July 12, 2024

Around Helena 

Joe thought we should spend time in the camper until it got warm so we didn’t leave until about noon. Then we headed to the state capital and did a brief self tour of it. They did have guided tours, but we didn’t think we wanted to walk for an hour so we did our own.  We saw the Governors Office, the Senate Chambers and Old Supreme Court Chambers and the rotunda. There are scenes in Yellowstone of John Dutton being in the Governors Office. I don’t know if they actually used that office or not, but we got to see it. We didn’t go into it — there was someone at the desk on the phone.  I'm sure there were a lot more areas to be seen.  Not sure what all was included in the tour, but we saw what was available through the door we entered.

Senate Gallery.

I thought the chairs in the Old Supreme Court Gallery looked uncomfortable.

The Mansfields. A 7-foot tall statue with the caption "Together they did their best for Montana, the nation and the world."  He  represented Montana in the U.S. House of Representatives from  1943 to 1953 and United States Senate from 1953 to 1977.  

Next up was the Cathedral of Saint Helena. It’s not listed as a Basilica and I don’t know the criteria for that, but it is certainly beautiful enough. The altar was stunning, and the rest of it as well: marble pillars along the sides, stained glass windows all around with beautiful scenes. The organ room looked very impressive as well.

They are doing some construction on the other steeple.

Those beautiful marble columns.

We found our Pizza Ranch for lunch. While there, I signed us both up for haircuts at Great Clips. The wait time was 112 minutes. So we took our time eating, then went to Murdocks, a store similar to Rural King or Cal Ranch. Killed a little time there. Then we just headed to Great Clips. We were at least an hour early.  They had 3 cutters/stylists so it took a while. We were 14 and 15 on the list when we arrived (21 and 22 when we signed up), so we had a long wait. My left calf is sore today for some reason and we weren’t up for shopping, (although we were next door to Target) so we just waited it out and made friends with the other people waiting. It was probably close to 2 hours. It was 5:00 when I got done, Joe beat me by a few minutes.

The only other thing on my "things to see list" for Helena was the Great Northern Carousel, so we drove downtown to it. It’s also an ice cream shop so we had an ice cream cone and sat and watched the carousel for a few minutes.

 

“Located in Helena's Great Northern Town Center, this world-class, hand-carved work of art consists of 37 animals carved by a renowned Walt Disney World carver and 14 Helena scenic-carved rounding boards and stained glass artwork. In fact, the National Carousel Association said it is the finest carousel in the nation, if not one of the finest in the world.”  We considered riding on one of the benches but didn’t see anyone else sitting on them, so we just watched the kids.  The artistry on these animals was phenomenal.  

I had some favorites.

Since the carousel was right downtown, we decided to drive through it. It seemed to be mostly upscale restaurants and shops. It also had an area closed off for pedestrian traffic that looked interesting but we didn’t walk it.    Some of the buildings looked pretty old.

We passed the Civic Center with a tower that we could see from all over town. I was glad to know what building it was on.

Around town, we have noticed these electric boxes with art work on them.  I don't know if this is Helena's response to the buffalos, horses, fish, etc., that we have seen in other cities.  I googled it and all I found was this: "Streetlight electrical box painted with the slogan go outside and explore. "  More research gave me the following. 

"Eight traffic signal boxes around Helena now don vinyl wraps of original artwork by Montana artists.  The Helena Public Art Committee began the project in spring of 2017 to transform the utilitarian boxes to avoid vandalism and promote local artwork displays.  . . .  Several other cities around Montana like Bozeman and Missoula have also wrapped their traffic signal boxes in art."

We didn't notice any in Missoula but will look for them in Bozeman.

We managed to stay gone all afternoon. We got back to the RV about 6 o’clock and it wasn’t too bad inside.  It was 92 outside so it didn’t get  quite as warm today and with our fans, we were comfortable. We can’t get much on tv, except Youtube, so it wasn’t too exciting an evening.  We did watch most of the Diamondbacks game, but it kept rebooting about every minute.  Took a long time to get the game over with.

 Apparently, the Horse Gulch Fire is still raging, more than doubled overnight.  12 hours ago it was 10,849 acres.  Everyone in town is talking about it and the evacuations.  We did see a few fire-fighting airplanes fly over us.

Tomorrow is a free day, but is supposed to be hotter again (96).  If we can't come up with anything else, there's always laundry.

 July 11, 2024

Headed to Helena. 

