Goblin Valley State Park, Utah

On the Road Again....

Sorry it's been so long since the last post. You can blame being too busy and poor internet connections!
Here's what's been happening:
Monday afternoon - Left Deer Lodge and traveled to Idaho Falls, ID. Overnight in the parking lot at Walmart.
Tuesday - traveled from Idaho Falls to Green River, UT. Stayed at KOA TU-TH nights.
Visited Arches NP, Moab, UT, Capital Reef NP and Goblin Valley SP.
Friday - traveling to Gunnison, CO. We will be staying overnight at the Curecanti National Recreation Area and visiting The Black Canyon of the Gunnison NP.
Saturday - traveling to Royal Gorge- KOA, west of Pueblo, CO.
Sunday - to Colorado Springs and the Garden of the Gods Campground - our home until August 21.
I don't know if I will have any pictures posted until then. Internet here in Green River is not too dependable.
I have a BUNCH of things to post!

National Folk Festival - Butte

On Saturday, Larry and I traveled to Butte with Julie and two of the seasonal rangers to work in the NPS- Montana Booth. We were joined by one ranger from Glacier NP. I would like to say that we were able to see at least part of the performances that took place on three separate stages, but that just didn't happen. We did hear most of the performances of a French Zydeco group and a gospel group, since our booth was near that stage.
Julie, Larry and I watched a portion of a mining competition between two groups of students from the Montana School of Mines.

They competed in activities performed daily, deep beneath the earth's surface. The first competition was jack-leg drilling. This is the modern way to drill holes for the placement of dynamite.

Not a job I would want. I don't think Larry is interested either.

The next competition involved filling an ore cart to a certain depth, then moving it to the end of the track and back. It was a timed event.

Just about the time the first team finished, a storm rolled in. By the time it passed, we had to leave to get back "on duty" at the booth.

The structure above is called a headframe. It towers above the mine shaft. Elevator cars were used to move ore out of the copper mine and men, both up and down the mine shaft.
This is a huge wince used to move ore cars.

Meanwhile, back at our festival "pod," one of several tucked into areas around the historic, "uptown" area, the post-storm crowds increased, both in numbers...and in the amount of beer they were consuming. It was only noon!

Then storm number two came in. Larry and I had taken a break to try and see some of the First People's Market and were stranded in a doorway downtown for about twenty minutes. We managed to get back to the booth before the next round. Lots of people decided to join us in the booth!

Through out the day, we kept count of the people who stopped in the booth and had a "pool" going. I won with my prediction of 1625. The actual number was 1649. (My prize?- a peppermint patty) Lots of people and even more that did not stop! Today at the ranch, I encountered SIX visitors that I personally talked to yesterday and invited to the ranch. There were probably others that I did not happen to see. That kind of made my aching knee feel better. Standing for the better part of 10 hours is NOT fun.

Here are a few of the pics I took here and there on "potty breaks," etc..

The historic Finland Hotel. Lots of copper everywhere.

Some of the crowds gathered at the "Original" stage, located under one the the many, non-functioning headframes scattered around the Butte uptown area.

We found Tim, "The Toolman's" car!

By 8:30 PM, the crowds were still there, pretty "plastered," and pretty entertaining to watch. We started to think that we were the audience for this crazy show. Actually, ten hours standing and talking to people started to get to us and we all got a little silly...without any beer!

I can't even think of anything to say here!

Camping in the Bitterroot #2

We had two, wonderful days of hiking and some beautiful scenery to share. But first...something completely different!

We again chose to stay at the Charles Waters National Campground just south of Florence, MT. We had two different hike locations in the area as well as the marvelous bike trail running parallel to Rt 93 for about 50 miles from Lolo, MT to south of Hamilton. There are spur trails to the towns of Florence and Stevensville.
On Wednesday, we hiked to the Blodgett Canyon Overlook and were rewarded with breathtaking views of the canyon and...some friends who joined us for a snack!

After our hike, we returned to the campground and took the bikes out for a short tour of the bike path. It is really very nice. Route 93 has always been a bike route, but the addition of a separate path away from traffic is really wonderful.

We enjoyed fresh sweet corn over the fire for our dinner.

On Thursday, we packed up and went to the Lee Metcalf National Wildlife Preserve in Stevensville. It is a beautiful, raparian preserve.

Osprey and eagles live here.

