Bozeman, I love this quaint Montana town.  It had such a fun hip vibe to it.  With The University of Montana at the heart of the town this brings lots of great events and activities to the area for all ages.  The Museum of the Rockies is located directly next to the university.  I believe the museum is affiliated with the university.  We had a fun day at this museum.  It had a fun way of learning the history of Montana.  As you walk through the museum you are evolving right along with Montana, starting one billion years ago when there was water where Montana is today.

These models helped me to understand the formation of Montana and the Rocky Mountains.  It also helped that Jeff broke down the fancy verbiage and explained them in “Jill terms”.

And although we aren’t huge dinosaur fans, they did have an impressive dinosaur hall.  They also had a great show on color at the planetarium, which was particularly exciting for Koah as he had never been.  And man, o, man those planetarium seats were super comfortable.  The 30 minute presentation was way too short for me.

The kids favorite part of this museum was the Exploring Yellowstone kids room.  It happened to be one of my favorite parts as well, as I was really impressed with the animals that were placed through out the exhibit.  Each animal was designed and made with items that would have otherwise been trash.  This inspired me to think how I could use items that I would otherwise throw away.

We also stopped into the Bozeman Public Library.  We headed to this library after dinner and I was thinking that we would be gone for about an hour before heading back to the campground.  We were here for 3 hours (until closing at 8).  The kids were just having too much fun, and I had to savor the moment and let them be.

Playing “chester” (against herself).

Doing some art, with her keen artist eyes.

Freya’s masterpiece.

I even got to flip through a few crochet books as the kids were all busy doing their thing.  It is moments like these where I say I could do this forever or at least for a long time but then there are those other days.  But for today, I’ll take this one and cherish it and remember it.

We didn’t know much about this battle before coming here.  We had heard various people on our travels say “Custer’s last stand”.  Well now we have seen where Custer had his last stand.  This monument is dedicated to remembering the Lakota and Cheyenne Indians fight here to preserve their way of life.  And even though the Indians destroyed Custer and the US Army’s 7th Calvary in this battle, the Indians knew that soon they would have to conform to the laws about living on lands set aside for them (the lousy  land).

This monument is a peaceful place set on the beautiful open lands of Crow Agency, MT.

Custer’s tombstone is one with the black on it, among the many other US soldiers.

Junior Rangers hard at work.

This was about on hour drive from Billings but well worth the trip.

We made it to Montana!  First stop Billings, in this ginormous state.

We cooked mini meatloaves on the grill, mostly prepped and cooked by Makenzie and Koah.  The best part was the crispy parts cooked onto the aluminum foil.

We also had a quick bit of hail move through.

The kids had fun at the playground.  And more on that in a moment.

But the best part of Billings was meeting the Higgins family.  Turns out that they are on a similar adventure, traveling in a blue school bus.

Also turns out that they have 4 children as well in the same gender order as us. 

Also turns out that their children are about the same ages of our children. 

Get where this is going…. Kids to play with!

And kids to play with means time to get things done rather peacefully, like cook a meal uninterrupted, fill all the RV tires with air, and have an adult conversation with little disruption. 

These couple days in Billings were fun with the Higgins.  After we pulled out of the campground the kids got a little choked up that they wouldn’t have the Higgins kids to play with anymore.  We are hoping our paths cross again someday.

Oh and playgrounds can be dangerous.  Courtesy of the 2 oldest boys.

After the attack on Pearl Harbor, when the USA declared war on Japan, 10 concentration camps were built throughout the country to incarcerate Japanese Americans.  These Japanese Americans were forced to leave the West Coast because the United States feared they were dangerous. Heart Mountain is one of the 10 camps that opened to house these Japanese American people. The video shown at the beginning of the Heart Mountain Interpretive Center is an account from the people who lived here at Heart Mountain for 3 years (1942-1945).  This was heart wrenching to watch.  And every time I think about it, I fill up with tears.

Many talked about the businesses they owned in CA.  And about how hard they worked to provide for their families. And about the fact that they were American citizens.  These people, no different from you or me. 

But then one day life changed.  They were told to pack one bag and then they were escorted onto a train, destination unknown.  One woman in the video explained that her family didn’t own any winter gear.  It wasn’t necessary in California.   When they arrived in Wyoming they had an extremely difficult time adjusting to the freezing temperatures.

The camp met their basic needs.  And they played games and went to school.  But they always knew they were surrounded by a fence and the watch tower was always in sight.

One underlying theme during the video was that the absolute hardest part for these families was when they were released from the camp.  They were each given $25 and a train ticket to anywhere in the US.  Some returned to their communities with the hopes of finding some normalcy. But their businesses were now taken over and they had little to work with. 

Others chose train tickets to places entirely new.  A place to start fresh.  But again each family had little money to work with

This place was very touching and moving.  I highly recommend the stop if you ever in the Cody, WY area.

When the woman was showing us a replica of the average size room a family was housed in, she asked the kids, “Imagine if your whole family had to fit, with all your belongings in such a small space to live.”  The kids just stared at her.  I then had to explain that we are living in a 28 foot motorhome.  She said, “Ok, well I guess you can imagine”  I said, “The difference is that we are doing this by choice” … Are we really doing this by choice?…. I’m half crazy!

This station was filled with blocks each labeled with items that the children might have packed when they left their homes for Heart Mountain.  My kids were challenged to decide what items were important to them and see how many they could fit in the suitcase.  The blocks were labeled with things like favorite doll, special toy train, pillow, pictures, books, etc.

These are the only 2 original buildings that still remain at Heart Mountain.