Welcome to Montana

We spent our first night in Missoula. This is a town with a university (University of Montana, Missoula), dozens of bars, and pizza parlors. We saw little else. It was open and pretty and pretty darn boring. Sorry, Missoula. If you ever meet someone who went to college there, take him out for a beer and pizza. I know he will feel right at home.

The next day we went to Butte. I wasn't sure about this. It seemed pretty close to Missoula and aren't we moving East? Shouldn't that be done more quickly? But Karen had our day planned. It was a great day.

We started in Butte with a ride on Old Number 1. That's the trolley on the left. Our driver and guide used to work in the copper mines in Butte until some boards fell on his legs. Now he gimps around pretty much like me. He may talk more than me. He was filled with great information.

We stopped at the Berkeley pit on the right. They are no longer mining there so it is filled with water. The miners would work on the sides or underground. They used to pump the water out of the underground pits and down a stream bed which is now eternally copper- colored. When it got to be too dangerous, they closed the mine and cleaned up the stream a little. They later found out that the water in the pit was filled with copper. Whoa! So now the little twin towers that you see in the picture on the left is pulling water out and removing the copper. Miner Mike (our name for the guide) told us that they use our disgarded aluminum cans for the copper to attach to. We didn't get to see one of those.

Miner Mike is a big fan of the mine owners. They were paying him $1300 per week back in the 70's. There was also a high probability that he would be killed or injured. Rough life. But probably easier than it was when the mines were young.

The town is fascinating. It was loaded with brothels, slums, opium dens and mine owners' mansions. Just what you would imagine. There were three mine owners who hated each other. One built the house on the corner that you see on the right. Very ritzy for its day. One of the others had the tower of apartments next to it built to block his view. Petty, petty, petty, boys. One, Daly, was well considered by the community. They put a statue of him at the entrance of the old Montana School of the Mines (now called Montana Tech.) That was our university for that day.

We then got in the car and drove to Bozeman. They have the best museum there. It is the Museum of the Rockies and it is fabulous. Click on that name and you will go to their website. Amazing. I learned so much about palentology in the area. It was full of dinosaurs at one time and an ocean before that. The museum has much more than that, but I got stuck with the dinosaurs. If it weren't half a world away from everything, this might be one of the top museums on my all time list. As it is, you need to be willing to drive forever to get here.

I've got to say, it was gorgeous all the way across Montana. It might not be such a bad idea to visit here. The sky is not just big, it is very blue and filled with fluffy clouds. The food is hit and miss, but if you like barbecue, Famous Dave's was very good. Hey, I just found a Famous Dave's in Long Beach!