finding the latrines.

Today we drove to Cook City and took a motel with Wi-Fi (if you walk around hunting the signal source.)

Facts I learned about Yellowstone. It is a giant volcanic crater called a caldera. It moves under the crust of the earth and every few million years erupts, wiping out a whole mountain range. The Beartooth mountains are next. We're going there tomorrow, hopefully at a faster speed than the volcanic area (about 4 cm per year).

Yellowstone Kamping

We are staying the night at the West Yellowstone KOA. Right now the weather is perfect, 22c, sunny and no mosquitoes. The heat wave ended suddenly during the night. We woke up to cold, cloudy skies with a chance of rain. We were still in Butte, and Mary Ann wanted to drive around and give Butte another chance. It did seem better in the morning, also we drove through some residential areas that were better maintained.

Before leaving Butte behind, we stopped at an espresso stand. This one was across from our motel, and despite the small size, had two drive through windows and a free delivery car, and it served Smoothies. But their coffee was not too good and we had to pour out the rest.

Butte, Montana

In my twenties, I was a fan of Evel Knievel. After all, he rode a motorcycle, and was not a criminal, so I felt like a kindred spirit. And because he came from Butte, this city took on some of the significance of Jerusalem. Evel has passed away now, and my enthusiasm for his stunts faded with the Snake River Canyon jump. But now for the first time I can walk where Evel walked and see what Evel saw when his name was just Bobby. And my conclusion? It looks a bit run down from the glory days, or to put it a different way, it had to look better than this when Evel was around.

Pictures: some of our motel, some taken on our walk this evening.