Museums are excellent classrooms! (22 July)

On our way from Hardin to Red Lodge we first visited the Big Horn Historical Museum, before travelling the byways through St. Xavier to Pryor, where we dropped in on the Chief Plenty Coups State Park. These two very different museums provided a detailed look at American and Native American life in the early 1900s.

The museum in Hardin held a special surprise for me, when I discovered an exhibition about Will James and his book "Smoky", which was one of my favorite horse stories as a child. The big attraction at this museum, however, was the reconstruction of a whole village: all the buildings joined by boardwalks and carefully furnished with countless objects from the era. There were written histories of the people who lived there and we could see fascinating connections between them and histories we had encountered in other places. Emil was especially fascinated by the enormous farming machinges which were standing about the village.

On our way to Pryor, we were driving a perfectly maintained road (upon which we only met two cars in 15 miles), when we spotted a strange looking creature galloping down a hill. At first we thought it was a large dog, but then realized it was a bear. Our suspicion was confirmed when the young woman at the Chief Plenty Coups State Park told us that it was most certainly a bear. She had recently scene tracks of one in her yard who was after some fruit she had growing in her garden. A neighbor of hers had encountered a puma with two cubs one night in her backyard and carefully retreated to the house without mishap.

Chief Plenty Coups was the last traditional Chief of the Crow Nation. He was a visionary who lead his people from the "Buffalo Days" into the 20th century. As a young man, he was a respected warrior. In later years he was a leader by example - a productive farmer and stockman, an expert steward of his 1885 allotment and a supporter of education.

The next 14 miles of our journey took us through the Crow reservation and along an unexpected gravel road. As always today, the scenery was fascinating with hills and gorges, high plateaus and huge vistas ... so driving along slowly was not boring. There were a few Native American homes along the way, mostly single or double-wide trailers, some depressingly run down and others well taken care of. We have been continually amazed at the amount of junk, mainly old cars and broken down farm equipment, that is just left rusting in the fields everywhere - and not just on the reservations. America would be fabulously rich (and more attractive) if people could find a way to recycle their scrapiron!

We were happy to discover an excellent little bar in Edgar, where we enjoyed some of the best food in a long time. Also a pleasure was the last stretch of road into Red Lodge - beautifully paved! -, where we discovered the main drag packed with Harley Davidson cyclists. They had just celebrated a weekend of comaraderie and were quite a noisy, happy bunch!

While visiting the Hardin Historical Museum, Emil spied this snazzy car across the parking lot. Of all the many vehicles we've seen today, this one was closest to his heart. Wonder why?