We took the nine year old 4Runner, and left the fifteen year old Tundra behind. Before we left I hooked the thirteen year old trailer and had the brakes adjusted. During the test drive for the brakes a wheel bearing went out. So back to the shop for new brakes and new bearings. There were some serious discussions about replacing the trailer, but we took it.
Friday - Saturday: Jordanelle State Park, UT:
Friday
We had booked a camp at Tanners Flat, closer to SLC. But a visit there beforehand showed that getting the trailer might be tough. So cancelled that reservation and booked in Jordanelle State Park.
Got in about four and set up the trailer. Then drove to Heber to buy a roasted chicken for dinner. We didn't pack the stove for the trailer, just a Coleman stove to cook.
Saturday
We had bought a Kuric single cup coffee maker for the trailer, easy coffee if we were hooked up. Jordanelle has hookups, so fresh coffee the next morning. Drove to SLC to eat at one of our favorite breakfast cafes, Evergreen Cafe. Then off to the:Natural History Museum of Utah:
When I was going to the U (both times) the museum of natural history was on presidents circle. The gentleman who taught Utah geology (Frank DeCourten) was the assistant curator for the museum, so office hours were held in the basement. The area behind the building in this picture was used as the area for the first geologic mapping exercise, probably in physical geology.
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| Utahceratops |
Sunday: Idaho Falls, ID
Left the state park and drove to Kimball Junction for a MacDonalds breakfast, then through Coalville to Ogden. Then we motored on up to Idaho Falls. A quick google revealed the local carousel, in a city park. It wasn't in very good condition. Susan took a ride and I took a picture.
Monday - Tuesday: Helena, MT
Museum of The Rockies
The first day in Helena we drove to Bozeman to see the Museum of the Rockies. (Couldn't find camps in Bozeman with good reviews. We got to the museum about 10:30, stayed till lunch, then went back for more. This is a great collection of dinosaurs, with very good explanation posters. Has both skeletons and reconstructions, some very dramatic.
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| Deinonychus |
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| Daspletosaurus sp. |
Montana State Capitol
Great Northern Carousel
Modern carousel with carvings by Ed Roth, paintings and stained glass by Betty Largent and Mary Harris. Has the feel of an older unit, but very clean and bright; one of the best.
Wednesday - Thursday: Writing on Stone Provincial Park, AB
We stayed east of the mountains on the way out of Montana; our first stops on the Montana Dinosaur Trail.The Old Trail Museum
This is a fun county historical society museum; half a room of dinosaurs, lots of early 19th century pieces, some game taxidermy, some historical cabins.
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| Susan and Saurornitholestes |
Two Medicine Dinosaur Center
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Our trailer in front of a T Rex reconstruction -- there is a skeleton in there but the enclosed it in styrofoam to protect from the winter weather. This one is dinosaurs exclusively. The docent was an undergraduate in geology, aiming for a masters/phd in museum curation.
Small, but it was well done. Smaller than the largest exhibit, which was a Seismosaurus. They claim the exhibit is the largest dinosaur mount anywhere.
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| Left is taken in belly neck and tail visible, Right is from in front of chest. |
Done with Montana -- for now -- and not due in Calgary for a couple of nights, google...google where? Found a well named provincial park just across the border. ("No, we are transporting any items to someone in Canada") Named for petroglyphs, it is on the Milk River, the writing is on hoodoos in the river bluffs. Very nice campground; but it rained, and rained. So we didn't get out to see the glyphs. But we did make to:
Devils Coulee Dinosaur & Heritage Museum
A municipal museum; one room of dinosaurs, one of historic items.
This Hadrosaur embyro was the featured exhibit. It is a cast, but the only one for this fossil. The mold broke when they pulled this one out.
Alberta Birds of Prey
As trusted source said this was a "must see" So despite rain and drizzle we drove to Coaldale. The center was open, but we had the place to ourselves. This is a raptor recovery/rescue center; they exhibit raptors which can not be released to the wild. And raise raptors and owls if needed. There were Burrowing Owl chicks wandering in the gift shop; Suz saved one from electrocution -- he was chewing on a power cord.
