Saturday 19th August 2017

As is normal, we are awake before six, but in our air conditioned luxury room instead of the cabin. Not that there was anything wrong with the cabin, just having our own facilities just next door, and no need to get dressed and put on shoes in the middle of the night. Outside it was getting light, and a quick look outside revealed the car park now full, mostly of meaty SUVs and Hemis, whatever one of them is or does, anyway, night is departing and day is coming.

So, we put on the radio and lay in bed a while, and another look outside shows the sun rising angry and red, showing deep crimson through all the dust in the atmosphere. We get dressed and go to have our free breakfast. That is another bonus, and even though it was in plastic crockery and with plastic knives and forks, it was good stuff, especially the dark roast coffee. The weather channel is on, and talking about the eclipse and another hurricane building in the middle of the Atlantic. There is advice for the eclipse; don’t look at the sun without special glasses and if you don’t have them, don’t look right at the sun’s disc. And so on, all good stuff really.

We tuck into breakfast and coffee, whilst other guests from the hotel arrive and look to see what to eat, it seems all sorts of folks stay here, from the upper classes down to the grease monkeys and everyone inbetween. We are happy enough to drink our coffee and eat the sausages, more like sausage meat rolled up really (anyway, have no skin), bacon and potato dibs.

It still wasn’t eight, but back home the football games had already begun, so I open pages from the BBC on games in the Premier League and Championship, and soon normal service is resumed as City go in 2-0 down at half time. Not much better in the 2nd half, as each time we pull level, Villa score to restore their two goal lead. It inds 4-2 in the end, but we have long since lead the building and are heading to our first destination of the day, a bead shop for Jools.

Yes, it’s not all photography based malarkey, sometimes there is stuff Jools likes to do, and it would be churlish of me to refuse. She has found the address of the shop and the opening times. So at five to ten we program the sat nav and drive out into the four lane highway outside the hotel and into town.

It goes without saying, the shop is part of a mall, a JC Penney dominates, but tucked away in a corner is the bead shop. The buildings are surrounded by a massive parking lot, free of course, and most of the slots are empty, even at ten. When Jools goes in, I stay in the car and try to find a decent radio station to listen to, but as the Mustang only has FM, it won’t be BBC anything. As expected I soon find a classic rock station, among all the country stations, so settle on that, and for an hour there is Rod, Supertramp, The Doors, AC/DC, Bad Company and so on. But every 15 minutes or so, there are ads, of course. Did it say something about the station’s demographic to have ads for dementia testing and homes? I don’t know.

More people arrive, abandon their vehicles, I won’t call them cars as they’re huge. Mostly. An Audi A6 seems like a compact in comparison.

After an hour, Jools returns so we can drive to the next location; a museum. As after looking at Tripadvisor, the number 1 attraction in the town is the Museum of the Rockies, which has a world class collection of dinosaur bones are other related stuff. Getting there is so easy, I start to type in the word museum into the sat nav, by the third letter is suggests museums. I press museum, and it comes up with a list of all the local ones, and we select the one we want, the route is confirmed, so we can set off. We will be there in 11 of your American minutes.

We have to pass through the campus of the Montana State University, with massive football stadium and basketball hall. If that’s where you play basketball. I don’t know. Anyway, through there to a low modern building, with lots of parking, as ever, and a bronze Tyrannosaurus Rex outside.

This was the place.

Fifteen bucks to get in, which isn’t bad I suppose, especially to see some of the best dinosaur fossils in the world, as in the ancient rocks in the beartooth mountains has some of the richest fossil bearing strata in the world.

We go in, and first up there is a good display explaining the scientific method, how a hypothesis becomes a theory and then is accepted as fact. But that any pf these things can be overturned if any evidence emerges to dispute it, which is why there is a theory of gravity, even though we know it exists. If not explain it fully. And finally there was some debunking, that man did not walk the earth the same time of dinosaurs, that at least 63 million years separated the latest dinosaurs and the earliest humans.

There were many exhibits, dating back to the beginning of life, to the precambrian era, which is my favourite, then onto the age of the dinosaurs, and how there is evidence of how some species changed after they hatched and grew to adults, how studying how muscles attached to bones, how the animals would have walked. And so on.

Star of the place are the Tyrannosaur bones and skeletons, a whole hall given up to them, and the various ones that have been found in the Montana rocks. Another hall had a whole display of Triceratops skulls, showing how the head shape changed from hatching to full adulthood. A breathtaking display.

Elsewhere there was a history of Yellowstone, the Native Americans and the pioneers who arrived in the 19th century. All rather marvelous, but the dinosaurs were world class.

It was one, and time for lunch, so a search on the sat nav for the nearest Outback Steakhouse, another 11 minute drive away.

We were only the other second table occupied. Our server brought water, then drinks, refilled the water, refilled the sodas and then took our order for Bloomin’ Onion to start, and battered shrimp to follow. A fine meal it has to be said, with excellent service, but again, too much food; we left half the onion and most of the fries and were still stuffed.

We spend some time by searching for the nearest Barnes and Noble bookshop, and spend an hour or so scouring it’s shelves for something interesting, of which there was much. However, we have shelves of books at home we have yet to read, so don’t buy anything.

On the way home, we fill up the Mustang, so all is set to get us to Cody tomorrow, and to the eclipse on Monday. And back. So, all is set for the main reason we came over.

In the early evening, Jools looks for her camera. She can’t find it in her bag, so goes to check the car. Can’t find it there either. So we check everything twice, three times. And the camera is nowhere to be seen.

So then comes the “when did we last see it” games. And turns out it was yesterday afternoon in Livingston. So, I try to e mail the bar, and thinking that they probably would not answer it that night, we might has well drive over, it was just an hour’s blast up the interstate.

Sun was setting behind the mountains to the west, causing the sky to go a rose pink colour. But we were heading east, into darkness, passing trucks and camper vans.

Livingstone was all lit up, the signs I had delighted in the day previous were all lit up and shining brightly. It looked fabulous. But our main port of call was the bar, and once parked on the side of the street outside, we go in and ask.

The barman checks a ledger, and at one point goes out back, but says sadly, nothing had been handed in, so we had drawn a blank. We have a beer anyway, and the woman next to Jools engages her in a conversation about brexit. I watch the pre-season game on the huge TVs on top of the bar.

I then have an idea to check at the police station, so we program the sat nave and drive the 5 blocks to the station. Not been handed in, but they take Jools’ details and say they will mail it if handed in.

I take us to the centre of town so I can snap more of the lights, all looking wonderful, and kinda wish we had stayed here instead.