Work deadlines pushed back further updates, so I’ll condense the final three days into one. Rest broke up the few highlights, and has largely been forgotten since I rejoined my blur of a schedule.
An adequate fix of wildlife could not compensate for the herds that ruled this terrain for 20 million years, when much of it lied behind prehistoric sea. The Museum of the Rockies filled the gap with its herd of fossilized triceratops and torosaurus.
From his lofty perch, Big Al could not be ignored. With his intact allosaur skeleton, Big Al educated through the wounds emblazoned on his bones. Not necessarily big by allosaur standards or old, he symbolized the unsympathetic world owned by dinosaurs.
The mosasaur and plesiosaurus bones represented the ancient ocean, but few sights drew more stares than the collection of tyrannosaur heads and the intact fossil skeleton still buried in rock. Michael Crichton and Steven Spielberg might attempt to convince us otherwise, but this is as close as we can stand to these prehistoric wonders (the Chicago Field Museum’s “Lucille” tyrannosaur not withstanding). But this museum stands apart, because Montana State University paleontologists and grad students pulled many of these marvels from the mountain earth.
A Taste of Lewis and Clark
I felt a tingle when the lady ranger told me two bull moose had been sighted roaming the grounds of Missouri Headwaters State Park, where the valley’s three mighty rivers became the Missouri.
I once saw where the Missouri dumped into the Mississippi north of St. Louis, so traversing the headwaters felt like an important destination. Plus, this was what Lewis & Clark aimed to find, so if it mattered to that pair, it mattered to me. When else would I be twenty miles from the fabled confluence?
But the possibility of stumbling upon a bull moose – hopefully from a safe distance – tantalized me to no end. As is often life’s fashion, I found only a pile of moose scat atop an isolated bluff, and only spotted raptors in the sky and Montana hares darting in the brush.
As with Yellowstone Lake, I had to dip my hands in the cool clear water for a drink. It would have to sustain me on a few miles of hiking, which I needed to truly grasp the scenery. I climbed atop the mostly bare hill between the newly minted Missouri and the last founding river, the Gallatin.
The regularly placed signs told of the explorers’ actions, which we glean from their diaries. But standing high above those pristine waters, with bird calls and moose grunts (no one will convince me I heard anything else), no explanation is required. They went on from the Gallatin Valley, but Lewis and Clark would have felt something triumph at looking down at the Jefferson meeting the Madison, the origin of the mighty river found. They would have found disappointment that they didn’t confront the fabled Northwest Passage.
The 90-degree temperatures left me parched after a few hours tracing the banks. I had just a few days left at this point, but a dry 90-degree day in lands only a month away from snow had to be appreciated for all its sunburning glory.
I sprang up, wanting to get mountainside before the popular M Mountain trails grew too crowded. With morning temperature sin the high 60s and the sun racing upward, heat always weighed on my mind. Even at 9 a.m, college students already started their hikes en masse. A half-dozen X-gamers raced up and down the hill, scoffing at the crowds which paced the gentle switchbacks.
I guessed the two paths at the mountain’s base would converge before leading to the giant “M” assembled from white stone by MSU students. I guessed wrong, and picking the righthand path meant a tracing a steep ridge that sorely tested my lungpower. Rocky and with sure footing never a certainty, I paused at several smooth-topped boulders, desperate for oxygen that never came fast enough.
The mountainside M confounded me, never appearing any close no matter much I climbed, ant-sized people still milling around the base. The rockiness faded and eventually the vegetation blocked it out.
Puffing away, I essentially crawled the steepest portions and shrugged off the occasional urge to turn around. As the urges worsened, voices up the mountain evolved from mumbles under the wind to modern English, and within a few minutes, I too found the M’s base. After grunting up, I almost sprinted down in the X-gamers; it was easier on my knees, and the relaxed switchbacks could never compare with the path less traveled.
My final Bozeman afternoon was a rich blur. I tagged along while Athens shot footage for a story about belly dancers practicing for a charity performance, then meandered through Bozeman. For a place fed by tourism, Bozeman never felt corrupted by tourism. It bears elements of cool college towns, but lacks the campus dive bars. Its streets include intriguing small businesses
I visited Athens’ friend Francis at his store, Vargo’s Books and Jazz City ( the Klan protested the store when the Cleveland native dared to sell jazz albums). Scouring Francis’ used LPs, a pulled a gem free – Foreign Affairs by Tom Waits. Not only that, the selection of local interest books had exactly the book that made me nerd out – The Roadside Geology of Montana. I chatted with Francis about old Cleveland town, a refreshing change from the small talk of the road. I paused at the row of historic buildings destroyed by a gas explosion earlier this year. Other than that loss, the addition and asphalt and the disappearance of wooden sidewalks, Bozeman’s streetscape had not altered much in the past century.
Stopping for coffee, I fed my half my scone to a beautiful friendly dog tied up in front of the coffeehouse. One passerby said the dog’s owner tied him up at least two hours before, and I won’t dwell on my opinions about that. When I passed by 20 minutes after I left him, he had gone, nullifying my need to write a sharply worded note.
After hitting the other record store on the strip and uncovering a nice copy of the original Nuggets compilation (finally, I have the 13th Floor Elevators “You’re Gonna Miss Me” on record), it was time for beer and a little college football. I wound down my tour of downtown at the Pour House, taking ale advice from a bartender named for a small Tennessee town (Leoma) and talked college football with Bob, a commonsense fell to originally from Pennsylvania. Here in Bozeman, I had touched on the three places I’ve lived the longest in less than an hour.
Athens delighted us with a corned beef on my last night and the drink led us both to pass out 10 minutes into The Harder They Fall, Humphrey Bogart’s last film. As it always does at vacation’s end, morning arrived too soon. I packed up shop, and we headed to the Gourmet Gas Station for one last meal, breakfast quesadillas with prime rib. The succulent Montana beef still holds sway with my taste buds.
The previous Saturday, we went from Gallatin Field directly to the Gourmet Gas Station for a burger that served as an amazing introduction to Montana beef. Then as before, Athens and I talked politics, ripped on the quality of the local news (a photo essay about the rutting elk excepted), and reminisced a little about the old days at SNP. The symmetry was not lost on me, and thanks to the days of rest and moving on my own schedule, I appreciated it more fully.
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