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| Haliaeetus leucocephalus "A bird of bad moral character" B. Franklin |
Friday - Tuesday: Cochrane, AB
It was raining when we packed up at Writing on Stone, and heavy rains on the drive up. When we set up camp in Cochrane the was water on the floor in the front of the trailer. The roof has never really fit tight in front; so I just assumed the seals had leaked, no big deal. The park, Bow Rivers Edge, is nice. Seems like their target audience is full timers in class a motorhomes, we felt kind of small.
Got up Saturday morning, pretty day. We went to a local farmers marker
Then we met our "trusted source", and her mother at an ice cream shop and drove up to Canmore. Susan and I saw a bear crossing the road. We had a good dinner at a local Thai restaurant; then back to camp.
Sunday we met PJ and her mother at another farmers market, then PJ dropped her mother off and we set off towards Drumheller for the Royal Tyrell.
It took fifteen minutes of patient waiting to get a picture of the entrance with no people in it.
Never did get a picture of this Tyrannosaurus Rex sans sapiens.
Royal Tyrell is a grand museum, great fossils; some interesting reconstructions; a couple of reconstructions on skeletons (skin on the left, bones on the right). It includes a great selection of late Cretaceous fossils from Alberta, in particular Dinosaur Provincial Park.
The last day our trusted source decided we were in Alberta, we had to see Lake Louise and the rockies.
What amazed about the Rockies here was how high up the hills the glacial scars were; the vertical part of the U shaped valleys was much higher than in Yosemite, or Little Cottonwood. And how long the glacial valleys were, Lake Louise is up a side canyon, but it looks as long as Yosemite. we need to get back there and explore more, and more. Drove up to the ice field"
There were signs on the trail/road from the main highway to the parking year showing how much bigger the field was before global warming. I think we were in the 60's here. but my memory may be wrong.
Trailer repair
Turns out the water on the floor the first day, came back on the second -- when it was not raining. Spent one day exploring Calgary, and searching for a simple right angle pipe of the right size and diameter. Finally got it in the trailer after we got back to SGU.
Wednesday - Thursday: Dinosaur Provincial Park
We had not reserved a camp between Calgary and Havre; after hearing about Dinosaur Provincial Park in Royal Tyrell we reserved a camp for two nights. We drove straight from Calgary to the park and pitched the tent before lunch. Lunch was a "raptor wrap" at the Cretaceous Cafe. Then we walked up to the visitor center. On the way Susan got bit by a wasp; painful for the rest of the trip.
There was a small, but very good museum near the visitor center
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| Dromaeosaurus |
After visiting the museum we drove on the one loop open without a guide and then back to camp for dinner. The next morning we took a guided tour through some fossil site.
The piece of shell is the first fossil I found at a place that is "littered with bone fragments."
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Friday - Tuesday: Havre, MT
The drive back to the U.S. went quickly, lots of pretty country along a Blue Highway. For quite a few kilometers the land to the east was posted as "DO NOT ENTER", a stop for a closer look showed that it was a bombing range for the CFB Suffield. Nice to see an unfarmed long stretch of the prairie.
We crossed the border at Wild Horse. We had purchased several apples from some Mennonites at one of the farmers markets in Calgary. The border agent asked if we had purchased any fruit in Canada, explaining that there would be a country of origin sticker on the fruit. Only fruits grown in the US or CA could be brought into the US. We figured those apples were local grown, the sticker said New Zealand, so they were confisticated.
After setting up camp we went to town looking for dinner. The best we could find was a locally owned pizzeria. The pizza was good, the salad so so. Then we drove around town, ending up at the depot; hoping to catch the Empire Limited. It was in the station. Outside the station was a Great Northern 4-8-4 steam locomotive GN 2584. We missed the shot of the Limited leaving past the display... oops.
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| GN2584, Havre MT |
Rudyard Depot Museum
Next morning we had breakfast (Egg McMuffins) and drove to another stop on the Montana Dinosaur Trail, the Rudyard Depot Museum. The "Welcome to Rudyard" sign on US2 says
The museum has a building dedicated to paleontology, and several to local history.
Blaine County Museum
Another stop on the Dinosaur trail. They have one room of paleontology, and several for local history.
