Western Montana

On a recent trip to Bozeman my friend told me she had a surprise for me when we got there. As we got closer to Bozeman I saw a sign for the Museum of the Rockies and asked if that was my surprise. Turns out I ruined my surprise and had guessed correctly! We pulled into the parking lot of the museum and walked over to the building where we were greeted by a large metal T-Rex skeleton. I was instantly excited about what I was going to find inside as I am fascinated by dinosaurs and I knew that Montana was a great location to find dinosaur bones.

We paid our fee to enter the museum and saw that there was a living history exhibit outside with a tour that started in about twenty minutes. As we waited we walked around the traveling exhibits, insects and bugs and one of the main reasons we had come, the movie costume exhibit. The room was filled with costumes from Star Wars, Star Trek, even the leather jacket, whip and the holy grail from Indiana Jones. As we walked around, we found treasures such as a stormtrooper’s helmet, Luke Skywalker’s mechanical hand and lightsaber and the Wicket Witch of the West’s hat.

It was time for the living history exhibit and we went outside with our guide who was dressed in traditional 1800’s clothing. The tour started with the Tinsley house, built in 1889. We walked around the house finding the rooms set just as they would have been when the house was being used by the family. The kitchen was fully functional and one of the guides was making bread in the wood heated oven. We stepped outside and found a hand pump well as well as a blacksmith shop with a blacksmith inside demonstrating his trade inside a sod roof building. Pay attention during the blacksmith demonstration and you may win the handmade trinket that you just watched being made if you answer his question correctly. The living history exhibit is open 9-5 daily from May 24th to September 7th.

After our tour of the living history was over we moved back into the museum and found what I had been waiting for, the dinosaur exhibit. Several rooms were devoted to the displays but in my opinion the best find was the tyrannosaurus rex skeleton, which was not a cast of the bones, but the real McCoy, the actual bones that were found! There was also a T-Rex skull, which was noted as the largest and most complete in the world. We spent a lot of time roaming around the rooms finding the different bones and skeletons while we learned of these mysterious giants. This was by far the most interesting part of the museum for me and I know my friend thoroughly enjoyed it as well.

Just before we left we found the Raymond Loewy exhibit, another traveling exhibit. Walking around the exhibit I found many of his designs that I recognize, such as the grey hound for greyhound bus line, logos such as Shell, Canadian Dry ginger ale, Lucky Stripe and the US Mail logos to name a few. It was an interesting exhibit and worth the stop to see how the simplest things you see everyday are created. The exhibit is located upstairs in the “loft gallery” from April 19th to September 28th 2008.

If you would like to visit the Museum of the Rockies they are located in Bozeman Montana on 600 W Kagy Blvd, near the Montana State University. Admission during the Summer, May 24th to September 1st is $10 for adults and $7 for children 5 to 18 years old. Winter admission begins September 2nd with reduced prices of $8 for adults and $4 for children. Summer hours are 8am to 8pm and Winter hours are Monday-Saturday 9am - 5pm and Sunday 12:30pm - 5pm.