ARE WE THERE YET?So, my uncle, aunt, cousin, mom, dad, and I went on a side trip for 3 days. We try to do this traditionally to see new places and spend more quality time together. In 2001 we went to Yellowstone National Park, in 2004 we went to Mt. Rushmore, and this year we went to Bozeman and Virginia City, Montana. ("Bozeman!" you say? Yes, we named our loverly dog after this city because we loved it so much. His middle name is even Montana! In fact, years ago we almost moved there. My Dad was offered a job at a hospital there, but our house never sold and some other things happened too.We still love it though.)

FIRST DAY:Bozeman is a charming old town with lots and lots of very fun shops. So, when we arrived (it's about 4 hours from our cabin) we parked and walked the streets looking at shops. They have an awesome toy shop! I remember Dale and I always going in there. After shopping 'til dropping, not really, we went to dinner. Then we drove by The Museum Of The Rockies (which we were planning on going to the next day) to find out where it was and check out the exterior. Well, they have this HUGE replica of a T-Rex in the front of the museum name Big Mike. So we took a bunch of pictures of it. :-)

Did I say it was a replica? I didn't mean that. It was alive! A stalking skeleton:


















It almost ate Ross and I. We barely escaped by the skin of our teeth:












































The caveman in Ross is coming out:















This horse is made of chain:



















SECOND DAY:THE MUSEUMWe went to The Museum Of The Rockies. It is known for it's dinosaur exhibit. In fact, it's dinosaur exhibit and it's dino guy were the inspiration for the movies "Jurassic Park."First we did the 2 exhibits that were outside because it was going to get hot, and it did.~We started with the Lewis and Clark Challenge. You go around reading about their voyage, and doing things that they did, and seeing a lot of replicas of boats, teepees, their camp set-up, etc. At one point they had this circle of about 6 binocular/telescopes which when you looked through you saw the hills, plains, and mountains that they traveled through and over, etc. It was pretty cool. If you want to know more about it, just ask me. ;-)~The second outside exhibit was this old "living" house. It was this old 2 story house with a garden and a bunch of sod sheds etc.. which had people dressed in period clothing who "lived" and "worked" there. They had cows, chickens, and a couple of donkeys. There were about 5 men who were working in the huge garden, chopping wood, and working in the tool shed. There were 3 women who were cooking in the kitchen and later on they did crafts and weaving up stairs in one of the rooms. Upstairs they had a children's room with toys you could play with and clothes you could try on. I had Ross try on a bonnet. :-) The family that actually lived there had like 11 kids. It was really fun to explore the house and all of the rooms which were set up like people were living there. Like I said before, if you want to know more about it, just ask me. ;-)~After all of this fun it started to get hot so we ventured inside.These are the exhibits we went through: *Dino exhibit, [They had replicas of a ton of dinos. It is so cool and scary to see how BIG dinos were.]*an exhibit on Native American Indians,*an exhibit on the time period of early Bozeman (Lewis and Clark's time period), [They had fun hands-on-history things like a water pump that you could pump, duh, and water would come out. And a western horse saddle that you could get on; at this point Ross and I were starting to get a bit tired and board so we had lots of fun riding on the saddle. :-)]*an exhibit on Outer Space, [This was fun, everything was hands on. Most of it was finding certain things, stars and planets, on computer screens. It was very much to reach out to the kids.]Again, like I said before, if you want to know more about it, just ask me. ;-) [A.K.A. I have no time or desire to type out every detail.] IT WAS AN AWESOME MUSEUM!


Lewis and Clark miniature golf:













A ship that Lewis and Clark built:




















A canoe that the Indians carved:













This was a bear run. You had to run the length of the fence and back in like 30 seconds (as fast as a bear). Let's just say that Ross and I would be eaten!:




















Ross in a T.P. (Just kidding! I meant a teepee!):




















Outside of the old house:
















The family that lived in the house (they posed for me!):

















Ross and I playing dress-up (I Can't believe he actually wore the bonnet for me!):
































You get to guess what this is!:




















This is for Jordan and Cassie:




















The garden:















Stereoscope (they have one at Turtle Bay):





























Sod roof shed:















ith shop, Barber shop, Shoe repair. You couldn't walk in, you just looked through the door or window. Some even had it where you could walk in a little ways and then it was glassed off, some had picket fences instead of glass. They were all set up like they would have been, with goods etc. and some had mannequin people in them. All the shops were so fun! Most of the shops that you could buy stuff in were owned by people because the shops had all kinds of stuff that the owner had made. It even had an old Opera House that people actually still performed plays and stuff in. I wanted to see a play that was showing so badly, but it was too late in the day. The highlight was buying and eating homemade ice cream. Yummy, yum!!! It was so good. My flavors were chocolate and cowboy coffee. Delicious! I hope I am not making your mouth water! :-)


I got one for all the girls!:






















































Motorized ice cream maker:
















Yum yum:




















Ross got three scoops:




















Ross holding up the safe: