May 30, 2007 – Montana

Our travels continued on scenic US Route 2. To cross Montana on this route, we will have traveled 654 miles (not to be done in one day). Montana is the fourth largest state in the nations, yet its population is ~ 930,000 people. Imagine that. I’ll bet the cattle and horse population is more.

Montana is typically dry – it averages 15” of rain per year. But this year, they have had above average rains and everything is so green. According to yesterday’s campground owner and our museum host, it is the greenest they have seen in years.

The incredible landscape and views continue. Animal sightings today were antelope, cattle sheep, horses, llamas, and lots of their babies, too! There are many more horses in this part of the country. I think they need them to get around - :-)

We stopped in Malta, MT at the Phillips County Museum, one of the stops on the Montana Dinosaur Trail. The museum had exhibits of a 33’ long skeleton of a Biachylophosaures, on the best articulated dinosaur ever found. A local paleontologist discovered it in 1994 – the dinosaur’s hip bone was sticking out of the soil – WOW! The museum also had a complete T-Rex skull – now that was scary, and a complete 28’ skeleton of an early T-Rex cousin, Albertosaursas. Plus there were many more dinosaur fossils.

Montana has yielded some of the world’s most significant dinosaur discoveries:
- The Maiasaur nests found at Egg Mountain near Choteau have been hailed as one of the most important discoveries ever for dinosaur biology.
- The first T-Rex fossil – as well as the largest T-Rex ever unearthed – was found in Montana.

And one more fact: Paleontologists worldwide are discovering on the average of 2 new species of dinosaur every month – WOW!

The museum also contained many artifacts from the Indians, Frontier Days, a section on Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and a section on branding and how to read brands (very interesting). We had such a great time.

We stopped for the night at Lake Shel-oole Campground (City Park). It was beautiful. (And can you believe there were more prairie dogs here!)

Our MH is on the far right:

The lake:
We met 2 others that are on their way to Alaska: one gentleman and his dog going salmon fishing and another couple who live in Alaska in the summer and winter in the southwest. So we were able to get some good information concerning the Alaskan Highway.

Sunset tonight was 9:20 PM and Moonrise was 8:30.

Miles Traveled: 310
Routes Traveled:
Montana: US-2