Choteau, Montana

July 6, 2025

Happy belated Fourth of July to everyone! This year's Independence Day was spent in the small town of Choteau (pronounced locally like "show-dough") where we enjoyed our first rodeo and more fireworks than we have ever seen in one place before.

Our travel day was brilliantly sunny, and we were treated to field upon field of canola in full bloom. We never knew how pretty such a pedestrian crop could be.

Not a cloud in the sky, and hardly a car on the road

Beautiful fields of canola in full bloom

This felt just like the scene in "RV" where Robin Williams' family is stuck behind a slow tractor for miles and miles

Our home for the week was an RV park conveniently located just outside the center of town. It wasn't the most scenic location, but it was fine for the week. Plus, they had really nice (and cheap) laundry facilities.

When we first arrived on Monday, the park was mostly empty

As we got closer to the Fourth of July weekend, the park filled up

Our friendly resident Richardson's ground squirrel

Many nights had colorful sunsets

On Tuesday, we went to the nearby Two Medicine Dinosaur Center for their 30th Anniversary open house. The state of Montana contains several sites of major dinosaur fossil discoveries, and this particular center continues to participate in ongoing fossil digs and preservation. You can read a bit about the "Montana Paleontology Top Ten" here.

The dinosaur center was easy to spot from the main road

This skeleton of a baby dinosaur was more impressive when viewed from a distance. Up close, you will see that so much of it is missing.

The imposing Seismosaurus hardly fit into the small museum building

It was too big to fit in one picture (the hat was a nice touch!)

The prep lab where ongoing fossil preservation takes place

Adjoining the dinosaur museum was the Trex Agate Shop. We're not sure we have ever seen more rocks for sale under a single roof.

A rock enthusiast would be like a kid in a candy store here!

The next day, we ventured out into the Rocky Mountain Front, less than an hour away from Choteau. The Front is a transition zone between the Rocky Mountains and the mixed grass prairie that abuts it, and it apparently has a lot of wildlife--including grizzly bears. Fun fact (according to Wikipedia):

The Rocky Mountain Front is such an important geologic feature that it affects the weather in North America. Warm air masses moving from the Gulf of Mexico are blocked by the front from moving west, causing hail, thunderstorms, tornadoes, and other kinds of violent weather which then move east. "Tornado Alley", that part of the Great Plains where tornadoes are most frequent, is a direct outcome of the front's effect on weather.

While we didn't see any of the supposedly abundant wildlife (thankfully, no grizzly bears in particular), we did hike an unexpectedly amazing trail to Our Lake (that's really what it was named).

Getting closer to the Rocky Mountains

The flora was getting more lush

And then we were in the mountains 🙂

Trailhead to Our lake

Entering the Bob Marshall Wilderness (locally known as "The Bob")

After an unexpected treat of so many wildflowers along the trail, we got our first views of the mountains

Julie, ignoring the mountains to search out more wildflowers 😉

If you look closely in the center of this photo, you'll see two waterfalls--upper and lower. Our destination was at the top of the upper waterfall, so we had a bit of a trek left.

The source of that waterfall is Our Lake (our destination)

Julie really liked the foliage of this plant

Getting a close-up view of the waterfall that went through a snow cave

The skies were looking more threatening the closer we got to our destination

Almost there--it's just over that last ridge!

First view of Our Lake (and some dark clouds)

It was noticeably chillier and windier near the lake

We set up chairs near the lake to rest a bit and have a snack. Julie had the optimistic idea that maybe the weather would clear. Then it started to rain.

Waiting for the rain to (hopefully) pass. (Julie had set up her chair further back, thinking that it might be more sheltered from the wind--it wasn't.)

Then, a hopeful portent appeared--a patch of blue sky! Will it spread our way? Spoilers--yes, it came, and the day cleared up nicely!

The rain passed on to the east of us

Looks so pretty in the sun!

A view of the upper falls in the sunshine on the way back down the trail

Julie really liked these white flowers that were like exclamation points along the trail

Back on the road home. This mountain looked kind of like a sleeping bear.

Antelope sighting!

That afternoon/evening some storms came through, and we had a couple of strong wind gusts. One of them was strong enough to dislodge one of the insulating panels we put in our deck roof when we want shelter from the sun. We watched hopelessly as it rapidly flew away across a field. Rick quickly took down the remaining panels while Julie donned a rain poncho and went in search of the lost panel.

(This picture is here just to show the insulating panels)

There's Julie hoping to find the panel. It would be a pain to have to make a replacement for it.

Success!

The sunset was pretty dramatic that night

We had originally planned on walking to town the next day (July 3) for some of the pre-Fourth of July festivities, but the previous-day's hike took more out of our bodies than we had anticipated, so we declared a day of rest. It seems that the older we get, the more recovery time we need after these kinds of hikes (no duh, right?).

On July 4, we were back in business (mostly). We walked to the parade in the morning, and then went to the town rodeo in the afternoon.

We don't think we've ever been to a town that actually sponsored the sale of fireworks.

The non-marching band

It just doesn't look like his lower body should fit in this car

Everyone on the floats was throwing out candy to the kids, but this T-Rex was having a bit of difficulty with the task due to his short arms.

If there was a "lamest float" award, this one would have won

Rick wasn't sure who was older--the tractor or the guy riding the tractor

Between the parade and the rodeo, we walked around for a while...

What's with all the livestock discrimination in Montana???

We had planned on playing disc golf later in the week, but when we saw the course, we decided it wouldn't be very fun for us...

Basket in the campground

Basket near the pedestrian path of the park

Basket near the bathroom of the campground

Basket by the town band shell

Time for the rodeo!...

The contestants

The "zamboni" 😉

This guy ended up sitting right in front of us

Time for the rodeo to begin!

The Bareback Riding event looked so punishing!

The Steer Wrestling event was pretty much as advertised...

...guy jumps off horse and wrestles steer to the ground

These girls looked so tiny on the horses!

The object of the "Tie Down Roping" event was to lasso the calf and tie its legs together as quickly as possible

This guy did it in a matter of a few seconds

The comic relief

A young girl who did some impressive trick riding

And, of course it's not a rodeo without some bull riding!

We quite enjoyed the rodeo, and we particularly appreciated the small-town vibe. Luckily for us, the fireworks that night were shot off very close to our campground, so we had front-row seats without having to leave our campsite. And, it seemed like every resident in town had their own private supply, so we were treated to about 3 hours of continuous fireworks of various kinds that night.

On Saturday, we drove to Great Falls to visit the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center and for Julie to get a haircut. We had also wanted to go to lunch at a burger place that was highly regarded, but we found it disappointingly closed for the holiday weekend ☹️.

The Great Falls--one of several waterfalls in the Missouri river that Lewis and Clark needed to portage around during their expedition in search of a waterway to the Pacific Ocean (which, unfortunately, they discovered did not exist).

Julie didn't take may pictures inside the museum, but this diorama showing how difficult it was to transport all the supplies up the steep banks of the river left an impression.

Well, this blog post took most of a day to put together! So, let's just call it a day, shall we?

Next stop--Waterton Lakes National Park in Canada (assuming the Canadians let us in 😉)!

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