We said goodbye (temporarily) to North Dakota and headed west into Montana, a new state for us. The further west we webtm the more Badlands landscape we saw, Soon it was everywhere, like here when we entered Montana.
We were stunned at how very extensive the Badlands landscape continued. As we then went south through eastern Montana there was sometimes more, sometimes less. We arrived at Glendive, and first stopped to gill up the gas tank and to make a pit stop. Casinos are not uncommon here, mainly operated by Native American tribes.
From there we headed towards Makoshika (accent on the second syllable) State Park, said to be the scene of the most dinosaur fossils found in the US, including T Rex and Triceratops. It also of course features the incredible Badlands,
We were greatly disappointed that there are no fossils to be seen, other than a very few at the visitors center. Not even any indication of where in the park they were found.
Onward and upward, right? And here it was quite literally UP! There were some very steep sections, and at one point a sign that no RVs or trailers were allowed beyond that point.
We may not have seen many bones but we certainly saw wonderful landscape views.
The oddest thing about the park as that you drive through the town, through a typical everyday neighborhood, turn a corner and WHAM! There are the Badlands! The contrast is mindboggling.
We wended our way back through town -- and that's no joke, as there was massive repairwork being done on the main street and there were closures, diversions and other fun things to confuse visitors. However, we struggled through, and made our way -- not coincidentally -- to the smallest Pizza Hut we have ever seen and had our highly-beloved Meatlovers Pizza. Healthy? No. So what.
As you can tell, we dived right in before taking a picture.
We still had time on our hands before we could check in to our motel. We decided we really were not interested in the Glendive Dinosaur and Fossil Museium, with its Biblical emphasis and "advancing the Creation message".
As cowardly pagans, we went instead to the place next door, the Frontier Gateway Museum.
They have a large collection of old vehicles and agricultural "stuff" on the grounds.
Inside they had a variety of household articles from over the years, including of course a radio.
I persoanlly was a bit upset to see the Brownie and Girl Scout uniforms I wore back in the 1960s in a museum. How can it possibly have been long enough ago to qualify for a museum???
The museum did actually have sone locally-found dinosaur bones, so we did get to see some!
And they had this, too, which may not actually be authentic....
It was finally time to head to our motel and put our feet up for a bit. We stayed at the Yellowstone River Inn, which was touted as a "hidden gem". Well, it was a perfectly adequate motel, if you ask me.
We decided to eat in our room again, so we headed out to a grocery store, Albertson's I believe. WE bought some sandwiches, and had an interesting time looking at the beer selection.
Norbert did not buy any of them but went with sonething humdrum and familiar.
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