Knitting is at the end of the post.

Day 1

DD#2 and I were part of a group of 37 kids and 10 adults who left our school at 6:15 Monday morning for the biennial 7th and 8th grade Montana History trip. We took a bus up to the train station, and I was pleasantly surprised to see that Amtrak was running on time and that the train was already at the station when we arrived. It appeared that we would make it from Whitefish to Havre on time (it's about a five-hour trip). Wrong. We loaded the kids on the train and then sat there for two full hours because we were waiting for Amtrak to bus some passengers over from Spokane. Arrgggh. It is not good to keep 37 kids cooped up on a train for that long. I was sitting with a group of boys and a couple of them managed to eat their entire four-day supply of snack food in that two-hour period of time.

Eventually the train got underway. My friend April and I were sitting together and both of us noticed a young man wearing a backpack walking back and forth through the train. A short time later, we discovered that said young man had offered drugs to one of our students, and at the next stop he was taken off the train, handcuffed, and loaded into a police car—all while 37 teenagers watched through the windows. Educational?—yes, but it wasn't really part of the curriculum.

We made it to Havre just a little bit late. Our first stop was Havre Beneath the Streets, a tour of the underground town. Apparently a lot of old Western towns (Kalispell included) have underground towns where shop owners moved their businesses after fires destroyed the wooden buildings. Havre's undergound town is nicely restored with period antiques, and the tour guides are very knowledgable. I thought it was fascinating. We did have to explain "bordello" to some of the kids because they were unfamiliar with the term.

Our next stop was the Wahkpa Chugn Buffalo Jump. Some 2000 to 1400 years ago, the Indian tribes who lived in this area used to kill buffalo en masse by running them over a cliff, or jump. An archeologist found the area and it has been carefully preserved. This is what it looks like in nice weather.

Now, imagine that same site at about 20 degrees, covered with snow, with a 40 mph howling gale coming at you from the west. Welcome to Montana. We had told the kids to dress warmly, but still a number of them insisted on touring the site in capris, light jackets, and no hats or gloves. Sometimes the only way to learn about something (like frostbite) is by experience.

The sheer number of buffalo bones in this area really impressed me. In some places they are 20 feet deep.

Because Montana has so few people and everyone knows everyone else, we were treated to a fabulous homemade dinner of sloppy joes at a local Catholic church. One of our chaperones has a sister who lives in Havre and attends that church, so she made all the arrangements for us. It was much better than fast food. Then we took the kids back to the hotel so they could swim.

Day 2

We got up bright and early and loaded the kids onto the bus for the two-hour ride to Fort Benton. A winter storm had blown in overnight, so the traveling conditions were less than ideal. We had a terrific bus driver, though, named John, and he got us there safely. He also went above and beyond the normal bus driver duties: as we rode into the town, he put on a video about Shep, the faithful sheepherding dog of Fort Benton. John has done these trips a number of times and was able to provide lots of interesting details about Montana as we drove along.

We toured the fort at Fort Benton, as well as the agricultural museum and a restored town from the late 1800s. I like to look at the exhibits, but it bothers me when I see things like blankets and hats knit out of acrylic yarn that wasn't available in that time period. We did see lots and lots of beaded items made by native American Indian women, and I indulged in quite a bit of imagining about those artists—how long did it take them to make a pair of beaded moccasins? What was their inspiration? Did they ever get frustrated with their designs?

After Fort Benton, we headed down to Great Falls. Our first stop in Great Falls was the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center. This is a beautiful museum with all sorts of hands-on experiential stuff for the kids to try. I particularly liked the cradle board that American Indian women used to tote their babies around. I tried it on and attempted to imagine getting all my daily work done with a 15-pound baby hanging off my head.

[I would just like to stop here and say that one of the things I found a bit distressing about all the museums we went to was that the majority of them were devoted to celebrating all the wonderful things done by MEN. What about all those women who traveled across the country in wagons while eight months pregnant and who raised families and homesteaded under the most abominable of conditions? We never hear about them. That irritates me.]

