“In Montana, a policeman will pull you over because he’s lonely”---Rich Hall
Ever heard of a town called Glendive? It’s in Montana, at the eastern end of the Dinosaur Trail. Don’t worry, nobody else knows either. Glendive is a small place, uncomfortably close to the North Dakota border, 251 miles straight north from the Devil’s Tower in Wyoming. We arrived there in late afternoon after enjoying the Tower’s delights and following a 3 1/2-hour journey during which we saw absolutely nothing save vast oceans of tier-3 agriculture. If you think we’re running out of room in this country, take this trip someday. You could move the population of the entire East coast in there and still have room for Ossining. If you like the wide open spaces out where the echinacia grows, this is for you. Matter of fact, Glendive, itself, might not even be there if it weren’t for the ancient dinosaurs which once roamed the land. They have their own museum in town and fans who come from everywhere to dig their bones. Literally. For some reason, Siobhan P. Ellison is one of them.
Being a dutiful husband, a phenomenon of recent years, I make a point of considering my wife’s bizarre predilections when planning vacation trips. Rock hunting and fossil recovery are high on her list so the shopping often involves long drives to lonely oases, like, for instance, the 9000-acre Baisch Ranch just outside Glendive, where the deer and triceratops roam.
One fine day, Marge Baisch was out running horses on her dad’s place when she spied something odd on the trail. “Too old to be a horse or cow bone,” she thought as she scooped it up and put it in her jacket. It turned out to be a triceratops toe bone, but not your simple everyday version. There were Tyrannosaurus Rex teeth marks in it. To dinosaur fans, this is like having a T206 Honus Wagner baseball card which never came out of the package. In the 50+ years since Marge stumbled onto the toe, Baisch and her family have found over 1000 dinosaur bones and fossils on their neverending ranch. They donated some of the loot to museums, sold other pieces and now welcome visitors like us to hunt for their own. $80 a half day for adults, free if you’re under 12. The paleontologists don’t like the bones leaving town but the Baisch’s don’t really care.
This is Siobhan’s kind of fun. Bill is more dubious, never having found the pot of gold his Uncle Arthur guaranteed him was at the end of the rainbow. Shana Baisch, our chatty and knowledgeable troop leader, eyed our shiny Equinox and nixed it for travel on the bumpy, hardscrabble farm roads. She loaned us a mud-covered beater that was used to abuse. We jumped in and followed her on the long, jarring trip to the bonefields, along with about a dozen other optimists. When we got to the swag area, Shana equipped us with screwdriver and other implements of destruction. In less than two minutes, I found a brontosaurus bone and sounded the alarm.
“That’s not a brontosasurus bone, Siobhan fussed, “It looks more like a cow bone. Now you’ve got everybody all excited.”
“Well, it looks like a brontosaurus bone to me,” I argued. “What’s a cow bone doing here, anyway?” The bone expert looked it over with a frown. “The cow probably died in this creekbed.” What? Died in the creekbed? What kind of cattle farm are these people running? Shana came over and agreed it was a cow bone, but my discovery was still the high point of our half-day. Siobhan climbed all over the place, poking and prodding while I took pictures. No luck. Our colleagues, digging away on a small hill, were likewise frustrated. Undoubtedly, hiding somewhere in the depths of this enormous property, dinosaur bones were drinking hard liquor, playing cards and laughing it up. But there was no joy in Mudville, mighty Ellison had struck out.
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| Shana Baisch shows fossil-hunters her swag; Florida girl digs for glory; Bill discovers fool's gold. |
Sitting comfortably in the south-central section of Montana is the seat of Yellowstone Country, chummy Billings, the largest city in the state with 147,972 happy souls in residence. Calamity Jane lived in Billings and Charlie Lindbergh once was stranded there for four months, during which he fired up the locals with some rip-roaring parachute jumping exhibitions. The Lewis & Clark expedition explored Billings in 1806 and William Clark climbed an enormous rock he dubbed Pompey’s Pillar to honor the son of his interpreter and guide, the famous Sacajawea. Clark inscribed his name and date on the rock and you can still see the inscriptions today at the now-National Monument.
