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Now on to something that actually has something to do with the “Rockies.”
There are several well put together exhibits of early life on in Montana like this filling station. Others included medical offices and store fronts as well as a nicely done Native American wing where no photography was allowed.
These examples of early dress go with the horse drawn era exhibits show casing how the early tourists would have traveled through the west and seen places like Yellowstone.
What does Leonardo da Vinci have to do with Montana and the Rocky Mountains? Yeah I don’t have a clue either but they had a very impressive exhibit on many of his inventions and sketches built into wooden models at the Museum of the Rockies.
Leonardo da Vinci was a genius and seeing these in person is very cool. He had way too many forward thinking ideas to attempt to construct and model them all and many just existed on paper and in his mind. It makes one think what might have been had the potential of many of these been realized so far ahead of their time.
Outside the Museum of the Rockies was a very cool Living History Farm. The volunteers at this place continue to live and work in period dress and continue to do all the normal frontier chores that would have been common 150 years ago including growing all their own food and making homemade dishes from scratch that visitors can taste. I like places like this to really show visitors and their kids who grew up with the convenience of modern day civilization just what life was like out on the frontier. You can read all the books in the world and look at vintage photos but until you actually come to a historic site like this that has been preserved and continually used and see in this lifestyle in person you cant quite grasp just how much work every day life was.
We did a self tour of the home, all of the older ladies were buisy giving tours or doing end of the day chores to get ready to close up. As we went through I was showing Cece what things were and they all seemed real impressed that I knew what everything was, its function and how to use it. We explained that we were from New Mexico where a lot of this stuff is all still used.
Getting tired of super slabbing it to put down lots of miles we decided to check out the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman and take a break. We followed the signs and got off at the exit they said and went through miles and miles of construction and deep gravel to get there, like riding on ball bearings ontop of sand. It was completely on the other end of town where it would have been shorter to take a different exit. We did get to see the biggest and nicest REI I’ve ever seen though like the size of a super Walmart, crazy. If you are into fossils, dinosaurs or natural history at all I highly recommend going if you are going through Montana, this place was awesome and had some fairly extensive and well done exhibits. I’ve been to several natural history museums and was very impressed with the collections displayed at this one. On top of the impressive fossil exhibits they also had a Living History Farm and exhibits on the human history as well with a Native American section and some nice examples of the horse drawn vehicles up through early autos.
They had several of these interesting sculptures that showed artist renderings of the fleshy side and the skeletal structure of the other half.
Honey dont move! Theres something behind you! They had a lot of T-Rex stuff, including the full skeleton out on the front lawn. I had forgot that several specimens had been found in Montana.
We had a wonderful week in the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone but alas it was time to move on. We had some of the worst and miserable weather of the trip along with getting our campsite robbed but the beauty and experience of seeing this place with our own eyes more than made up for that. I wouldn’t trade the experience for anything. It was far too short of a time to take in everything. We will have to come back again some time. Alaska and Canada is still in our future, perhaps we’ll stop here on the way.
I’ve read many travel sites, motorcycle travel blogs, and threads on ADVrider.com and picture threads elsewhere and was a bit puzzled why so many travelers proudest moments was getting a picture of this stone arch. There was never any description or location as if the object itself was enough like the Statue of Liberty. I didn’t know what this was 4 years ago when I first saw its picture, but now I do and here I was standing before it. It almost brought a tear to my eye, here I was standing in the footsteps of some of the most epic motorcycle adventurers I’ve ever read in a place with so much history. This was where it all began, this simple arch made of hexagonal basalt blocks and inscribed “For the Benefit and Enjoyment of the People.” The Roosevelt Arch is the original main entrance to the countries first National Park. This is where the national park movement started. Without the foresight to put aside and preserve some of our magnificent lands so our children and grand children can see what once was America the United States no doubt would have wound up like Europe where the natural beauty was destroyed and developed or held in private hands by the wealthy.  Yellowstone National Park Post Office When we first arrived at Mammoth Hot Springs I immediatly noticed that many of the buildings looked remarkably similar to ones from Fort Stanton, New Mexico where my parents worked in my childhood. It turned out that the town of Mammoth Hot Springs was indeed a former US Army fort from 1886 to 1918. Yellowstone was the first National Park and after its founding there was still some question as to what exactly is a national park and how are they to be used? Early entrepreneurs set up rogue tourist camps, suvenier hunters broke off pieces of the natural wonders and threw litter and rocks into the colorful hot springs which choked off the flow and killed the colorful bacterial mats and the wildlife were under serious threat from poachers. Early visitors saw the park as a resource to take and exploit as they pleased and the civilian park staff charged with preserving and protecting the park were unequipped and unexperienced to deal with the threat.  US Army Corps of Engineers Offices
In response the US Army set up a temporary camp and it was quickly realized that a permanent presence would be needed. At its height 324 soldiers were stationed at Fort Yellowstone and the park outposts along with civilian staff and families. In the winter the cavalry patrolled on skies and snow shoes. Soldiers liked the remote rugged life in the mountains many applied to get in. The life was hard and demanding and sometimes quite dangerous but the more relaxed discipline at Yellowstone, newer facilities and amazing scenery was unbeatable.
