The winter storm that has brought us the constant rain and snow the past two days was still with us this morning. Even in Ennis, below 5000 ft, we woke up to snow flurries and threatening gray skies.
We debated all morning about the choice between another visit to Virginia City, or driving 59 miles to Bozeman to see the Museum of the Rockies (which was highly recommended). In the end, Bert & Janie went back to Virginia City and we took the beautiful but snowy route east to Bozeman.
The Museum of the Rockies is adjacent to Montana State University, and it was highly recommended to us for the dinosaur exhibit. Emma is at that age when dinosaurs are cooler than chocolate ice pops, so even though we saw dinos just a couple of weeks ago in Thermopolis, we had to go.
Of course, what Emma doesn’t know is that every museum is an opportunity for homeschooling. She just soaks it up like kids do, and then spouts it back to anyone who will listen. Sometimes adults are a little taken aback when they hear her talking about the Cretaceous Period and what an Archaeopteryx looked like. (“Gee, they don’t have any feathered dinosaurs in this brochure, and those are the ones I know the best!”)
Montana has a “Dinosaur Trail” which has 16 places to stop (museums, parks, and field stations) in a giant circle across the state. We’ll get nowhere near all of those sites, but I’ve asked Bert to research and write a dinosaur-hunting article for one of the 2008 or 2009 issues of Airstream Life magazine. His article will include not only the great spots in Montana but also those in Wyoming, South Dakota, Colorado, and possibly Utah.
The storm began to move off to the southeast in the afternoon, which gave us views of the mountains that we hadn’t been able to see before. With the heavy clouds and fog, it was easy to forget that we’re in the northern reaches of the Rocky Mountains. Being in a valley between two ranges of mountains, Ennis has some spectacular views both east and west, and with the dissipating fog and golden fields it became quite dramatic.
Mountains over Ennis Lake Recreation Area. Click for larger.
The town is cute and very small, amounting to a two-block downtown. But everything is there, including a cafe where you can hear the local news being discussed in the morning, and a creaky old-time one-screen theater across the street. Being Saturday night, we decided to check both out. (We left Bert & Janie back at the campground — those poor folks are just too old to go out on a Saturday night, I guess.)
Emma has had quite a good day by kid standards (see her blog entry, following), and the parents have too, so I didn’t see any reason to stop the fun this evening. Besides, it has been forever since I saw a movie in an a really old-fashioned theater with Art Deco lighting, a balcony, and cracked leather seats with wooden backs. About 25 local kids showed up to see the movie with us. The theater is only open Friday and Saturday nights, and the movie changes every week. I got the sense that someone was keeping the theater alive against financial logic, because it was a good thing for the community. Or perhaps, it does a more lively business in the summer. In any case, it was nice to find.
We like small downtowns like this one. There’s a strong sense of community and a central gathering point for people, and a little bit of nightlife. One thing I never liked about living in rural areas was the sense of isolation that comes from lacking a town center. I think this affects our choice of places to travel. While many people dream of finding that perfect secluded spot and camping “away from it all”, we have seclusion available to us in abundance and so tend to seek out places where people live and commune.
But tomorrow we will definitely be out in the boonies. We are heading to Bannack, a true western ghost town where it is likely I will not be able to get online. If so, I’ll update the blog from our stop on Monday.
By the way, I uploaded a bunch of pictures from our trip to Yellowstone National Park. You can see them in our Flickr photo album.
