We have been exploring Montana for about a month, but had not made it to Bozeman, so off we went. Bozeman is a nice college town and could be on our list of places to settle down, if that ever happens. College towns are always vibrant and Bozeman has a nice, small downtown with a thriving main street. We would have to resolve the Bobcat vs Grizz issue with the Missoula relatives before we could move to Bozeman to keep peace in the house – lol. We visited the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman.

They had an exhibit on Pompeii artifacts, including this huge strong box that required a complex order of movements of the heads on the box to open it up. Pompeii was considered relevant for this museum due to Bozeman’s proximity to the Yellowstone volcano caldera. Given the size of the caldera, when it blows again within the next million years, volcanic dust will cover the US similar to Pompeii all the way to Chicago.

The museum also had a huge collection of dinosaur bones from all over the Rockies. The best were contained in the “Hall of Horns and Teeth”. What a great name.

We did what we do in all town visits – laundry and grocery shopping, and then headed south along the Gallatin River towards Yellowstone. We camped the night at Spire Rock CG with a great view of the spires.

The next day we found ourselves in West Yellowstone again, and decided not to wait until sometime in the future to camp along Beaver Creek. There are several dispersed campsites along the water so we picked one for the night.

We parked our chairs next to the water and enjoyed the sound of rushing water. One of the greatest advantages of this lifestyle is that our backyard is awesome and different every day.

I was just about to walk out in the morning when we spotted a young bull moose in our campsite. He was real skittish of any sound and especially of our chairs next to the water. His antlers were just taking shape, but he was easily 500 pounds of skittish so we watched until he crossed the creek and disappeared into the willows.

We saw a lot of Montana this trip and visited a lot of great places. I still think the treasure is there so we’ll be back – lol.