Choteau Montana and Nearby

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The museum was built like an old airplane hanger, and made noise in the wind. 

 We didn't get up early this morning, in fact, I got up at 9. I had slept 10 glorious hours. Ru actually stayed up later than I did. And he slept later. I went downstairs for the "hot" breakfast, and made some oatmeal, they had eggs and bacon as well, and the usual sugar with carbs stuff. After a coffee we grabbed a few bars from the stash of bars and set off on some sightseeing/hiking. I wasn't sure if we would find a hiking trail nearby, but there were some poorly marked ones on a map so it was an option.

We backtracked 10 miles to the Two Medicine Dinosaur Center.  We saw dinosaur bones, fossils of various types, and learned about the history of dinosaurs in the area. A quick summary: Until some people found a fossilized dinosaur nest with both eggs and juveniles, it was not known that dinosaurs cared for their young. This was a big deal. We saw some fossils of dino eggs, dino parts, and whole dinos. Also mammoth and mastodon.

Just next door is the Agate Shop where we spent at least as much time looking at the variety of cool rocks and gifts. Ruben and I each got ourselves a pocket rock.

It was windy and nobody was around in the parking lot so we unrolled the tent and held in int he wind for a minute. It was almost instantly dry. It also almost instantly took off on us. It was still very windy.

On the way to Choteau we had passed a sign for a ski resort, and the map I had showed several campgrounds and hiking trails in that direction, so we followed Teton Canyon Road past the lovely Eureka Resovoir back into the mountains. We drove about 17 miles down another beautiful country lane when it suddently turned to gravel. I guess in Montana gravel roads are no big deal. More than half the vehicles on the road are big red or black trucks. We continued on the road for three miles, but eventually turned back due to ruts, potholes, and huge pointy rocks. The ski slopes were another 10 miles up the gravel road. We passed one hiking trail, that went up a mountain, and I tried to rally Ruben, but he wasn't interested.

We stopped for a snack by a pretty stream, (I'm guessing it was a fork of the Teton) and we enjoyed sitting in the sun watching the clouds make shadows on the cliffs beside us.

Lewis and Clark National Forest

On our drive back to Choteau we stopped at the lovely Eureka Reservoir.

When we got back to Choteau we did the other touristy things in town, we went to the museum, which was half dinosaur museum, and half old timey stuff. The most interesting thing we found was the log from the jail in 1944.

Somebody didn't like this guy. His skeleton had 4 arrows embedded in it from different directions. Also some bullet holes. 

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The jail log. The book was over 4 inches thick, with three people per page. We read it for quite a while. 

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This is a selfie with the replica of the dinosaur that was originally found in the area. It's a somethingosaurus.

Details about the somethingosaurus

Ruben found this old typewriter very cool. 

A 50 year old 2 year old Grizzly. The museum was pretty weird. 

You can check out the Old Trail Museum at this link. Check out the little slideshow. 

Still needed some exercise Ru drove us to the local park where we walked on the Choteau Sorpopmists Walking Path. It was a fine path, except that in intercepted a disk golf course at many points which made it hard to follow. We got lost a lot, but managed to walk a mile or two.

Montana disk golfers are practical. Beer holder at the tee off area!

This little guy was fun to watch. He ran from hole to hole. 

They really don't want you to lean on this phone pole. 

We went to the Log Cabin Cafe which had pretty good food, and EXCELLENT pie. I had the apple blackberry pie, warm, with ice cream. I'm writing this two hours later, and I wish I had another piece. Or the whole pie. 

Oh I didn't write about the pool last night. Ru and I were the only ones in it. Not too chloriny, warm, and the hot tub was excellent as well. 

We check out tomorrow at 11. 

Our route tomorrow, from the Shrek head, to the red marker (Standing Stones B&B). See the green roads? We aren't driving on any of those. Back in February I borrowed a book on scenic byways of Montana from the library. Choteau was recommended (and now I see why) as well as the next part of our drive. The green dots on the map are places mentioned in the book that might be worth stopping at. So although I didn't plan much for the Glacier part of the trip (and what I did plan was usurped by the weather), The next two days should be more driving and sightseeing. Ruben will be so bored... but he's up to 30 hours of driving.