MontanaWithKids.com

Terry, Montana
By: Bob van der Valk

I heard an interesting tidbit at the annual Terry Roping Club meeting held recently at the Lazy JD Bar and Restaurant in Fallon, Montana.

Mark Dolatta, describing some of the local colorful Terry history, said that in Montana a gathering of four or more Indians (p.c. Native Americans) is considered a war party and you are allowed to shoot them on sight. (more…)

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Aaron Flint and Bob van der Valk in front of the Badlands Cafe and Scoop Shoppe in Terry, Montana before doing the Voices of Montana broadcast

Terry, Montana
November 29, 2009
By: Bob van der Valk

The Badlands Cafe and Scoop Shoppe in Terry, Montana was visited by host Aaron Flint and his Voices of Montana radio show on Friday, November 27, 2009. His broadcast was beamed live from the cafe across the State of Montana on the Northern Broadcasting Network. (more…)

The Evelyn Cameron Gallery in Terry, Montana

Juli Thorson is the Editor and Associate Publisher of the Horse & Rider Magazine

Yesterday, I was finally able to do something I’ve wanted to do for a very long time.

I got to visit the Evelyn Cameron Gallery of her pioneer photography in Terry, Montana.

Never heard of her? That’s OK–most people haven’t, even though she is in the Cowgirl Hall of Fame and was the subject of a 2005 PBS documentary. (more…)

Dateline: Terry, Montana
October 10, 2009 4:00 PM MDT
By: Bob van der Valk

Hungry hunters will have another place to eat for breakfast in Prairie County, Montana just in time for the start of the hunting season in Eastern Montana. (more…)

Jack the Horse and Shelby his owner trekked over 8 hours from Western Montana to Terry, Montana just to enjoy some of the Badlands Cafe's delicious marinated tomatoes and Montana's famous Huckleberry ice cream

Dateline: Terry, Montana
October 4, 2009 7:00 AM MDT
By: Bob van der Valk

The nightly sunset puts a special glow over the town of Terry, Montana presenting a very picturesque setting ready for a master’s brush. Kids are practicing at their special brand of soccer in Murn Park in the center of town or riding their bikes up and down the paved streets. (more…)

The scary part is the one as you drive up the building where you are greeted by a giant T-Rex that seems to be bursting fright through the wall of the building into the parking lot.

The Koppenhaver and van der Valk families traveled to Glendive, Montana last June to view the exhibits on display at their just recently opened Dinosaur and Fossil museum. (more…)

West-coasters traveling through Montana may not get as far east as Billings, but if you do, there are a good many things there to see that you just shouldn’t miss. One example is the Yellowstone Art Museum, and don’t let the name fool you, it’s not a bunch of geyser-themed artwork. No, it’s a real museum. So if you’re old enough to keep your hands off the exhibits, it’s well worth the visit.
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Billings, Montana is a really great city, and not just because every third hotel has a water slide, but because there’s so much history stuffed into such a small area, really making Billings worth driving that far out for. One exceptional example is Moss Mansion, and not just because it’s a really cool old house, but because of the man who built it and the family he raised to live there.
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We’ve made no qualms about the great times we’ve had in Billings, and no review series would be complete without a write-up of one of the best places in the area, the Western Heritage Museum. Sure, it’s historic, and sure, it’s fun and interesting, but more than any of that, did you know it’s also Smithsonian accredited? Well it’s that, and affordable!
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Of all the things we saw in Montana, this was one of the best, most interesting for all ages, and most memorable too. It’s reasonably priced, has tons of stuff to check out and do, and even if you don’t do the underground tour, you can easily spend a few hours there without seeing anything twice.
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As a reader on the web, it’s pretty likely you’ve heard of computers, but did you know that computers came from somewhere and they have a history of their own? Apparently they don’t just come from the store or the Fed-Ex guy, as I had previously believed, but there was a whole mega-tastic back-story behind this technology and this museum brings it all in to focus.
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Just west of Missoula, Montana, along the Interstate-90 corridor, drivers may notice signs for the Smokejumper Visitor Center. The name is a bit puzzling until you learn that it’s exactly what it sounds like – people jumping from planes into flames – and then the whole profession itself becomes the puzzle. I know Smokey says “Only you can prevent forest fires,” but these people take that catch phrase WAY too seriously.
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On our first run through Montana, we drove right past the Mineral Museum on the university campus in Butte (on purpose) to head for the World Museum of Mining. I can’t pretend that the World Museum of Mining isn’t plain fantastic (worthy of recommendation to friends and strangers alike) but we didn’t just miss the Mineral Museum, we really missed out, and we didn’t know so until we swung back through our second time. It’s pretty darn good in fact.
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If you’ve got some extra time in Missoula, Montana, or you want to learn the most about the natural history of the region, there are two great places in town to do it. One is the Elk County Visitor Center and the other is its less attractive cousin, the one that resides on the other side of the tracks, the Montana Natural History Center.
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If you have an occasion to go through Helena, Montana, and I can’t see too many reasons why you would, but I’m not here to judge, only to help you make the most of your time, you should spend at least a few hours at the Exploration Works Museum. It’s as great as any of its kind of place, far better than most, and the location just can’t be beat.
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There was a place we went to fairly early in our travels that struck us so singularly we just didn’t know how to properly cover it short of spending three or four days writing it up. The Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman, Montana has so much to see, experience and enjoy, it was a real struggle to figure out what to write up to truly pay them tribute. So after much deliberation, delay, and staff meetings we finally decided the single best feature of the place is everything.
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Any traveler of the Interstate-90 corridor through Montana will surely see signs for the Deer Lodge Prison Museum Complex, assuming they have eyes in their heads and some amount of brain connected to it. Personally I can’t read, but I have people who do that for me so I was keenly aware these billboards existed from the time I hit the state line, and so I count myself in the know. The complex is much more than that, but the Prison Museum is the heart, and if you miss it, you’re really missing it.
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I’m not familiar with the country of Elk, but I’m not familiar with my own country either, no matter how much of it I’ve traveled, so I won’t try to make like I’m some geographical prodigy or anything. I’ll just tell you that we didn’t need passports to visit Elk Country, and the visitor’s center was worth ten times the suggested donation, and even that was only a suggestion.
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Of all the dozens of museums we saw in Montana, easily the most unassuming of all would be the Museum of the North Great Plains. It’s not a super catchy name, and it doesn’t tell you much about what it does. Parking out front, all you can see is that it looks like it used to be a warehouse or maybe a furniture store… once inside, however, you better be holding on to your socks, because they’re about to get knocked off.
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Butte Montana has a solid handful of things going for it. Not the least of which is that an easy majority of the buildings in town are built out of brick, which is odd all by itself, though odder still, you won’t find a brick museum. One of the less assuming attractions in Butte is the Piccadilly Transportation Memorabilia Museum, which is pretty sound, even without keeping the free admission in mind.
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If you find yourself short on gas or long on appetite and don’t know which town you’re about to pull in to, you just might be heading into Three Forks, Montana. That’s especially true if you’re just west of Bozeman, but it’s almost equally likely that you have no idea where you are. Three Forks has got food, gas and lodging sure, but they’ve also got the Headwaters Museum, which is, you know, pretty good.
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For those of you late to our Perplexing games, let me take you back some years and tell you that, until just last year, we were a family of journalists entrusted with the noble duty of testing out cars for the media. It wasn’t an easy job, but the benefits were amazing. So I think I speak with the bare minimum authority when it comes to cool cars, and this place had them all over.
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