Morning Hikes

We loaded up the Jeep and headed south to the Hyalite Drainage to do a couple of day hikes. Kobi in the middle, Linda navigating and yours truly behind the wheel. Our first hike came after we had driven about twelve miles up some curvy forest roads.  Most of the drive was on pavement so we had no excitement in old Stinky Jeep.

We parked in a well used parking lot and followed the paved trail up to Palisade Falls. Linda noted that the falls were beautiful and majestic but would not be considered spectacular. The falls drop 80 feet along the face of a basalt cliff.  We took some pictures and let Kobi splash in the water a bit then we hiked back to the Jeep and followed our original path back down the mountain road to a new trailhead.

This trail is a 10.2 mile loop that passes by History Rock. Our plan was to hike to the rock and back and that is exactly what we did.  The trail was well used and led through two nice meadows and up a valley. We probably hiked about two miles and came to History Rock. The rock is a sandstone rock face sticking out of the mountain side right next to the trail.  People have scratched, drilled, hammered, sawed and cut their names and date they were there all over the faces of the rock. It was a bit disappointing and looked more like a big sad defaced rock then anything else.  We looked for old dates but only found 1972 as the oldest. I read a post by someone on the web that said they found a name and date from the 40's, but we didn't see any- thing like that. I felt that instead of calling it History Rock they should just call it Carved Up Rock. Linda did find that a person put in a lot of effort to apologize for defacing nature by carving the words "I'm sorry". You can see it in the photo.

We drove back to our camper and snoozed the afternoon away preparing for the big evening festivities and the reason we were here. (For the wedding write-up see the previous post.)

We can't really accept this apology.

Guess it's ok to deface this rock!

Cool mountain water is all I need.

Reception on the Hill, Wedding on the Farm

The pre-wedding picnic took place up on a north hill over looking Bozeman. It was a beautiful night with a great sunset.  The house they had rented was huge and made for a great place to get ready for the wedding.

Bozeman, Montana!

The day of the wedding we drove out north to a farm turned event facility.  The wedding took place with beautiful mountains in the background and then the reception was held in a barn where pizza and doughnuts were served.  It was a fun wedding and Linda and I laughed because everything was photo and video based.  They had a video of each of themselves answering questions about their meeting and falling in love. Linda and I couldn't answer more than two of the questions, and these two had video and photo back-up of everything. LOL

Bozeman Wedding Bells

No, we are staying in out camper!

Wouldn’t you know it, the first 4^th of July that is going to be hot and we are on our way to attend a wedding in Bozeman, Montana.  It’s the wedding for the son of Linda’s long-time teaching partner, Barbara Crow.  Michael, the son, was also one of Linda’s students and we have known the family forever.  Attending the wedding brings us east to Bozeman and thus adds a new part of the country for Linda and Kobi to visit.  I have been in the area several times, but it was always in a fly-by-night visit.

Kobi went fishing in the Clarkfork.

We left our place after making arrangements with the housewatch people.  Linda said that we hit the road at exactly 10:06 AM and I believe her!  We put the cruise control on just below 60 mph and let the truck carry us through Missoula to our camp spot on the Clark Fork River near Clinton.  We pulled off at Beaver Tail Hill State Park and hoped to get a spot for the night.

The campground had a few spots still available so we took one of the pull-throughs.  This is a nice little campground with access to the river so Kobi really enjoyed taking swims whenever we felt he needed a walk.  Only drawbacks I could see in the place was the fact that it was about 500 yards off the train tracks and 600 off the interstate.  Noise wasn’t super bad but there were quite a few trains during the night.

The morning pack-up was uneventful and we hit the road about 9:45 AM.  We drove past Butte and over the Continental Divide dropping down into the Gallatin Valley arriving in Bozeman at the Sunrise Campground.  The place is scrunched in between the railroad tracks and I-90, so once again we will be hearing the sounds of the Iron Horse (not the bar) all night long.

Home for the 4th of July.

We got settled in and cleaned up so we took a drive and got the lay of Bozeman.  It looks like any other college town and of course there are a lot of people moving about. Huge black clouds closed in on the valley and we ended up having a big rain storm with thunder and lightning. Koby was not a bit happy, so once again we eased up on our no dogs in the camper policy. He was quite happy all night.

July 4th - We got up early and got ready for the day. Our plans included a visit to the Museum of the Rocky's, some mid-day rest and then attend the wedding party barbecue in the evening. We drove to the museum and were there when the doors opened.

This is a very interesting place. We visited an exhibit called Geckos - Tails to Toepads. We found that Geckos are among the most adaptable lizards and more than 1,100 species live in habitats ranging from balmy tropical beaches and lush rain-forests to frigid mountains and parched deserts. In this exhibit we got to see live Geckos representing more than 18 distinct species. I took a ton of photos but once you see one Gecko...

No wonder you have a toothache! 

After that we visited the Siebel Dinosaur Complex which is world-renowned as a dinosaur research facility. This area houses one of the largest and most important collections of dinosaur fossils in the world.
The museum houses the most T.rex specimens anywhere in the world and has exhibits on Triceratops, the Catherine B.rex specimen, and many other one-of-a-kind dinosaur finds. We enjoyed reading the information and watching the various videos. It is well worth a visit just for this exhibit.

More of my friends pictures below,
can I interest you in saving some money?

Another part of the museum is the Taylor Planetarium where we watched a program called: Chasing the Ghost Particle: From the South Pole to the Edge of the Universe. I quote from there flyer: "Deep in the ice at the heart of Antarctica, scientists are detecting and using tiny and elusive particles called neutrinos to explore the insides of stars and galaxies. These ghostly neutrinos give us an exclusive look into exploding stars and black holes. You’ll get stunning views of the most remote locations on Earth to the unexplored regions of the cosmos on a journey you will never forget."

Yeah, I'm a little bit jealous but he is bigger.

It was a very enjoyable program and both Linda and I agree that we did not understand much of what was said in the presentation, but the planetarium pictures and graphics were way cool!

Finally we visited the Tinsley House, a Living History Farm that was relocated to Museum of the Rockies. We visited with costumed interpreters that were baking in a wood-burning stove, and forging iron in the blacksmith’s shop. We got lucky and were there to watch a young interpreter squish a bumble bee on the hardwood floor in the upstairs of the house. It made an incredibly loud crunching sound as he stepped on it with his big boots.

The little old fellow in the blacksmith's shop was a real talker. I think he took a shining to us because we came from "Coeur d'Alene, once the match and toothpick capital of the United States." We broke away from him when another family came in, after about a fifteen minute history lesson on everything from Lewis and Clark to the forging mistakes of ironwork.

Marcy would be proud of you!

Hummm, it's close to nap time, I wonder...