Yellowstone is a wildlife photographers dream, there are all kinds of critters large and small. Not only is there some spectacular landscapes to be shooting in but you’re also guaranteed to see something. You’ll definitely see a few bison or hundred and most likely a lot of elk as well. We watched a movie at one of the visitors centers on how park policy toward the animals has changed over the years. It used to be perfectly fine to feed the bears for example and they had pictures of little bear cubs pressed against 50’s station wagons trying to get scraps of food out of the windows. Now days they recommend staying away I think they said around 100 yards from the bears and 75 feet from the elk. We tried our best to follow the guidelines but I don’t think the animals got the same memo. The bears came up 3 feet away from us and the elk 3 inches, a bit too close on both counts.
The smaller guys are more numerous but faster and harder to find, just take your time along the hiking trails and you’ll be sure to spot a few. Wildlife photography takes a lot of patience to get just the right shot, far more patience than I have with a fixed schedule to be somewhere. It takes a lot of patience for landscape photography also to get the perfect lighting, clouds or weather and you aren’t even shooting a moving target. Read below where we met a real wildlife photographer. If you are in Yellowstone another of its impressive natural formations that you have to see are the terraced pools of Mammoth Hot Springs. The northern entrance to the park is one of the busier ones with its closer proximity to civilization and chances are this would be the first thing you would see. Like other places in the park vehicle parking is somewhat limited and combined with the vast network of wooden walkway trails for everyone to spread out on it was not crowded at all. Visiting by motorcycle was ideal in places like this as we could always squeeze into small spaces and find a place to park whereas most of the cars had to park at the bottom of the hill with quite a bit of walking ahead of them 😉 If you are in the park do check it out, its well worth it. Plus there’s much to do in the historic town of Mammoth Hot Springs, formerly Fort Yellowstone.
The colors are caused by the same bacteria and microbial mats I mentioned earlier that are able to thrive in the extreme heat and acidic conditions. As the precipitates build up and the water moves elsewhere the bacterias die off leaving the stark white formations seen below.
The springs were very cool, unfortunately we’d eaten lunch in town just before this and my Dagwood sandwich did not agree with me. Of course we had to be far away from the bike when I started getting sick bad, by the time we got back Cece was practically having to carry me 😉 At least we got a few good pics before we had a man down. She had a few bites of my sandwich and started getting sick a few hours after me. If you’re eating lunch in Mammoth Hot Springs don’t get the Dagwood! Above and below are good examples of the ever changing landscape of Yellowstone where geologic changes can be seen on a human time scale. The springs have changed positions into the surrounding trees and killed off all the ones it surrounded. Along the walkways were names of all the various springs making up the Mammoth site and several of the nameplates were overlooking springs that are no longer active while fresh new ones have sprung up in other unanticipated places like the very bottom pics. Another must see at Yellowstone, Upper and Lower Falls! Both of these are magnificent waterfalls and have several good and easily accessible vantage points. Upper falls was shorter but had one of the best views not requiring any hiking. Lower Falls is three times higher but without an up close viewing area except Tom’s Trail which goes down into the canyon on metal walkways.
To get here there are two roads near Canyon Village. The southern one will take you to points to see both Upper and Lower Falls and dead ends at Inspiration Point. The other is a one way loop from Canyon Village and will take you to Inspiration Point, the only easy way to get a glimpse of the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. I apologize for the poor quality of some of the pics, and the ones back on Lake Yellowstone, we left both good cameras back at camp after the soggy morning. We didnt want to get them soaked and ruined. All these were taken from the cheap throwaway one I kept in my pocket.
Uh-Oh! Bears in the area! Cece would make a nice little snack.
Up the road from Lake Yellowstone is the Mud Volcano parking area. Everything here is contained in a small area and doesnt take long to see, well worth stopping for just to see the Dragon’s Mouth Spring which I thought was one of the coolest things we’d seen so far in Yellowstone.
From a distance you can hear the low roars of the steam echoing through internal chambers of the Dragon’s Mouth Spring and the eruptions of steam up ahead. It does sound like you are walking up to the lair of a living fire breathing dragon. Very Awesome! |
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