We woke up to blue sky and sunshine. We ate breakfast in our room, packed up the minivan and were on the road a little after nine. Today would be a relatively easy driving day, about five hours. We would be driving basically straight east to north-central Montana. The drive started with our final views of the mountains. Driving across the plains was lovely with blue skies and green grass, sometimes yellow fields. We heard from some locals later that things were so much greener than they could ever remember due to so much snow melt and rain. It was an easy, lovely drive.
Patti‘s friend Roadside Attractions alerted us to an important site that we had to stop in. And Cut Banks Montana they have a giant penguin statue made to honor the town as the coldest spot in the country. Apparently, for many years on weather reports, that was how this town was referred to. There is nothing to block the cold, arctic winds from coming down from Canada, and sometimes in the winter there would be days of windchill at -50 below zero. It was quite a pleasant summer day for us to stop. Of course, Patti got her picture taken with the giant penguin.
Besides that, we just rolled along and enjoyed the day. We listened to a lovely storytelling recording of Carol Birch, telling the story of baseball great, Luke Gehrig. Well done, Carol.
When we arrived at the little town of Malta, we checked into our hotel, finding out to our surprise the hotel owner had moved here from Riverside, California just down the road from us. On the website for the town of Malta, they clarified they are Malta, Montana, not Malta, an island in the Mediterranean. And we read that people really did ask that. There’s no understanding some people.
We spent late afternoon in two museums: The Dinosaur museum of the Great Plains and Phillips County Historical Museum. Both were quite fun. One of the most interesting things in the Dinosaur Museum was a 3-D model of Leonardo, the duckbilled dinosaur, which was certified by the Guinness Book of World Records, as the most complete dinosaur remains ever found, a dinosaur mummy. We watched some fascinating videos, and learned some more about the local area, and all of the fossils of dinosaurs found here. At one point the whole center part of the US, especially, including here was underwater of an ocean, and the young woman who worked at the museum, told us that many of the kind of shell fossils are found in peoples backyards around here.
We had a nice discussion with the young museum worker. This was her first day working at the museum. She is studying to be a history teacher and we had a good discussion about the merits of studying history which both Dick and Patti have an undergrad degree in. She was highly enthusiastic about her career, and the chance to travel and see historic places.
The county historical society museum was filled with all kinds of fun donated things from Montana’s past. They are we found things from old school rooms homes and stores. There was some really powerful Indian cultural items, as well as the pioneer and frontier kinds of things. Dick, especially enjoyed, looking at the classroom and the Palmer method cursive letters that were in strips at the top of the school room. And that led to an interesting discussion about how young people are no longer taught how to write in cursive. We remembered getting grades in penmanship. Those days are gone.
Dick also remembered sitting in the old fashion school desks for kindergarten and first grade that are hooked together one desk to the next. This museum did a lovely job of receiving so many donations of precious things from families. We were really touched.
We went back to our hotel and ate some food we had gotten at the grocery. We watched a little TV and watched the rainstorm coming in with lots of rain coming down. It’s just fine to watch it; rain from inside a hotel room where we’re not driving. Another lovely day.
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