Butte, MT

We explored Butte today. I'm not sure what I expected but Butte is an old mining town. It did surprise me that about a dozen mine shafts were all within a mile of each other scattered inside the old city. If you can enlarge the picture of Butte you can see all the mines among the buildings. A very compact operation. We drove around the city and took a 1 3/4 hour trolley tour which was very informative. You can see the heavily polluted red water in an abandoned open pit copper mine. If you look close in one picture you can see a 90 foot tall statue of Mary (Lady of the Rockies) atop the Contenential Divide overlooking Butte. Of course we did the normal RV thing of stopping at a Wal-Mart on the way home.

Anaconda, MT

Today we traveled 230 miles to Anaconda, MT just outside Butte. A nice easy day once we made it over Lookout Pass. This was the longest mountain we have gone over in our travels. The Ford pulled good and steady at 38 mph for the last 5 miles up a 6% grade after about 6 miles of a much easier grade as a warm up. We are now in Mountain Standard Time. Jeff & Susan Collingwood arrived about 1/2 hour after us and are set up next to us. They are planning on being here 3 nights also so we can go exploring together the next two days.

We saw one bald eagle on todays trip.

Hey Dave, it's warm & SUNNY in MT

Hiawatha Trail

Today we went where the sun never shines, really. We went for a bike ride from Montana to Idaho, really. We rode an old railroad bed, the railroad was built in the early 1900s to support the mining in the region. It was converted a few years ago to a bike trail. It's 14 or 17 miles long and goes through several tunnels, one is 1.7 miles long and pitch black inside. We had to rent lamps to see where we were going, lots of water falling inside and sometimes muddy. We also rode over many trestles, one was 890 feet tall and almost 400 feet long. Lots of pretty scenery and the ride was 3 1/4 hours long. We saw one moose in a marsh. Now, the secret of our trip.......it was ALL downhill. Ya don't think I'd pedal uphill go you?

Wallace, Idaho

Wednesday we spent washing the RV for a few hours (got rid of the salt spray and dirt from driving in the rain) and as we finished Jeff & Susan Collingwood arrived. After they setup we drove into Wallace , 4 miles, for a pizza supper.

Today we returned to Wallace to play tourist in this historic old mining city. We checked out the visitor center and their mining display. We then took a trolley ride from downtown to the Sierra Silver Mine tour. This was a mine opened about 1930 based upon a vein of quartz in a rock outcropping. No precious metals were found to the mine was closed. In the 1950s it was reopened and miners went deeper into the mountain, again without success; the mine is a dud. A few years ago it was opened up to tours which are lead by retired miners. Randy, be glad I wasn't a miner and you followed as a miner. The power air drills, scrappers for dragging the ore from the shafts and wagon loaders were all demonstrated and quite loud. Not an enjoyable profession. After lunch we toured the Oasis Bordello. It was opened in the late 1800's and closed in 1988. It employed 5 working ladies, 1 madam, 2 housekeepers/cooks, and 1 bouncer. Prior to closing it was making over $1M annually. It was closed very fast when the local sheriff called the madam and told her the FBI were on their way over. The dirty dishes, full ashtrays, grocery bags and rooms as they were in 1988. Prices and services are still posted on the walls. We then went through the local train museum hosed in the original depot. If you have seen the movie "Dante's Peak" you have seen Wallace, it was filmed here. The entire town is on the National Historic register.

Osburn, ID

We packed up this morning as the CG sprinkler system came on, sweet, the way we prefer our "rain" after 2 months of it in OR & WA. Dave & Trish.....why are ya still there? We traveled 180 miles out of WA and are in the Rockies near the top of ID about 15 miles from MT. We saw more snow topped mountains. In WA we saw a coyote trotting along and in ID we saw a Moose spashing through a wet area. No photo opportunites because of being on I90 going east. There's a historic old mining town (Wallace, the entire town is a National Historic Site) 5 miles from here that sounds interesting so we'll spend a couple days here. We also found out Jeff & Susan Collingwood will be here tomorrow so we can play together. Dave, we'll have a cold one (or two or....) for you.

Freedom Tour

Today we drove to an small airport 75 miles south. The country was at first just like MI, flat, all farm land with trees between the fields. It then got hilly with larger hills a few miles to our west. As we arrived at the airport a B25 Mitchell bomber flew over us and landed. When we got to the airport we got a close look at the plane. About 1/2 hour later a P51 Mustang flew in followed by a B24 Liberator then a B17 Flying Fortress. I was nice to see and hear these WWII planes land and taxi up to us. There were a couple hundred people there and we enjoyed seeing the activities. We stopped a fueled the trucks main tank for the trip to Idaho tomorrow but diesel is 10 to 15 cents a gallon cheaper there so we didn't fill the auxiliary tank. It was another beautiful day. We saw more 747s flying low around Moses Lake as there is a 747 pilot training center here and we see them all the time circling low overhead.

Moses Lake, WA

We didn't do much Saturday or Sunday. We are just enjoying all the great weather after OR & WA. Judy has been to Curves and water arobics at the CG pool. We went to church Sunday and on the way home we stopped at the county fairgrounds to see the traveling Vietnam Memorial Wall. There were a couple hundred people there, many were bikers. We saw the real one in DC a couple years ago but still a somber experience. I watched the race in the afternoon and the evening we washed the truck.