We pulled out of the campground about 10:20 and went just up the road to the gas station so we could fuel before hitting the road.   Joe is still working on his learning curve. It rained overnight a little bit and he stood on the step as he retracted the awning and got drenched again.  The funny thing was he had a little trickle and said I’m gonna get wet again, then he pushed the button to bring the awning all the way in and it just dumped on him , just like last time.  He thought the little trickle was all he was going to get.  I noticed he had his new T-shirt on inside out. He was going to get a dry shirt but just decided to leave that one on, but he did turn it outside-in and apparently pulled out hearing aid. When he finished dumping the tanks, he came in and told me to start looking for a hearing aid.  He checked the bathroom and I checked the bedroom, with no luck.  So he went down the steps to look where he had pulled off the shirt, and sure enough, luckily, there it was.  Crisis averted again.

The truck driver inside the gas station said it did get up to 101 yesterday. Its 80 degrees at 10 o’clock, but a little overcast right now.

Interstate 90 through this part of Montana is very pretty -- mountains on both sides and in front. I’m guessing the mountain range on the left is the Lolo Mountains and the ones on the right are the Sapphire Mountains.

We followed the Clark Fork River for miles and miles. I finally spotted a deer taking a drink out of it. This is one of the rivers that flows through downtown Missoula.  “Three rivers converge in the Missoula Valley: the Blackfoot, Bitterroot, and Clark Fork Rivers all come together here. All three offer different levels of recreation and fishing opportunities."

This was a really nice drive today. Good road, light traffic, beautiful scenery -- mountains, rivers, occasionally a train on the railroad beside us.  At the Garrison Junction, we left I- 90 and took U.S. Highway 12 to Helena. About 44 miles.

We stopped for a potty break just past that junction and Joe did a maintenance check.  Fortunately for us he did find a potential problem. A pin was missing from the hitch that connects to the jeep. After ramsacking the Jeep and every compartment in the rv, he came up with a pin that fit so we’re on the road again. Another crisis averted.  He said we weren't moving until he got that fixed.

We came up Macdonald Pass just outside of Helena and reached an elevation at the summit of 6325. Then we had an 8% grade going down about 6 miles

There’s a forest fire burning about 30 miles northeast of Helena. We just heard about it on our way today. I was texting with our new friend, Mary Badass, and when I told her we were headed to Helena, she told us about the fire.   It started Tuesday, is about 2000 acres, and is 0% contained with hot and windy conditions in the forecast. 

We found our campsite at the fairgrounds and we could see the big plume of smoke from our campsite.  I talked to a guy who was just leaving and he said they had been evacuated from a campground over by the reservoir, where the fire is, they got to the fairgrounds and set up camp and then learned that somebody else had reserved that spot so they were moving to some other spot at the fairgrounds.  

It is very hot, and as you can see, we have no shade.  After we got set up, we tried to rest a little in the camper, but it was just too hot.  Our single A/C is not keeping up today.  I finally told Joe we had to go buy a fan.  So we went to Costco and bought two small Woozoo fans.  Obviously, there's the problems of where to sit them, and where to store them.  We hope they do the job for us.  Then we stopped at an RV parts store for a vent cover that broke, but no luck there.  We were right at the end of the airport (didn't know that) and a plane flew right over us.  I'm sure we ducked.  We think it might be one of those planes fighting the fire.  

We had hoped to stay in the rest of the day, but I couldn't see how I could fix anything for dinner with all the heat.  I had a plan to microwave something, but we only have 30 amp here and would have to turn off the a/c to do that, so I didn't think that was a good idea.  I told Joe we needed to go some where we could hang out for a while, so obviously we had to go to a casino.  I had read about one that was the oldest one in town, so we found it and had dinner, and I played for a while.  It was just a small casino, 15-20 multi-game machines.  Not very exciting.  It paid out with a ticket, but wouldn't take a ticket, so if I changed machines, I had to put more $$ in, then cash in the tickets at the end.  The waitress said all the casinos in town (there are a lot) would have about the same number of machines.  Only the Indian reservations can have more.

We went back to the fairgrounds, and there were 4 deer right on the parking lot.  We watched them for a few minutes, then called it a night -- a hot night.  But the fans helped.  We don't have much internet so we couldn't find much on TV, but we were able to sleep with the new fans.

We are here until Monday.  The forecast for the next few days is about the same, so we are in for some hot weather.  We will try to stay comfortable.

