Wednesday, June 13, 2007
SHELBY, MONTANA — There was a coolness in the air at Malta this morning, and as I headed for the shower building I relished the thought of hot streams of water warming my chilly limbs. We have a small shower stall in the trailer, but the ritual of wiping down everything afterward to prevent moisture buildup is not worth the hassle when there’s a free shower thrown in with the site.
So I stood in my cubicle, got ready, and, still slightly a-shiver, stepped in to the stall to figure out how the hot and cold knobs worked, with the jet aimed to the wall so I wouldn’t freeze to death on the first spurt of water. A feeble, fine spray sputtered out, and as I risked terminal goose-bumps, I worked both knobs in every direction to warm the water, with no success. Oh! Heat! It finally started coming but yikes! It was scalding hot! Turn the knob the other way, quick! Ack! Freezing again! After a good five minutes of alternating hypothermia and being boiled alive, I settled for a tepid, low-pressure spray that took forever to wash away the suds. Well, at least with all that dancing around I wasn’t shivering any more.
We packed up and readied ourselves for the road, but then headed off on foot to the Dinosaur Field Station in Malta to see the mummified dinosaur. Having learned on the net all about this unique find, we figured this was not to be missed. We got a tour all to ourselves. First we saw the fossilized remains of a 150-million-year-old baby plant eater. It had recently undergone a CAT scan to reveal an injury on its upper back that was the exact shape of a T-Rex tooth. Next was a full skeleton of Roberta, another vegetarian dinosaur. Our guide explained the process of unearthing it after 11-year-old Robert found part of it sticking out of the ground. Finally, we got to Leonardo, and you could actually see the scales of its skin, and some of its muscles and tendons. He was 77 million years old, and scientists even found pollens of ancient plants in his stomach. The facility is a working field station where staff reconstruct and clean specimens; people can even sign up to participate in a dig if they want. The whole area is rich with the possibility of new finds.
It was just past 11 when we got on our way, but the visit was well worth the delay. As we continued west along Highway 2 we passed similar topography to the last couple of days. Later, purple mountain majesties appeared on the horizon and our altitude continued to climb. Still, there was lots of flat, and the fields alternated between green and tan where farmers planted or left land fallow. On one of the tan strips I suddenly caught sight of an antelope, set well back, standing and staring at us passing by. Then Val saw another next to the first, lying down in the stubble. A few miles further along we passed a third antelope with a tall, sturdy pair of black horns, just a few feet off the highway! He ambled calmly away from us, unperturbed.
We decided to stop at Shelby, so I looked up an appropriate RV campground in the vicinity and found one that advertised its location by latitude and longitude, rather than the usual street address and zip code. So I found the place in our Streets and Trips program where I could plug that in and get directions. Longitude111.85945 and latitude 48.52400, I typed in, and then pushed Enter to get the proper spot on the map. "Mongolia", said the map title — huh? Did I get the numbers wrong? Double-checked; no, all correct. Then I noticed you had to put a minus sign in front of the latitude if you meant "west", which I had not done! So, in case you needed to know, if you were to drill through the earth at our campsite in Shelby, Montana, and crawl through, you’d be in Mongolia! The things we are learning!
We will stay here two nights; our hosts advised that to visit Glacier National Park we’ll have to leave the trailer behind (it exceeds the maximum length allowed on the park highway). Severe snowfall and rain over the winter washed out some of the road so it is not possible to drive all the way through, but the most scenic parts are on the section we will see, so we’ll make an early start and enjoy the day.
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