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| Hadrosaur toe |
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| Paleo room, note Gorgosaur drawing; how old? |
The museum also had local euro and native artifacts, including this great mashup:
There was also an excellent movie about the Bearpaw Battlefield south of town. So we headed south...
Bearpaw Battlefield
In 1877 several bands of the Nez Perce refused to give up their ancestral lands in the northwest. They decided to join others in Canada. But the U.S. Army pursued them to the Bearpaw Mountains; where a battle was fought and the Nez Perce surrendered. "From where the sun now stands I shall fight no more forever" Chief Joseph.
Havre Under the Streets
Havre had a fire in the early 1900's that wiped out most of the buildings downtown. As the town was rebuilding many shop owners set up shop in the basements of the burned out buildings. The basements were again reused during prohibition for alcohol, opium and prostitution. The area is now preserved as a tourist attraction.
The store front selling tickets to the underground is also a small local museum, complete with a scale railroad layout.
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H. Earl Clack Museum
Havre has another museum, once again local anglo 'pioneers' and local paleontology, it's located in a shopping mall. In the back parking lot for the mall is a archeological site; a buffalo jump site located on a bluff over the river.
That is a Sears sign in the upper right; wish I had thought to emphasize it instead of trying to hide it.
We drove west of town for some sunset photos
Phillips County Museum and Great Plains Dinosaur Museum & Field Station
Malta MT has two stops on the Montana Dinosaur Trail; located just across the shared parking lot from each other.
The Museum and Field Station is a 401(c) organization that receives no public funding. The museum is the county museum with both the anglo and paleo artifacts.
These were our last two stops on the dinosaur trail. We would drive by one the next day, but it closes after Labor Day and we were in Malta on Labor Day. So it go skipped.
The Dinosaur trail was an interesting experience, and pretty close to what I was expecting... county history museums with small collections of locally collected specimens. The Museum of the Rockies made only one mention of the Dinosaur trail, downstairs next to the restrooms. The gift shop did not offer to stamp our passport. The county museums were all staffed by cheerful, attentive volunteers, about fifty/fifty split between interested in history and interested in paleo. Jack Horner, from the Museum of the Rockies, does visit the other museums as an advisor. One (in Havre) said he would come in and rearrange some exhibits and the staff would be them back after he was gone. In general the exhibits were good and the staff helpful. The Two Medicine Dinosaur Center and the Great Plains Dinosaur Museum had the best informed staff (and the only ones we visited with the Montana geological map on the wall.)
The star of these two museums is Leonardo, a young duckbill found nearby with well preserved soft tissues.
For the final afternoon we drove north of town. We have spent a lot of time on the great plains this summer, lots of paleo, lots of cumulo, lots of photo. Being able to take a picture of a thunderstorm, the whole storm with the skies above still feels foreign to me.
Suz developed a sore tooth in Havre, called her dentist and got a prescription for an antibiotic.
Wednesday: Red Lodge, MT
Spent the day driving from north Montana to south Montana; we got out of camp by about nine, had our egg McMuffins and set off. The route had few interstates, so a lot of time on the blue highways. We didn't do much sight seeing; stopped for a unmemorable lunch and got to Red Lodge around four. We couldn't find a campground on google that seemed any good, we had been in the trailer for several weeks, a hot shower sounded good so we got a room in Red Lodge. Then out to a sit down dinner at a local 'pub' -- salmon and such. The motel proprietors cooked us a grand breakfast the next morning. After that we dropped the trailer at the local tourist information booth and set off on the Bear Tooth Highway.
Years ago on one of visits to Yellowstone we made it to the N.E. part of the park and out to Cook Mt. There was a sign there talking about the Beartooth Highway and how scenic it was; right after the sign was the road closed barrier; it was mid September(?) and the road had closed. That scenic highway was the Beartooth which runs from Cook City to Red Lodge.
Beartooth Scenic Byway
This 68 mile byway starts outside of Red Lodge and winds its way through southwest Montana and northwest Wyoming and leads into Yellowstone National Park at its Northeast Entrance at Cook City. The highway opened to automobile travel in 1937. It is the highest paved spot in both Montana and Wyoming, approaching 11.000 in both. I drove, Susan took pictures, she got a lot of great pictures I didn't.
