Montana - Day 21 - to Glendive, Makoshika State Park

Makoshika State Park, Glendive

Sunday, 21 August 2022

today's route

Today was, as you can see, a light day for driving, since we only went about 60 miles.  On the way to the state park, I stopped at 2 grocery stores looking for refill bags for my kitty litter disposal device (to no avail), and at a Tractor Supply for the refills and for propane.  No refills but yes on the propane.  Because I'm running the frig on propane all the time now, I use it up faster than if I switched to electric.  And despite the intermittent shut-offs and other problems, the frig seems to be more reliable on propane, which is why that's where I'm leaving it set.

I noticed that in Sidney, there were a lot of clubs - as in, bars and restaurants that were called clubs.  It reminded me of Texas back in the olden days when I was younger and the law for alcoholic beverages was draconian.  Back then, by state law you couldn't go anywhere and order an alcoholic beverage other than a beer.  If you wanted something stronger, you'd take your own bottle - always wrapped in a paper bag - and order what were called setups (ice and a mixer), and make your own drink.  But private clubs were allowed to serve alcohol drinks under the theory that the members were pooling their money to pay for the liquor.  You can see the flaw in that "theory" and what happened was the creation of a temporary membership - essentially a cover charge that would get you in the door and let you be served drinks.  I found a funny article from 1982 about the evolution of Texas's liquor laws including all this information, and including how Texas eventually got moved out of the Prohibition Era into the 2nd half of the 20th century.   https://www.texasmonthly.com/being-texan/byob  Anyway, that's what I always think of when I see several "clubs" that look like they're bars and restaurants.

I saw lots and lots of corn, and lots and lots of either soybeans or sugar beets (I think they grow both here).

A biker waved thanks as I let him pass.  I think that's #3 in Montana.

I saw an odd house that was half-buried in the ground but had bright turquoise paint and a mural of flowers painted on its side, indicating it was being lived in and cared for.  But this wasn't the first half-buried building I've seen here, so I guess it's a response to environmental conditions?

I saw more working oil wells in the middle of growing crops.  More sheep and cows.  More land used for growing grain and for grazing herds.

We got to the town of Glendive, which I've been told rhymes with a dive into a pool of water.  I was thinking of it as rhyming with endive lettuce.

We stopped at the Jaycee West Park, which was beside the Yellowstone River and had 12 horseshoe courts.  I've seen horseshoe courts all over the state - more frequently than in any other state - but I've never seen so many all together.  The town must sponsor horseshoe competitions.  This was in addition to the usual picnic tables and playground equipment, of course.

Dext needed someplace to stretch his legs before we headed to the state park because I wasn't sure what to expect there.  The information I'd seen said Makoshika State Park was in the badlands area of the state.  In fact, the name came from a Lakota phrase meaning bad land or bad spirits.  That name, by the way, is pronounced with the emphasis on the 2nd syllable.

More than that, I had a reservation there but still hadn't decided for sure if we'd be staying at the state park - they don't provide any utilities and today's forecast was for 95°.  A combination of badlands and high temp and zero plugins?  So I stopped for Dext when I saw green grass and trees.

I'd planned to stop at the park's visitor center because I'd heard they had exhibits explaining the dinosaurs that had been found in the park.  These are some of the exhibits I found there.

text enlarged below

actual fossils - explanation below

Actually, look down . . . at photo below.

A mosasaur chasing 2 ammonites.

Those were sea creatures.  Next up, land creatures.

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More information on Triceratops, which have been found in this area.

These next pieces were headed "Theories" and introduced with: "Scientists debate whether dinosaurs vanished gradually or suddenly in a cataclysmic event.  There are two leading theories on the dinosaur die out:"

Theory 1

Theory 2

It hadn't occurred to me before that their loss was our gain.

Speaking of large land animals, this exhibit was about mammoths.

text enlarged below - and from left to right these are
Imperial Mammoth (Mammuthus imperator)
American Mastodon (Mammut Americanum)
Woolly Mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius)

Bison were from a different period, and I don't think they coexisted with mammoths.  But scientists think bison benefitted by the die out of larger species because both were vegetarians, leaving the bison with less competition for food.

They've found at least 10 species of dinosaurs in Makoshika among the Hell Creek fossils - a quantity that, to me, is remarkable.

Beyond the animals, the land itself - its sediment layers in these so-called badlands - has been revealed through erosion and uplift from fault movement.  Take a look at these photos I took at the campground.

This land has an austere beauty that the word "badlands" seems to ignore.  On the other hand, I sure wouldn't want to try to survive in this landscape, which was the criterion used by both indigenous people and white settlers who traveled through this area.

I did end up staying in the campground for the night.  When we first got there, I turned on the generator so I could use the AC - I and my critters were seriously uncomfortable in that 95° heat without it.  But by bedtime, the indoor temp had still barely gotten below 80° because there was no shade at our site.  I'd noticed when we stayed at the state park at Missouri Headwaters, they'd posted a sign saying no generator use during quiet hours.  In contrast, at this campground I didn't see anything anywhere that even mentioned quiet hours, let alone generator use.  The camp host had a 5th wheel in the space next to mine but they never showed up so I couldn't ask them.  I finally just decided to leave it on overnight as I'd done in Malta.