Today we visited the Museum of the Rockies. We intended to take Brett to Laramie, WY to see Big Al the Allosaurus at the UofWy Museum. However, it’s closed. So we decided to stop in at MoR and see what was what. The Montana Badlands have produced a lot of dinosaur bones over the years, so I figured that the museum would be worth the visit, even though it’s at a State U in a small town in Montana.
In a word, rawr.
There’s a huge T-rex cast in bronze out front. It’s not often that you can get really close to a mounted dinosaur skeleton, so it was very cool to get a real feel for how big this creature would have been.
As soon as we got inside, I started noticing exhibits contributed by Jack Horner. It was like being in the presence of celebrity.
We made a detour to see the planetarium show, Stars of the Egyptians, which was a bunch of interesting content spoiled by the out-of-focus projector. The 24-hour day and the 30-day month calendar are both based on the Egyptian astronomy. Cool.
Back to the dinosaurs, and we had a grand time looking at the gorgeous exhibits, turned a corner, and found an unexpected treat — MoR has a Big Al exhibit!
Brett meets his hero face to face.
It was a very sobering moment for Brett. He saw the hurt toe and was even able to read the nameplate, and he started remembering the story to us. This is one of those times where you’re on a long trip and you have a single, shining moment where you know it was all worth it. I am so glad that we were able to take Brett to see Big Al.
The rest of the dinosaur gallery was awesome for me, but the rest of the family just dashed through. They had Triceratops skeletons in several stages of growth (dinosaur growth patterns is Jack Horner’s specialization),
She’s small but scrappy.
three really nice T-rex skulls, and dozens of other gorgeous fossils.
See ya later.
I was particularly impressed with how big the Ankylosaur skull and tail were. They always show them as if they’re the size of dogs, but that tail was easily the size of my ribcage. They would be more the size of panthers, I think.
The rest of the museum was a blur, because the kids were really pretty fried by that point; there was a native American gallery, a frontiersman gallery with guns and cars and wagons, and then the temporary exhibit was about Napoleon. I remember being impressed that they had an original letter written by Napoleon; to think that anything that I write could survive 200 years is humbling.
After the museum trip, we ate lunch (nice local sandwich place)and ran some errands, our last “hanging around town” day before heading into Yellowstone tomorrow. The kids took another dip in the pool, and we had dinner (nice, loud sort of a brewpub) and dessert (cute little ice cream parlor/candy shop) in town.
You can dance if you want to
We’re all preparing to go unplugged once we get into the park; we’re ready to camp for a night.
I didn’t visit MoR last time I came through; if I recall, I drove into town, ate dinner somewhere, and then drove straight through to Gardiner and The Roosevelt Gate. I’m glad to have spent a little time in Bozeman this trip; it’s a cool little town. I think that I like Missoula better, but the dinosaur thing is definitely a reason to come back here.