Bits & Pieces

We're back in AZ, Flagstaff for a couple of days.

Here are some Mostly MT pics, not following any theme or timeline.

I grew up with neon signs so I love seeing them.  Either they're making comeback in Bozeman or they never left.

You know those obnoxious cattle skulls you see in the downtown Scottsdale tourist shops?  The ones encrusted with turquoise & the worst having a clock right between the horns?

Well, here's the Bozeman version.

Montana has lots of specialty license plates.  The usual ones tout Big Sky Country.

I like this one better.

Buffalo meat is offered on many menus.  We found out the hard way that buffalo is much leaner than beef, very little fat or marbling.  So our buff-burgs were very dry.  Last time, that.

We chatted with these ladies on our last night in town.  They're just passing thru, dedicated AirBnBers.

What the Louvre is to Paris and the British Museum is to London, the Museum of the Rockies is to Bozeman...the one to see when you're there.

It turns out Montana is not only L&C country, but also a dinosaur haven.  More dino fossils (fragments, complete bones & even large groups of bones from one specimen) are found in Montana than any other state.

This is because the earth layer that holds the bones from that period is either at or near the surface in many places in Big Sky Country.  48 of the 56 counties have produced fossils.

So Montana State Univ. in Bozeman has a large paleontology department & the Rockies Museum on the MSU campus is a dinosaur lovers paradise.  Dinosaur-adoring kids squeal with delight, we saw/heard them.

I should've planned the photos better to go with the blog, but here's a few of what I have.

Here's 1BDTR....one big damn T-Rex.  I forgot to have Susanne in the pic for scale, but he's huge, 12-16 feet tall.  The dark bones are casts of what what was excavated.  The white is to complete the model.

A triceratops skull...big, too.

Here's part of the workshop where the tech scrape & clean fragments.

There was also a croc display, considered the closest living relative of those old boys.  This is the largest species, the Salt Water Croc, found in the waters of Southeast Asia.  He is much, much larger than his American cousins.  This is the work of a sculpture, not a taxidermist.

The museum also had a few live crocs.  These guys are real although they don't move much.

Finally, how can we leave Bozeman without a pic and some background on the town's  namesake, John Bozeman?  Apologies for the reflections.

Here are some reflections of a different sort.  John B was born in 1842 in Georgia.  In 1860, left his wife & 3 daughters (never to return) to join the Pike's Peak Gold Rush.  He headed to Montana in 1862, filed some gold claims that came to nothing.  He arrived at the conclusion that it would be more profitable to "mine the miners" than to mine for gold.  Longer story short, he blazed a shortcut known as the Bozeman Trail and in 1864 laid out the town of Bozeman.  Not much further is said about John until April, 1867 when he was found along the Yellowstone River shot dead in a murder never solved.

So, 1842 to 1867, not very long.

We left Bozeman and in two day's drive crossed over into Arizona in the Fredonia area.  As we proceeded along route 89A to 89, Arizona welcomed us back with this scene.  If you're receiving this by email, be sure to click on the title to get the web version.

This is definitely the last post.  We're back in Scottsdale early afternoon tomorrow.