Our last educational stop of the day was the Charlie Russell museum. The husband and I had been here way back in 1991 when we visited Montana. It's a wonderful museum (even if it is devoted to a MAN), and we were blessed with another great tour guide. The boys—naturally—were quite fascinated by the gun collections. The hands-on room was a big hit. The kids tried on chaps and sat in the tipi and looked at all the animal pelts.

The day ended with a dinner at Taco Bell (where we forgot to pay our bill and had to come back) and a trip to the roller rink. I would have loved to have skated, but the risk of falling and breaking one of my wrists is too great for me to do anything like that anymore. Bummer.

Day 3

We loaded the bus and headed for Helena and the state capitol. The kids watched Napoleon Dynamite on the way down and I knitted (more about that in a bit).

I would have to say that a highlight of this trip was for the kids to spend a half an hour with the Governor of Montana, Brian Schweitzer. We were ushered into his reception room, and a short time later he came in with his sheepdog, Jag, who goes to work with him every day. He asked Jag if he would rather live in Idaho or be dead, and Jag dropped to the floor and rolled over. It was pretty funny. Governor Schweitzer entertained questions from the kids and patiently answered them.

After our visit with the Governor, we took a tour of the Capitol building. I had left my knitting on the bus because I was pretty certain that we would have to go through a metal detector and I was afraid the needles would be confiscated. Amazingly, though, there was no metal detector anywhere, so when we went back to the bus for lunch, I grabbed my knitting and stuffed it into my bag.

After lunch, we headed to the gallery of the House chamber and waited for the representatives to come in. We sat there for almost an hour and I was so glad I had retrieved my knitting. At 1:00 p.m. the Speaker called the House to order. There was an invocation and the Pledge of Allegiance, and then our local representatives introduced our kids. We stayed for a bit and watched the proceedings, and then headed to the (much less formal) Senate chamber. I think it was good for the kids to be able to see how government works first-hand. The Montana legislature only meets for 90 days every two years.

We took the kids back to the hotel for a few hours of swimming and down-time, then had dinner at Pizza Hut and bowling afterward. I knitted.

Day 4

Yesterday morning began with a tour of the National Guard Armory in Helena. We got to go inside a Chinook helicopter and see the big bucket that is used for hauling water to fight forest fires. Afterward, we stopped at the Cathedral in Helena for a quick tour; I could have stayed there all day and listened to the organist practicing. Oh. My. Goodness. But we went to lunch and shopping—shopping! the girls were so excited—at Last Chance Gulch. There is a cute little yarn store there called Mountain Spun, so I popped in and bought a skein of Wolf Creek Wools yarn (hand dyed in Helena). I think it's going to become a scarf. I also found a little tea store and bought some wonderful new teas.

We loaded the bus around 2:00 p.m. and began the three-hour trip home. All in all it was a fun and educational trip. For our 8th graders, it was one of the last times they spend together as a group, and it will probably be my last field trip for a while.

I think I might have mentioned that I received a couple of skeins of sample yarn from Abuelita Yarns last week. I've been incredibly frustrated over the past couple of weeks because my designing mojo seems to have taken an extended vacation. I was desperate to have something (knitted) to show for all my time on this trip. The night before we left it was rather like the floodgates burst open. I came up with a couple of ideas, one of which was a lace scarf. The picture in the stitch dictionary looked interesting enough, but when I began knitting, I discovered that the stitch pattern biases delightfully, making it just perfect for a scarf. The pattern is only eight rows, easily memorized, and it made a great trip knitting project. I got about 3/4 of the scarf done while we were traveling.

I'm also itching to try the other idea, but it will have to wait. Our big fire department auction is next weekend. The next 10-14 days of my life are going to be devoted to that. My MIL comes on Wednesday. This is a tradition that she started when the girls were little. She would come and watch them while the husband and I worked at the Auction. As they got older, she took care of ferrying them around and also pitched in and helped us set up for the sale. Having her here this year will be a huge help because DD#2 is on spring break next week and DD#1 gets home on the train the Saturday we're having the general auction sale. It's nice to have someone else be in charge of my kids so I don't have to worry about them.

Today I've got to take DD#2 to the doctor. She came down with some upper respiratory infection on the history trip, and she says her right ear hurts. I think the respiratory thing is viral, but the ear may require some antibiotics.