 Wednesday, July 10, 2024

Yellowstone

Some things I forgot to mention in yesterday‘s post about the smoke- jumpers.  To be even considered for the smokejumper program, the firefighter has to have 5 to 6 years of experience in different kinds of fires. She said they don’t teach him/her to fight fires -- they teach him/her to jump. Joe asked what makes them pick one over another and she said, experience with different types of fires and physical condition. I think this last class they had open slots for 15 and they had 300 applicants. She added that it’s really a career choice because of the commitment.  They are paid as government employees on the GS scale.  The veterans usually have year-round jobs as a smokejumper. The rookies coming in are usually seasonal. Also, they have spotters on the plane who do not jump. They’re the ones responsible for finding a place for the smokejumpers to land. The pilot makes three passes over the spot and they drop down streamers to determine the wind speed and direction.   There are round parachutes and square parachutes.  The square chutes are more maneuverable than the round chutes and don’t have to be as precise when they drop.

Second item from yesterday:  Decker High School.  They were able to save the gym, and what was left standing of the old part of the school was demolished today.  It only took 3 hours and 15 minutes.  Now the clean-up begins.  They saved the front entry mantel.  I don't know what they plan to do with it but I'm glad they were able to save it.  

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Today is our last day in Missoula and we really weren’t quite sure what to do with it. It’s pretty hot. Joe decided we probably should drive down to the Chief Joseph Ranch, where the Yellowstone show is filmed. It’s 73 miles south on 93 right outside of the town of Darby, so that’s what we did.  We got started just after 12:00.  It’s already 90° going to 99. We’re hoping our next stop is a little higher elevation and lower temperature but I don't think that is what is going to happen.  We’re headed  to Helena tomorrow for 4 nights, camping at a fairgrounds.

We had almost decided not to make this drive but then Joe thought that it would let us see more country because we won’t be leaving in this direction, so off we went.  We drove through the west side of Missoula. Part of this we had been on yesterday.  Right after we left town, we crossed the Bitterroot River. These are the Bitterroot Mountains ahead of us. There’s still a little snow on the very top of some of them.

This one little town we drove through, Florence, had flags attached to the lamp posts all the way through town. 

This drive took us between the Bitterroot Mountains and the Sapphire Mountains.  We got to Darby about 3:00. Darby is a pretty little town, very rustic, very touristy. 

 They turn-off to the ranch was less than a mile out of town. We followed a water truck into the turn-off.  The gate opened for him. He went through and stopped to make sure that we were not able to follow him in the gate.  It started to open again, but we turned around and went down the road to the next driveway. 

Apparently, they’re filming today because they had people posted out there with all kinds of signs saying Do not stop. Do not enter. No photography. If you even slowed down, they were waving you on. We could see trailers, and assumed those belong to the film crew or the actors.

But I did get a better picture of the gate at the other entrance.

A creek was across the road from the ranch and as we turned around, we spotted a deer down by the water. We tried to find a road to get down to the creek, but there was no access.  The trip to the ranch was just a drive-by, a turnaround, another drive-by and that was it.  But I did get a picture off the internet, so this is what we would have seen.

Heading back, right at the very edge of town was a road to Tin Cup Trail so we drove back that, which took us into the Bitterroot National Forest.  There were some nice residences along this road.  We drove back this trail 2 or 3 miles until it started getting really rough and then we turned around. We drove along a creek, then crossed it.  We love all these little creeks, they are almost always running pretty hard, tumbling over rocks.  We think this trail may have taken us behind the Yellowstone property, but we really couldn’t see anything to know that for sure.  We spent an hour messing around down in there, then we headed back.

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 Joe remembered a road a few miles further on that went to Lake Como. Joe had spotted this on the way down and wanted to drive back to it.

Lake Como was very pretty and very busy. The parking lot was full and so was the beach.  A lot of people in the water, a lot of sunbathers up on the beach, people out with a variety of water toys. The water looks very inviting. We drove back through the campground. One of the campgrounds looked like it was all dry camping. There were some truck campers, some tents, not full but plenty of people there. I was afraid Joe would keep circling through looking at the girls in their bikinis, but fortunately we just made one loop.  He said they were not his type (I said, "too young"). Obviously he prefers old chicks like me.

There was a big old smokestack in Hamilton. Joe had read about it. It was for a sugarbeet plant that never happened.  Some of the buildings had been started when the company pulled out.  The smokestack is 100 years old.  Although they had sold bonds in the town to build a plant,  they eventually changed their mind and built it in Missoula. 

The drive today was 170 miles. We got back to the campground about 6:30.  It was 96°. We were concerned that the camper might be too hot inside, and I had suggested we just drive on past to the casino for a little while, but Joe was too tired, and so was I.  And actually, the camper was comfortable.  And that was the end of our day.  Tomorrow is a travel day.