Vacation Day 8: Museum of the Rockies

Day 8

We left the park bright and earlyish. Saw these guys:

Also saw a bear but he was too far away to get a shot.  We drove to Bozeman, MT and visited the Museum of the Rockies.  We watched a show in the planetarium,

saw dinosaur bones, which is the main reason we went,

and explored the "Living Farm".  This was the best part of the visit.

Then we rode off into the sunset toward Havre, MT.  310 miles of gorgeous scenery and very little civilization, in the middle of which a tire on the trailer shredded.  We have driven hundreds of miles with the trailer with no spare.  Thankfully one of the last minute errands Michael ran before leaving town was picking up a spare, so we felt we had the situation well in hand.  A nice Montana gentleman with a cowboy hat, pickup truck, and drawl stopped to see if we needed help.  We assured him we had everything we needed.

Alas, after he left, we discovered that our car jack didn't lift the trailer high enough to change the tire.  We managed to get the flat tire off but couldn't get a fully inflated one back on without a couple more inches of clearance.  After various failed attempts, Heidi, Aubrey, Amanda, and I hefted the side of the trailer just far enough for Michael to get the tire back on and put a couple lugnuts on.  Just as we were finishing up another car stopped to offer help.  I think I like Montana.  We managed to make it the rest of the way to Havre without any more problems, unless you count pulling in at 2 o'clock in the morning a problem.