Next time she drives, and I read the Roadside Geology, and the one after that we spend one day eastbound and one westbound, stopping and taking every picture.
The Chief Joseph Scenic Byway.
Near the west end of the highway the Chief Joseph Scenic byway heads south. The Nez Perce band lead by Chief Joseph used this pass to get through the mountains. The cavalry was only a day behind on the way into the mountains; but four or five days behind on the way out. At a high meadow the Nez Perce drove their 1000 horses around in circles and out several dead ends and then headed out. The trackers for the cavalry took the extra days sorting out the circular tracks and the dead ends. The site site where this occurred is spectacular in its own right.
The photo was taken from a bridge crossing the canyon below. Approaching the way we did there was no hint of the canyon or bridge until just before. From here it was downhill and back to the foothills and then south for a couple of hours to Cody.Thursday - Friday: Cody, WY
Buffalo Bill Center of the West
The next day was spent visiting the Buffalo Bill Center of the West. Five museums and we went through four. They had a show from the Draper Museum Raptor Experience, a good chance for bird photos:
On Friday we left Cody, first stop was the Wyoming Dinosaur Center in Thermopolis.
Wyoming Dinosaur Center
It is not clear whether this is a non profit organization, a government agency or a for profit. What it is for sure is a well done museum. Not top tier ala MOR, or Tyrell; but it is certainly well above county museums. It has a very good collection of paleozoic (and even earlier) fossils and good documentation on the evolution of life and of dinosaurs. There is a good discussion of the Triassic and how unique the conditions (and flora&fauna) were then.
And it has a great collection of dinosaur fossils including an Archaeopteryx.
And the requisite TRex
On the way out I spotted a poster "Today you can be a visitor - 150 million years ago you would have been a snack."
Then on to Rock Springs, and a Holiday Inn -- campgrounds in the oil patch are filled with field workers. Rock Springs was a decision by elimination. Susan wanted to get home to have the sore tooth seen by her dentist. I was thinking we could stretch this trip to Laramie and Denver before heading home. But there was no good camping in Laramie either so... Rock Springs was on the direct path home, it was raining, and getting dark.
Saturday: Rock Springs, WY
Got up, had the hotels breakfast and set off south, through Flaming Gorge and down to:
Dinosaur National Monument
Growing up in Utah visiting here was a prepubescent rite of passage. We came when I was nine or ten, and we came when I was in college (the first time). I pouted for that whole trip, I had tickets to the Doors in SLC, but Zelita was in town so we went camping instead.
The star here now the the Allosaurus JimMadseni. This the most complete Allosaurus skeletons found. The the wishbone has been found, the braincase and ear bones.
I assumed that this quarry was found in the Cope/Marsh era by one of them. But it was found by a paleontologist specializing in mammals.
After lunch we drove over Douglas Pass and into Fruita. We found a pleasant campground (not up in the monument where we usually stay, but right across the street from the paleo place. Had a good chinese dinner just down the street. This is not you standard interstate exit.
After lunch we drove over Douglas Pass and into Fruita. We found a pleasant campground (not up in the monument where we usually stay, but right across the street from the paleo place. Had a good chinese dinner just down the street. This is not you standard interstate exit.
Sunday: Fruita, CO
Dinosaur Journey Museum
The last museum on this road trip, and a fun place to wrap it all up. And to start the next lesson in dinosaur.
Dinosaurs were popularized by Cope and Marsh, but their rivalry and rush led to many mistakes and duplications in naming and description; notice the caption:
This fossil was originally called Laosaurus by Marsh. Then it was named Othniella to distinguish it from another species called Laosaurus to promote the difference to the genus level. The genus Laosaurus was renamed to Nanosaurus. And othnielia and Othnieloseurs are NOT synonyms; but Drinker nits maybe a valid taxon.
One small dinosaur; many names, much confusion -- this is the start of something fun.
And this all started in the Morrison of Colorado; maybe we need another road trip.
Just a little over three weeks, and a little over 5000 miles (7000km), thirteen nights in the trailer, two in motels; this was a grand excursion
Thanks Susan for encouraging/enjoying this road trip in the Cretaceous. And to P.J. for the Canadian tips and guides.
