Philipsburg, Storm Lake and Rainbow Mountain

   

Wednesday, July 27,2011

Yesterday Matt, Lucy, Tommy and I took a road trip over to Philipsburg. It’s a small little town about 60 miles from here. The trip to get there was stunning. Cascading mountains with extraordinary scenery.

Once in town and parked, we walked the Main street. There were 4 other tourist couples walking along the same street and we passed them several times. I sincerely do not know how these little towns survive financially because we, along with the other couples were the only ones around.

The town consists of tiny shops that offer charming little souvenirs. There are flowers far and wide. Magnificent  flowers everywhere. We went by the Police Station and the Courthouse, the Volunteer Fire Station and within an hour and a ½, we were done. We’ve seen all they had to offer.

Storm Lake with Rainbow Mountain

wild flowers, everywhere!

On the way back we stopped at Storm Lake. Beautiful does not describe it.  We drove most of the way but the road was washed out ,due to snow melt, so we had to pull over and hike a while. Once hitting the lake we were in awe. It was better than a st. Ives Christmas card. It was astounding. We were approximately 9k feet high and it was remarkable.

can you see the bee I caught in flight?

Today, Tommy and I took out ‘little red’ and toured the up town of Butte on our own. We drove anywhere and everywhere.

We ended up at a memorial for miners on top of a hill overlooking the town. There was a flag placed for every person lost in the fire on behalf of their county. Butte has a lot of immigrants. As of today, though, they are predominately Irish.

The memorial possesses   a huge black audio box with different people telling their stories of what happened that dreadful day. One of the speakers was of a lone survivor. He is currently 96 and still lives here in Butte.

The memorial is enormously moving and we spent almost an hour there. Tommy sat on a wall on one side of the monument and I on the other, just listening to the loud speakers of the trial and tribulations of the minors and what their families had endured. To this day, it is the largest catastrophe in the history of mining.

Butte still mines for copper to this day, but it is not nearly as productive as back in the early 1900’s. There are over 10k miles, yes 12,000 miles of horizontal mines and 3500 of vertical mines here in Butte alone. In effect, the town could, theoretically, collapse.

We have 2 more days here to explore, then on Sunday we will head up to Helena - pronounced HELEN-A, which is the capital of WY.

Thanks for reading and have great weekend.

Reed Point, MT and The Big Hole River Trip

Tuesday, June 26, 2011

Subsequent to  the Battle of Little Big Horn and on the way to Matt and Lucy’s house in Butte, MT we had an over night stay in a little town called Reed Point. The population is 96. It was the sheep capital of the US for a while, but has severely dissipated and is vastly unemployed.

We parked the RV and walked the 6 building town. It was pleasant the way some citizens took over the bank building, and the post office to made it a home. They were the nicest looking houses in town. At one time the town offered 6 saloons. Now, there is only one remaining…The Waterhole Saloon.

Wise One

Indian Taco

see how rough this place can be?

What Would Scooby Doo? (for Lauren)

The doors remain open all day and night until closing time, which is 2 AM or when the last person falls off their stool. It is rough, to say the least. We had Sire with us on our walk and Tommy asked me to step inside to see if they served dinner. NO WAY!!! I was NOT going in there with mountain, sheep people in a desolate town….no way! So, he went. Sire followed.

I got to tell you, someday we will all stop judging books by their covers. There were only 5 people in this bar (including the bartender), but they LOVED US!!! Well, okay, they loved Sire! Dogs, cats, birds and even pigs are allowed inside. They had a ‘mascot’ pig named Otis for several years -UNTIL- someone decided to eat him! NO Kidding! They had a feast on their friend! (I told you it was rough!)

We ended up taking Sire back to the camp and coming back to the saloon for dinner and drinks later on that evening. We had THE best time. As long as you act poor as a church mouse, and totally like a gypsy, you’re IN! We played pool, and drank, and ate Indian tacos (which are awesome, btw).

the women is the bartender's mom.

We made a variety of friends, and left our quarters in the wood columns like the patrons before us. We told them we would stop back by on the way back home…but I really don’t think we will! LOL

Once in Butte, we parked at the KOA and headed to meet up with Matt and Lucy. Matt is the son of our very good friends back in FL, JR and Vicky.  Matt has a lot of toys and one of them is a white water raft. He, along with his wife and 2 of his buddies took us up this mountain to The Big Hole River. We put in upstream after dropping Tommy’s truck downstream about 11 or 12 miles. The weather was unbelievably beautiful.

The river takes you along pastures, and cliffs and even by a castle. It was such a great time with a lot of laughs, good snacks (we had Nutella for the first time), but no fish caught for dinner.  We were on the river for over 5 hours. Great, Great day!!!

Lucy and Matt provided us dinner every night. We just had to show up with a vegetable and vodka - for the Moscow Mules.

 Moscow Mules are our new favorite cocktail. They consist of Vodka, freshly squeezed lime, (just a wedge), and Cock and Bull. What that is - is Ginger Beer. It actually has no alcohol content but it works with the lime to create a very refreshing beverage.

The trick to the whole Moscow Mule is to serve it in copper cups. ALL copper, no aluminum content. We have been on the look out for these cups since we arrived. They, apparently, even though this is the capitol of the world for copper excavation, are extremely expensive.  At least $20- $25 a cup.

We haven’t given up yet and plan on spending a couple more days here so wish us luck. Otherwise EBAY will get our business. For now, we are having a wonderful time here in Butte and look forward to several more.

The following day we headed out to a mining museum. I will blog on that in another blog.
Thanks for reading and I hope you are enjoying our adventure this year.