Aaaahhhhh...home sweet home. We had SUCH a great time - would've loved a few more days there, but alas, duty calls. The scenery was incredible. ("I thought the Rocky Mountains would be a lot rockier than this - that John Denver was full of **it") John Denver was right on. It is gorgeous and overwhelming.
We spent the first day and a half at Pook's house in Helena where the kids played dress up, told scary stories, and played some questionable game called "Melanie" or something (wherein Johnny got in trouble for dropping his drawers in front of the girls). They also ran through the sprinklers, played in the (cold) hot tub, played cards, etc. Then we headed to Jeremy and Jill's house to hang out there.
Monday Todd had part one of his appointment, and contrary to my previous post, he had hardly anything wrong with his teeth in spite of his sub par dental hygiene. Jer said he wouldn't really even need a crown for a few years, but since he was there anyway, he'd take care of it. Amazing for a man who'll go an entire camping weekend without so much as looking at his toothbrush, while the rest of us floss, brush and rinse religiously and are no better off (it's all a big dental conspiracy...)
Tuesday we visited some of the falls around the city - most of them dammed off for energy production (we went on the dam tour, got a dam t-shirt, etc.)
Wednesday we drove halfway across Montana to go on a sapphire dig - that's right, sapphires. It was a long drive, but totally worthwhile. My girls are thrilled digging through any old driveway or gravel pit for cool rocks, so digging for actual sapphires was way cool. The buckets of rocks were already dug from whatever quarry they used, we then used a screen to wash them and shake them just so so that the sapphires would settle to the bottom, middle. Then we'd flip them onto the table and pick out the sapphires. Brother Johnson, from Jer and Jill's ward, was the resident pro and helped everyone learn how to find them. Sophie found upwards of 70 small sapphires, and a bunch of quartz crystals as well.
Thursday we went to Ulm Pishkin, a state park/museum where one of the earliest buffalo jumps is located. It was really interesting. If someone had asked me what a buffalo jump was a week ago, I'd probably have pictured a giant trampoline or something, so for clarity's sake, I'll try to describe what we learned about them. The Native American's used to drive herds of buffalo off a cliff so they could use the meat, fur, leather, and every other part for their survival. How, you might ask, could a group of people convince a herd of buffalo to jump off a cliff to there imminent demise? This is where it gets interesting. The tribe would nominate a buffalo runner, usually a young man, to dress up in a buffalo calf skin and bellow like a lost calf wandering towards the cliff (usually miles away). The lead buffalo, a female, following her instinct would go after the lost calf. The other buffalo would follow the lead cow, and to keep them all moving forward, other members of the tribe would dress up in wolf skins and follow from behind. As they got closer to the jumping off point, the tribe would have pillars of timber prepared to corral the buffalo to just the right spot. The cliff was not so high as to be deadly to the buffalo runner, so he would jump off and scoot back out of the way of the herd. The lead buffalo would continue to follow the lost calf, and because of her nearsightedness, wouldn't see the cliff till it was too late. And because they're not great jumpers (and wouldn't even enjoy the giant trampoline even if they'd had it) they couldn't land on their feet and would topple on top of each other where the tribe could easily kill those that didn't die from the fall. Fascinating stuff.
Friday we went on a boat tour to the Gates of the Mountains, named by Merriweather Lewis on his journey through that part of Montana. It was fabulous scenery, cliffs of limestone rising on either side of the Missouri River, wildlife everywhere, even some drawings on the cliffs allegedly done by the Native American shamen. It was pretty cool - would've been even cooler if it hadn't been 100 degrees outside (no pun intended there).
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