We were up early in 53-degree Billings to walk the venerable Rimrock Trail overlooking the city. The Rimrocks are geological sandstone formations that outcrop the town. The views of the city from the long winding trail are spectacular, the path dotted with friendly parks for hiking, bouldering, biking and even rappelling. The cliffs rise up hundreds of feet over the Yellowstone river as it dances through town.
Lunch the same day was in Livingston, which you know more about than you think. The fabulous movie, Rancho Deluxe, with Jeff Bridges and Sam Waterston was filmed there and Jimmy Buffet contributed a few songs, including Livingston Saturday Night. The iconic film A River Runs Through It was made in and around Livingston. The town also served as a depot of sorts for the characters in the television show, Yellowstone. Walking the streets of the small city reminds one of towns of long ago, with an eclectic collection of shops, very old buildings, and businesses that seem lost to the past in most of the country. You can also sign up at Livingston Militia Headquarters for friendly instructions in rifle and shotgun maintenance and learn from certified experts how to shoot down federal government helicopters with clever pocket rockets. For the genteel distaff side, the ladies auxiliary meets for pie and quilting every Thursday night at 7.
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| Overlooking Billings |
It’s Hoot, Visit Butte!
Back in the good ol’ days of the nineteenth and early twentieth century, Butte, Montana was a big deal. The mining boom town was once the largest city in the Rocky Mountains thanks to miners’ discoveries on “the richest hill on Earth,” the gold, silver and copper that brought it fame and attracted a large, multi-ethnic population of immigrants. At its peak, Butte was home to over 100,000 people, the ultimate melting pot of Irish, Scandinavian, Serbian and Asian cultures. Things are quieter now after the decline of mining.
The non-profit World Museum of Mining on the west side of town celebrates Butte’s lusty past, diving deep into the mining history of the city. The Museum’s collection comprises a wide variety of exhibits and artifacts and the property itself sits atop the retired Orphan Girl Mine. The Museum offers a daily guided tour of the mine which takes visitors (if they are not named Siobhan Ellison) 100 feet deep into the gloomy depths. Siobhan has not been a fan of dark tapering caverns ever since we explored the Ape Caves on Mount St. Helens and found ourselves crawling backwards on our stomachs.
A top attraction at the Museum is the recreated town of Hell Roarin’ Gulch, a scale replica city block featuring several Old West storefronts and decorated interiors, including a bank, a dentist’s office, a saloon and a Dunkin’ Donuts shop. The management, alas, is missing a bet by not including the old town’s infamous Dumas Brothers whorehouse, perhaps adding a few ladies of the night for picture-taking purposes; “C’mon Dad, let’s get a picture with some of the whoores!”
Adjacent to Mining World is the modest campus of Montana Tech and its fabulous Mineral Museum, open to the public with free admission. Whether you’re a rockhound or not, the collection there is headspinning, featuring a vast selection of rocks and minerals from across the world. Currently, the museum has over 13,000 specimens and over 1000 are on display in its large, airy exhibit hall, including a chunk of gold big enough to buy the Vatican. Even for those who claim size doesn’t matter, the dimensions of the stones on display here will knock your Birkenstocks off. As a special bonus inducement, the place is now featuring pieces of a meteorite that recently plunked down in nearby Beaverhead County. Beaverhead County? Leave it to Montana.
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| Reconstructed town of Hell Roarin' Gulch; the Orphan Girl Mine in Butte; a small part of the enormous rock and mineral displays at Montana Tech's Mineral Museum. |
Go West, Young Man!
Our unlikely journey has taken us from swaggering Chicago to jaunty Rapid City, straight west into Wyoming and north to the Dino fields of Glendive. From there, a swooping drive through Billings, Bozeman and Butte, soon north along the shores of scenic Flathead Lake just in time for cherry season. Bigfork, Kalispell and Whitefish await, waving in the distance, making promises they can keep. The weather is perfect, the companionship still civilized and the car rolling along without protest despite little notes on the message board about scheduling an oil change. Montana is big, bold, often beautiful and completely unmasked. To date, we have noted one African-American person, noone of the transgender persuasion and few Democrats, but the morning air is cool, the skies wide and the colors sharp. If there ever was any, the rain is gone, there are no obstacles in our way. It’s almost tomorrow and here comes the sun.
That’s all, folks….
