May 3rd

When I was checking for a possible Yom Hashoah program to attend last night, I learned that a congregation was formed in Helena in the 1890’s – the only one then between St. Paul and Portland – but the congregation disbanded and the building was sold. I looked for it this morning and sure enough it is the parish house of the cathedral I photographed yesterday. Look at the picture – Ignore the cross on top and it kind of looks like an old synagogue.

I crossed the Missouri River this morning, not too far from its headwaters in the mountains. Lewis and Clark sailed up the Missouri out of St. Louis and hoped it would take them

all the way to the Pacific Ocean. They found out otherwise in present-day Montana and then their fun and contacts with the native peoples really began.

Another variety of activities today. I went to the Museum of the Rockies on the campus of Montana State University in Bozeman. It has historical sections on Montana and a big exhibit on dinosaurs – all of whose remains were found in the state.

The Moss Mansion was built by a Missouri transplant who started many businesses and public utilities and was the prime mover in the growth of Billings, by far the largest city in Montana with 100,000 people. The most notable feature of the home was completely different styles in each of the large first floor rooms.

I visited the Yellowstone Art Museum, featuring western paintings and a separate building called the Visible Vault, where you see how they receive, preserve and store all the art not on display in the museum.

I had seen petroglyphs (drawings carved into rocks) at Capitol Reef National Park in Utah. Today I viewed pictographs (drawings painted on stone surfaces) in a cave in a state park outside Billings.

The song of the day is “Wild Montana Skies”, by Emmylou Harris and John Denver, who already sang to us from West Virginia and Colorado.

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