It was much cooler and overcast today. We did a few more touristy things since we only had about 360 miles to make today to get to Bozeman. We started by exploring the Badlands right there in Glendive, as Montana's largest state park, Makoshika, is just a mile south of town. It is an immense repository of marine and land fossils, including Triceratops and Tyrannosaurus. Phyllis also found a tiny (and female, we presume) scorpion in the women's lavatory basin!
Continuing to follow Lewis & Clark's footsteps across the state, we climbed Pompey's Pillar to see William Clark's own signature where he carved it into the rock in 1806. And then stopped near Billings to explore the caves in Pictograph State Park.
We finally ran into the thunderstorms just before we got to Bozeman, but as we pulled into town the clouds broke into dazzling sun on the mountains.
We were too tired to do further exploring here tonight, but family honor requires me to go at least a little way into the Gallatin National Forest in the morning. The many Gallatin landmarks in this part of the country are also related to the Lewis & Clark expedition - Albert Gallatin was the secretary of the treasury under Jefferson, so essentially he was the money man behind the Corps of Discovery and so they sucked up and named a bunch of stuff after him. So Gallatin Peak, Gallatin Range, Gallatin River, Gallatin Gateway, blah blah blah - that's all here, right down to the name of the conference room and the pizza delivery service in our motel…. (I felt silly the other night when making the motel reservation, I was giving my maiden name as it's on my credit card and automatically spelled out G-a-l-l-a-t-i-n, then realized what I was doing. I said “er, um, I didn’t really need to spell that for you did I."… "No ma'am, not really."
We're also trying to decide whether to detour another 50-60 miles south - West Yellowstone isn't that far from us and we'd both like to see Old Faithful.
Peg and Phyllis
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Phyllis remembers:
We started out with a personal highlight: as we drove through the Badlands, I blasted one of my favorite songs from my favorite musician: Springsteen's "Badlands." What a feeling!
That little tiny scorpion in the ladies' room was unnerving. Thankfully, since Peg managed to pack everything including the kitchen sink, I just used towellettes instead of the scorpion-lined sink.
I have a mild case of asthma, usually only set off by smoke, bleach, and running or climbing. Thus, while climbing the steps of Pompey's Pillar I started to huff and puff like the proverbial wolf. But all was worth it. That view was incredible.
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