Miles of dirt roads to Ekalaka

Medicine Rock State Park

August 19, 2017

Todd flew back to Duluth Friday, so Sus drove the boys Saturday from Billings to Bismarck, before continuing to Minnesota.  P. and I followed them in our car to Baker, Montana, via Miles City, Ekalaka, and Medicine Rocks State Park.  We ended up driving 10 hours, lots of it on dusty roads, but the trip was worth it.  I recommend the fine hospitality in Miles City and Ekalaka.

In Miles City we lunched at the “Hole in the Wall Bar & Family Dining,” where a generous waitress gave us directions for a shortcut via dirt road to Ekalaka.  After a great drive through Eastern Montana we toured the Carter County Museum and saw a newly (this year) assembled T-Rex.  The curator had recently moved from New Jersey to Ekalaka.  She said a dinosaur “Shindig” event in July had more than 800 people attend.  This in a town with population of just 300, she said.

The C.C. Museum had the usual stuff of rural Montana museums:  military weapons and memorabilia, a spinning wheel, a switchboard from an old telephone exchange.  You know.  Old collections.  Pistols and rifles.  (The docent had just donated a Heidelberg Windmill letterpress to a woman in Bozeman.)

Setting this museum apart was the dinosaur exhibit.  I think one would have to visit the big museums in the east to view such a collection of dinosaur bones.  Not just dinosaurs.  Mammoths, fish, crustaceans, many fossils.

Everyone had a long drive ahead, so we cut short the museum visit before visiting the Medicine Rocks State Park a dozen paved miles north from Ekalaka.  The medicine rocks are sandstone, perhaps 50 feet high, some of them, and 10-15 feet in diameter.  Weathering over the last millions of years have left them in fantastic shapes with holes, divots, pockmarks, domes, and natural bridges.

At Baker Sus noted that Cyrus’ soccer ball must have been left back at the “Hole in the Wall Family Dining.”  Therefore, P. and I stopped in on the way home.  The same generous waitress produced the ball, but also Roland’s sweatshirt, and she asked about our dirt road driving experience, which was a true adventure, albeit many hours of dust.

Made my day!