This was an unexpected stop basically caused by poor planning on my part. Our original itinerary had us stopping in Missoula. However, I hadn’t bothered to make reservations anywhere figuring that Montana was a pretty big open place.  Apparently, that doesn’t apply to its motels….

As we hit one filled up place after another, we kept driving – all the time getting closer to Yellowstone and lowering the chances of actually finding anything. About 3 am we gave up and pulled into a rest area. Trust me, there’s nothing restful about 5 people trying to sleep in a Honda Civic!  Thank goodness for the local senior center. They showed up at 6 am with free coffee, donuts and juice – all much needed to recover from our rest.  By the time we were semi-conscious it was 8 and – amazingly – the Museum of the Rockies actually opens at 8 am.

It was a nice bit of serendipity. Steve tells me he found it to be one of the best science centers we’ve been to in terms of actually explaining the science and not trying to “Disney-fy” the content.

Outstanding dinosaur display! And, they had a travelling exhibit of King Tut artifact reproductions. Basically, that was reproductions of all the artifacts that are never allowed to leave Egypt. Again, very nicely done.