A portion of the preserve borders the Bitterroot River. It was sad to see the extensive tree damaged caused by last week's storm.

After leaving the preserve, we moved south to the Bear Creek Trail, also a part of the Bitterroot National Forest. A climb through mossy, green forest was rewarded when we came to an opening that revealed the cascading waters of Bear Creek Falls.

Here are some shots of the spring wild flowers (yes, it is July, but still "spring" here).

The crystal, clear water of the creek.

That's it for now. Tomorrow (Saturday) we will be joining some of the rangers at the Grant-Kohrs booth during the National Folk Music festival in Butte. It's going to be an 11 hour day for us, but we hope to get a lot of pics to share.
From the banks of the beautiful Bitterroot River...see ya' soon!

Prison Time for Us!

Since arriving in Deer Lodge on 3/31/10, we've seen most of the town, but not the famous, historic Montana State Prison. Today was finally "the day."

Discovery of gold in the Montana Territory in the 1800's brought many people to the area and criminals were no exception. The growing problems with crime led officials to call for the construction of a facility to house the offenders. Deer Lodge, the second oldest town in the territory, was chosen as the site. The prison had problems from the start. It was too small, not adequate for the numbers both in facilities and in supervision. You may read more about it at:www.pcmaf.org/prison.htm

I did not take many pics in the prison since it was pretty similar inside to the Mansfield Reformatory. However, there are three additional museums housed in the complex and one ticket admits you to them all. One is an antique car museum and we enjoyed both the cars and also the historic pictures of Deer Lodge.

Here are a few of the cars and trucks we liked best:

We had no idea that this road ever existed or that it went through northern Ohio.

 

Larry really thought this camper was great.

We noticed these historic pics and realized they are the same place we are now camping. Evidently, the town established a tourist park when travel by auto became popular. 

Pretty crazy stuff.
We also visited a little village composed of buildings from the early days of Deer Lodge. It was called Cottonwood at that time.

Not sure why Larry always wants to give a sermon,

                                             or why he found the coffin so interesting.

                                             

It seems that (accounting for inflation) dental costs have not changed too much over time. $1.50 for the first tooth pulled and .50 for each additional seems about right.

Our last stop was at the Powell County Museum. Since Deer Lodge is the county seat, we thought we would be educated in the history of  the town and the county. Not the case. We did meet several interesting residents, two of whom were volunteering at the museum.

One was having a distressing moment after locking the keys in her running car...for the second time in a week. Not a good thing. She called her 85-year-old neighbor to come take her to her house to get her extra set. The other lady was concerned that the neighbor would get lost while traveling the nine blocks from his house to the museum.... Hmmm.

Moving on, we found very little of the local history in the museum, save a display on mining and a quantity of antique furniture and musical instruments.

There was a very nice Knabe upright piano.

This accordian is the same size as the one I learned to play when I was just seven or eight years old, only mine was ivory colored.

                                           

This piano was in excellent shape...considering its history!

We met our very MOST interesting character of the day at the most unique instrument I've seen in a long time. The instrument is an electric-motor, belt-driven bellows on a two-manual, pedal board, reed organ.

Now this fellow had come in while we were looking at items in a neighboring room. I heard a motor start and organ music began to fill the entire museum. The man was playing classical pieces and hymns with a fair amount of expertise. It was, however, VERY loud. As I was typing this, I suddenly recalled my friend, Lyndell, telling me when we first arrived, about a local resident who was kind of an autistic savant. This had to be the guy! The two, little, old ladies at the museum told us that he just walks in about once a week, sits down and plays for an hour or so. It makes THEM crazy!

This is the belt drive. Kind of hard to see, but very unusual. I wanted to see the instrument more closely, but it was evident that the mystery musician had no intention of leaving.

                                                                                 

The museum has an interesting collection of salt/pepper shakers. I thought you might enjoy seeing some of them. They are pretty unique.

Ha-ha

                                       

This last one was for Larry's sister, Linda!

Sorry some of these are a bit fuzzy. Everything was jammed into a glass cabinet and camera angles were not the best.

We are off to try camping again tomorrow. Temps are dropping into the mid-thirties again tonight, so we'll see if the tent is a place I want to be sleeping or not. We hear it's in the 90's back in Ohio. We'll package up some cold air for Ohio if you send some of the heat back!